I've just been reading back through the threads and FAQs to make sure behavior was known and just noticed a large number of "it's in 1.1". The only problem I have (and it's a personal problem.... I know) is once I notice there is a bug there, it bothers me until I can get it fixed.

Yeah, but think about what you're saying... The fact that you're seeing anything at all about 1.1, let alone direct quotes from the developers, is pretty amazing.

What other products do you know of where the developers keep such a close relationship with the users? Most of the feature suggestions and bug reports came directly from the users on this BBS.

Seems to me that folks should be rejoicing every time they see information about 1.1, rather than feeling left out.

And you have to admit, even if it does have some minor bugs, version 1.02 is pretty darn slick. No other MP3 hardware developer is going to be able to come close to the empeg in terms of features, speed, and flexibility. Doesn't matter what version of the software we're talking about, even the pre-1.0 betas were better than anything else out there.

After the Rio announcement, a friend of mine was telling me how other cheaper/mass-market competition would crush the Rio Car. I had to explain that (a) Rio already has some cheaper/mass-market products that work great and have a great market share (as well as more in the pipe), and (b) there's no way anyone will be able to touch them in the high-end, because the car player's design/features are light-years ahead of anyone else.

I have yet to see another system to beat the Empeg Car. There's always something about the other systems which looks stone-age compared to the Empeg Car. A $299 head unit that plays MP3 CDR's? It takes too long to index the CD and switch tracks, and you still have to carry around extra CDs. A less-expensive hand-held portable player with a hard disk? It's got a more limited set of UI features, and no alphanumeric searching. Anything at all based on memory cards? Not enough storage-- Can only fit a couple of albums on them with any sort of quality.

Sure, most of those other options are still attractive to some folks. The folks that are only interested in playing a handful of napster-ized files. But there's new technolgies on the horizon- ones that will expand our ability to store and catalog our music. And the Empeg folks are way ahead in terms of software. They're the ones that'll be in the position to take advantage of these technologies the fastest.

___________
Tony Fabris