I have posted on the dev board, tweeted, and sent an email to Android Central (trying to get a story).
If you want continued support, do your part people!
There's a grassroots effort going on at the XDA developers forum pushing to get Nvidia to support the Tegra2 Harmony platform (found in many tablets and phones) for future Android releases. As per the Developer Relations post:
NVIDIA is only supporting the Ventana platform for android releases going forward. At the moment we have released Froyo and Gingerbread OS images for Ventana and will release Honeycomb after Google has done so.
Andrew Edelsten
Tegra Developer Relations
NVIDIA Corporation
This platform was only JUST released in Q4-10 and is already being treated as obsolete. I know technology moves fast, but given the large momentum of sales among this particular platform (specifically the Viewsonic G Tablet), I'm hoping this is worth a blurb. Thanks!
Just sent a tip to engadget regarding this story - my text:
I sourced the nvidia dev thread and this thread as well.
Oh did Notion Ink switch? I thought they were on Harmony as well.
I'm sure a writer at one of the big sites like Engadget would like to write about Nvidia abandoning their Tegra 2 line....
Oh, I just read it...
we got press, but not exactly support. Just a different viewpoint.
I clicked thanks instead of quoting. Have a free one I suppose.
I think that article highlights something everyone seems to have forgotten. I don't think VS or nvidia are to blame. Most of the Harmony tablets are crud. It wasn't until Xoom/Ventana came around that Google visibly supported a tablet. Now with more coming out on different platforms that are from reputable hardware makers, they pressure is on and development starts dropping on the older stuff in order to maintain that relationship and blessing from the overlords (Google) so companies can use the Android source.
I think the news sucks, but thanks to the devs here, my Gtablet is still more usable than stock for my desires, regardless if there will be further updates.
UPDATE 13 APRIL 2011
A lot has been read into a very short post about a Tegra development kit. I'd like to clear up a few points.
First, nothing changes in what we’re delivering to the open source community or customers. NVIDIA will continue to post the Tegra kernel to kernel.org and publish our Android code to our public git servers. Additionally, we will continue to make our BSP (codecs, GPU driver etc) available to all our hardware partners. We will continue to do this and nothing about these processes has changed.
For our partners' Android devices, NVIDIA provides support until the hardware partner chooses to no longer support the device. So, for instance, NVIDIA will support the Xoom on all versions of Android Motorola requests until Motorola ceases to support the Xoom. The same goes for ViewSonic with the G-Tablet, Notion Ink with the Adam, Acer with the Iconia, LG with the Optimus 2X and so on.
In relation to my original reply, that was a response to a specific question about a Tegra 250 Development Kit. Given the confusion, we will work with owners of Tegra 250 Development Kits individually to determine their needs. The term "Harmony" is an internal codename for the Tegra 250 Development Kit. It is not a tablet reference design. Each shipping tablet is a custom design with varying hardware components and requires a custom OS image from the OEM who made the tablet.
Finally, while we cannot support or give out third party peripheral drivers or provide the Android 3.0 source before Google does, we do want to explore whether we can assist the open source ROM makers. We will be reaching out to them today.
Andrew Edelsten
Tegra Developer Relations
NVIDIA Corporation
This is an IMPORTANT post!! I think it should be voted to the front page. Viewsonic and for that matter all suppliers should have a commitment to their users/buyers. Our $$$$ is what support them and they should respect the user community. If they want to be selling more they should make what they have work!!!!1- OTA updater has been broken for six days, now (it started on Monday). This is completely unacceptable, given that this is the ONLY way to get updates from them officially. What if you got the item from Tiger Direct in the last week at $299, and have build 2963 on it? If you didn't go to XDA and fix this manually yourself, you'd be SOOL.
2- The last official firmware was in mid January. We are going on three months since the last stock update. We know there was a UAT that was significantly better than the one in January, but it was never released (and eventually pulled from the TapnTap servers) with a "TBD" for the new ETA.
I'm going to very blunt, and I hope that Viewsonic is reading this. I'm very disappointed in how this is all going down, ESPECIALLY given that you've had a big bump in user numbers in the last two weeks or so. You and I both know this, and yet you can't seem to get your act together, here.
I'm not your developer - you are not paying me, or XDA, to do your support work for you. And we certainly should not be the place to send users to get their stock updates - that's just ridiculous. Please get a meeting together with TapnTap, or whoever you need to, early next week and get them to fix these issues, please. If I were running the show over there, I'd have them on the phone a week ago asking for an ETA ASAP, and updating that web site with details on what's going on and when it will be fixed. Seriously, your web site still talks about the December firmware release - are your web developers asleep over there?
If it wasn't for the user base here in XDA, my device would have probably been wiped and cleaned up right about now, and I would have put this thing up for sale. I actually know at least one dev here in XDA who's already done this. And, as time goes on, I'll be more inclined to do this if you've made the decision to completely abandon this device. Because, to be blunt, this is the perception that I'm starting to get, as the days drag on with no resolution.
I'm not asking for Honeycomb - I just want you to get your current problems fixed and at least get that 1.2 dev branch released. I know you have an account here, so maybe a reply to this thread would set all our minds at ease.
Thank you.
There's a grassroots effort going on at the XDA developers forum pushing to get Nvidia to support the Tegra2 Harmony platform (found in many tablets and phones) for future Android releases. As per the Developer Relations post:
NVIDIA is only supporting the Ventana platform for android releases going forward. At the moment we have released Froyo and Gingerbread OS images for Ventana and will release Honeycomb after Google has done so.
Andrew Edelsten
Tegra Developer Relations
NVIDIA Corporation
This platform was only JUST released in Q4-10 and is already being treated as obsolete. I know technology moves fast, but given the large momentum of sales among this particular platform (specifically the Viewsonic G Tablet), I'm hoping this is worth a blurb. Thanks!