btw... the most unlikely thing happened. I got the update for my 2014 TV to the latest version of WebOS.

wow.

yeah...
been following smart tv innov's since the days of my 1st Boxee Box..

If I remem.
lg was aiming for updates sometime this year...
I think it's great..
longer a corp can do [such cost efficient] updates to older hardware the better...
not just for the customer either...
makes the corp look good ..real good.
like they care even
longer a customer can hang onto an old smart tv ...
the likelier they are to buy a new one from the same company [esp when they show a good track record in service, updates, longevity, etc..] when it is finally time to get a new tv...
I think lg is playing a good middle and maybe a good long game as well...
Speaking of boxee...I got an xbmc build on an sd card for one of my boxee's
the other has the boxee + hacker version put together just after the team left for samsung...
since the team and everything was snarfed up by samsung ...
I'm waiting for samsung to blow the lid off of smart tv any day now...
any day now....
just waitin'
bidin' my time...
any day now...

wait a sec..
I just did a little looky-looing...
criminey!
Am I out of the loop...
they got kodi -helix for my boxee box ...
gotta spend some time putting that on...

I've been using openelec on a RP1 for a year and it's just perfect you can switch it on and off how many time you want it will survive

Now I am upgrading for an Odroid C1 ... but support is not as good as RPI.

And I am considering to buy a Tizen TV too

... and it was a very superficial paint job only, so the point still stands.

I hate it that for the sake of god I cannot configure this stupid TV to output to headphones _and_ speakers simultaneously.

They added this to the 2015 software, but of course, not to the 2014 2.0 paint job.

And people wonder why I'm a GPLv3 fanatic...

That is one odd picking point to start a war behind. Headphones and speakers. Just... real odd. The use case behind that would be real limited.

Oh well, superficial or not, I'm never buying a smart TV ever again.

If it was a common use case I'd bet they'd have done it.

The problem is that it's uncommon but trivial to implement (how many seconds would it take me to do it if I had access to a shell prompt?).

In the previous decade, I'd have fixed this with a simple mod on the jack, despite the fact that I have almost zero electronics background. These days, the switch is actually controlled by software, so it doesn't require cracking open the case, and I have a strong computing background. And yet, I'm prevented because of artificial reasons. And they even went the extra mile, so that the jack mod alone doesn't cut it. It's stupid, and it enrages me seeing my software promote this Brave New World.

It's incredibly and artificially limited to what you can do on these devices. But let's just throw in the bit that folks hate discussing but needs to be said: these devices are limited as such not because of the willing minority such as yourself that are savvy enough to do those things but because the big corporations will never make a dime if somebody were able to purchase something and in 10 years, still be able to update, alter, manipulate that device. That big corporation would lose out 10 years of purchases - scarier if those savvy people were to share their findings and teach others.

You're right. We should be able to do whatever we want with our hardware. We've purchased it. It should update indefinitely or at least the big corporations should have some "exit strategy" that leaves us in control when they announce the next version. This ignores a ton of technology advances, but it creates a hard to support situation.

In the end, I'm convinced that's perhaps the best way to go - give control over to the people when the next version comes out. Not something minor to ask for either. But in recent history; I cannot name anything that was not originally targeted for tinkerers, embraced by tinkerers that stayed a device that was in use and under our control years later. In fact, hell... I'd ask somebody to name something outside of older computers to name something that fits your criteria even closely.

This current world of products plain sucks and will be obsolete by the time I've finished this last sentence... </hyperbole>

Well, hmm. I've been reading along here, and as much as I would like to agree with this, I have to say, no -- this is simply not true. At all.

I have, for most of my life, been the "technical" guy in my family. I was the kid who could reset the timer on the VCR. The guy who could install or update your computer's OS. And yes, I even get called by some relatives when their TV has a problem.

People don't want to spend an hour learning how to set up their devices. They want to flip a switch and have it work. I know I always point to him, but yes, Steve Jobs had a point -- Apple's fortunes really took off when it started producing products that had less features than before: an MP3 player that only had five buttons on the front, and only allowed you to select commands from a tiny menu of choices. A cell phone that completely ditched the keypad, and used a big, cheery screen with a simple finger-painting UI. And yeah, their tablet and TV devices continue this progression.

The industry as a whole now follows Apple's lead; maybe not quite as crazed about simplicity as Apple gets, but after seeing so many folks buying overpriced Apple products like there's no tomorrow, you eventually get the message that simpler products sell better. And this means that leaving out low-percentage options like "headphone and speakers together" is actually a feature. It is one less option you need to code for when you produce the product; one less item to document; and one less item for the customer to learn when they set up the device. And from experience, I can tell you that at least most of my relatives want that kind of simplicity. If Apple's fortunes are anything to go by, the vast majority of folks do.

So yeah, the big corporations don't dumb-down their electronics products because they worry about what smart folks might do with them. They artificially limit what people can do with their products because simpler-to-use products sell.

the question is, will you have a choice.

If Copernicus is right, yes! We have a semi-smart TV (can't be used as a web browser, can watch web wideos) and all we use it for is watching terrestrial freeview TV. No one can be bothered to hook it up to the network. Most of Copernicus' users would not even know how.