Firmware Friday: Pentax K-S2 DSLR and Ricoh GR II compact get Wi-Fi updates
posted Friday, August 7, 2015 at 4:19 PM EST
After a brief hiatus in a week with nothing on which to report, Firmware Friday returns this week with news both for Pentaxians, and for their brethren using one of parent company Ricoh's fixed-lens cameras. Specifically, it's the Pentax K-S2 and Ricoh GR II which have received both new firmware, and an update to their Wi-Fi apps on the Android and iOS platforms.
Both cameras receive the same single update in their new version 1.10 firmware updates: Compatibility with a new release of the Image Sync app used for wireless remote control and image transfer via Wi-Fi. In both cases, the release notes also mention that "stability for general performance" has been improved, a rather non-specific catch-all that's always stated for the companies' firmware updates. (Hence it's possible that there could have been other tweaks made, but if so there are no details as to what they entail.)
As for what has changed in Image Sync, which now stands at version 1.05 on both the Android and iOS platforms, there are but two changes. On both platforms, you can now select from all available Wi-Fi channels in the app. On Android specifically, there's also one improvement which addresses a criticism I noted in our recent Pentax K-S2 review: You can now use your camera's built-in gallery application to view images once they're downloaded from the camera. (Sadly, I no longer have the camera in-hand to actually test the update and see whether any of my performance-related concerns have been resolved.)
You can get the new firmware and mobile device software at the links below:
(Camera parts image courtesy of Kelly Hofer / Flickr; used under a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license. Image has been modified from the original.)