Originally posted by geru2000 .....and you know this how? You are aware that some firmware upgrades do have unannounced/ hidden fixes?
Simple things like adding interval shooting to the K-r (and upping the amount by 1 digit to it's in the thousands and not hundreds like on the K-5). Adding video controls and even the ability to go to full manual control for video would be great... It's not like it's not possible.. it's all about their marketing control.. but at this stage in the game, if they want to gain marketshare increasing what your camera's have the ability to do vs. the competition is a big step in the right direction.
Hell with hacked firmware with a crude GUI I can do as much if not more with my old Canon P&S than someone can with a K-r.. sure this 6 year old camera has 6MP and a crappy 4X zoom.. but with CHDK I can shoot pics (jpg OR RAW) until the card is full, it has bracketed shooting (does the K-r?) Motion detection shooting and full control over pretty much every aspect of the camera. Hell Pentax is too lazy to even make a tethering program for their own gear.. only putting out actual firmware FIRES isn't good "support".. that's business necessity to make sure your products do at the VERY least what they are advertised to do. And that's what they do.. the least they can to get by. I hope Ricoh starts looking ahead with this area of their camera development.. all the great hardware is nothing when it doesn't have good firmware to control it and make full REAL use of it.
Sure there are probably some small fixes that are unannounced... but why wouldn't they announce it? I can't really see them fixing something people weren't complaining about. If they did fix it, they would want their customers to know. Transparency on support is very important.. "behind the scenes" type of fixes would be foolish, it would be like them saying "By the way.. we released this and found XXX and YYY were really messed up, lets put out this firmware update (at the end of the product life cycle) to fix or improve it." Sorry, can't see that being the case.. I'm sure they would rather you buy a K01 or wait for their next gen that's coming up.
I could see unannounced/hidden fixes for camera's like the K-01 etc.. camera's in the first few months of it's life cycle.. but after a year on any system it should have ALL of it's bugs worked out.. just not the case for the K-r/K-5/645D