heh? do you mean if there's a next generation of Pandora, OP would probably migrate on DM3730 instead of a OMAP4 ? if so, OP would really suck. The situation would be similar to customers who buy an old iPhone and are pissed off because now they need an iPhone 3GS or 4G to run all the hungry applications or games. I started regretting buying Pandora (Cortex-A8 being just a mono-core with minor bugs, all the stuff with SGX not optimized, what about the complicated TI DSP stuff ? etc.). OMAP4 is at least a dual-core (which is a minimal requirement for me and has a more refined NEON instructions set).
So, if a next generation should appear, it must be a complete different beast so it makes a sense to buy it even if we have the first generation to be sure the development on the first gen shall not be jeopardized by the second gen in a similar way it is for iPhone generations.
No, I'm saying that OP should be using DM3730 ASAP without any other design changes. The second batch should be DM3730. They shouldn't keep selling OMAP3530 Pandoras. It doesn't make sense. Customers being pissed off is just something they should swallow; it's the customers who have waited over 2 years for their Pandoras that should be pissed off. It sucks for the remainder of batch 1, but that's OP's fault for selling far more than they could supply in a reasonable timeframe.
You guys talk about developers making things that "require" the faster Pandoras, and that strikes me as nonsense. You don't make something that needs a clock speed to run, and I doubt anyone is going to slack off on something they wouldn't have otherwise because they have more MHz now. No, almost all of Pandora's software will consist of ports without a lot of optimization, and most of it will be fine at 500MHz. These faster Pandoras would allow some people to run a fringe selection of software better - high end emulators would be less slow and intensive games would run at a higher framerate. It's really not an awful lot different than some people being able to overclock higher. It's not a matter of compatibility.
But yes, they shouldn't actually consider this until all their orders are satisfied because otherwise a lot of people might cancel to get the better one. Yeah they might be pissed off, but I don't understand how improving the hardware on newer iterations (something companies do all the time) is unacceptable but taking years to fulfill an order is fine. It's a bad situation and OP has to make some compromises.
In return OP would actually be saving money because the 800MHz DM3730 chip is quite a bit cheaper than even the 600MHz OMAP3530. Obviously they wouldn't go in for the 1GHz one.
I want dual core like you, but let's be realistic, right now there isn't a single dual core Cortex-A9 device on the market in anywhere near Pandora's form factor. Tegra 2 is also not really an option, and I doubt OMAP4 is really ready for even Pandora-like volumes just yet. But I absolutely think that there should be a Pandora 2 with OMAP4430 in under 2 years. I think that OMAP4440 is probably on a less power optimized process and not good for mobiles, it strikes me as a tablet processor.
