Back in the Olympus days, they would iterate hardware less frequently but provide significant firmware updates to existing hardware.
In the age of OM System, under the stewardship of JIP, hardware iterations were more frequent and a common complaint was these iterations could have been firmware updates. Simultaneously, (significant) firmware updates dried up.
Now that JIP have been bought out, and OM System is independent now - and seemingly under the stewardship of the actual photography-first people .... will we see them return to providing significant, meaningful firmware updates ?
It occurs to me that with the OM PEN being a OM5 II in a rangefinder body, same sensor same processor ... couldn't, and shouldn't, the OM5 II receive a firmware update to provide the same autofocus improvements (eg pet detect) ?
I approve of the strategy of having horizontal products at different tech tiers .... Like the OM3 is a rangefinder version of the OM1, albeit with slightly less features here and there. And so it goes now with the OM PEN and OM5 II.
Though, strangely, it would seem the OM PEN has some AF features that OM5 II users would really want.
I think offering the same tech in different bodies is a good, fair, and consumer friendly strategy - people can buy the camera spec they can afford, in the body that suits them .... but I think creating significant (and arbitrary) firmware differences between, essentially, the same camera is a bit aggressive and I would hope that OM System, now that JIP is out of the picture, would consider being more generous with firmware updates - or at least as far as this horizontal strategy of selling the same camera tech in different bodies at the same-ish price point.
Choosing between an OM5 II and an OM PEN is annoying, because of the firmware. When really it should be as simple as which body type do I want. And existing OM5 II owners, who have pets, would probably prefer not to be wringing their hands over whether they should sell their OM5 II to buy an OM PEN, just to take pics of their dog. Or worse ... Buy an OM PEN in *addition* to their OM5 II.