A few weeks ago, Xeni posted about Talking Panda, an iPod application containing hundreds of common words and phrases in your choice of three languages. It seemed like a great deal for $10, so I bought the French version. (I'm going to be spending several months in Paris in the fall.) The bummer though is that for some reason, Talking Panda requires iPods with firmware v2.0 or later. It won't run on the first or second-generation iPods (like mine). Basically, if you bought your iPod before May 2003, you're out of luck. I emailed info@talkingpanda.com and developer Bob Ippolito responded right away:
"The iPod 1.x firmware is simply not capable of using Talking Panda. You can either purchase a new iPod, give the software to a friend as a gift, or I can offer you a refund of $8. Unfortunately it costs us $1 for each transaction (once for sale, once for refund), so I can not offer you a full refund."
The $2 loss won't kill me and, besides, it's my own fault for not reading the system requirements on the Talking Panda site. But I am annoyed disappointed that I can't use the software! It sounds like a useful application and I wish there was a way to get it to run on my iPod. Or that Bob would develop a version that does. Link
UPDATE: Bob writes…
"You should ask Apple, not me. The revision 1 and 2 iPod hardware is technically capable of doing the things that the newer iPods do, at least in this case, but they simply have chosen not to add the functionality to the older firmware. If you want to do cool new things with the Notes functionality, you simply need to buy a new iPod. Seriously, there is no possible way for me to do anything for older iPods, short of developing a new firmware image myself and having the users void their warranty and lose iTunes integration! The iPod firmware is an extremely closed environment and I was lucky that I was able to get the kind of integration that I did."
