Without my empeg for the first time in 10 years...

Now that I'm back in the professional world, the old cop car was not cutting it. My employer gives a car allowance and there is an (unspoken) expectation that the car is decent enough to entertain customers. The police car was great, though. Big, comfortable, and super reliable. Nothing but routine maintenance until I traded it with 150k miles. It had been a police car for the first 60k miles, so it saw some heavy use and idling time, but the thing was still strong.

After a lot of deliberation, I ended up with a Ford truck. I got last year's model for a huge discount. There are lots of rebates and discounts on last year's vehicles right now due to the poor economy. I normally buy cars a couple years old, but when I ran the numbers (estimating the usable lifetime by me), this was a better decision.

Anyhow, I'm without my empeg for the first time in a long, long while. The Ford came with Sync, and it plays mp3s off of a USB drive, though the navigation of the USB drive is an abomination to anyone who has used an empeg. It can also control an iPod and stream music from the iPhone via bluetooth. None of those options are even a shadow of the functionality of the empeg, but ... I'm starting to think they might be "good enough".

The problem is that I don't want to break all of the integration to the phone control, weather band, satellite radio, voice control and steering wheel controls, which are all actually pretty slick. On top of all that, the dashboard would need some major hacking to get the empeg to fit in. Behind all that fancy dash console, the factory unit is double-DIN, and there is an installation kit available, but I'd lose the factory head unit, and with it all of the integration. I can't find a kit that allows me to install an additional DIN device and keep the HU. The system has a line in, so I'm thinking the answer may be to install the empeg in the center console and play it through the line in with an A/B switch (so I keep the dashboard 1/8" line in jack for portable players). The center console on the truck is a great design that holds hanging file folders, so I'd have to figure out how to install the empeg and keep that nice feature.

What makes me sad is that I have the occasional thought that it might not be worth it. That, as much as I love my empeg, the iPod/iPhone/USB combination might just be workable.

Whatever I do, I'm a empegbbs member for life!

Jim

Give Sync a shot. I was highly impressed with it, even though I only had it for 4 days this spring in a rental car. I plugged in my Zune and in about five minutes the initial syncing was done and I could use voice commands to play anything on my player. I agree, navigating without voice is a nightmare compared to the empeg, but in the end I have to admit that I feel better about not looking away from the road...

*edit*

ps- I also haven't had a car with an empeg in it for about two years now. I miss it, but sadly I listen to podcasts more than music now (which kind of saddens me too - have to get back to music sometime), and the empeg just wasn't a good solution for podcast listening...

I got my first new car in roughly forever earlier this year. This is the first time I don't have the empeg in my car or at work since I got my first one, and I still miss it. I have a Chevy, but the iPod interface isn't as good as it could be. That might be a limitation of the iPod, though. I eventually figured out that it was easiest to just make a new playlist in iTunes, then start that playlist on the iPod, then plug it in. Kind of a pain, but it works.

I seriously miss being able to insert a song into a playlist you are listening to. That was amazing and besides the navigation, that is the biggest thing I miss.

I have been empegless for quite a while now and I STILL miss this. Why oh why can't the iPod add this feature?

One of my favorite features that's missing too. Hugo, are you listening?

The iPod doesn't have a "Now Playing" playlist, so you can't do anything with the music you're listening to.

The best/easiest thing to do if you have n iOS-based iPod or iPhone, is to simply start using a different music player app, like AMP. The one big unfortunate thing with it at the moment is no support for landscape mode.

There are other programs that while not great music players, are good for using in landscape mode while in the care, with extensive gesture controls so you don't have to look at the screen to manipulate your music.

I know and unlike some of the stuff I'd like them to fix, this one would be easy. Press and hold on a track, album, popup a menu with play/add/play next. Done.

I've tried Amp, I just find it too fussy a UI. The Pod app might not be sophisticated, but I far prefer navigating its simple UI. Just a shame it lacks so many features.

Have you tried AMP recently? I don't know if it's ever changed, I'm just asking because I find its UI much more straight forward than Apple's iPod UI. There are a few fixes and alterations needed, but whereas Apple will *never* listen to feedback from a single contributor, I believe the people behind Amp will. The iPod UI hasn't changed in years - it's always been bad.

What I do wish for Amp in addition to the above is a skin with less flashiness (without glow effects, etc.)

I've used SBSettings to hide the default iPod app as I have no plans to ever use it. Now I'm looking for a hack to swap the iPod icon from the double-tap home button menu (the multitasking/playback menu)

Amp has been updated since July this year, so I think you are being a little optimistic in expecting an update let alone changes to the UI

I have the current version of it and I find it to be fussy an clumsy. I really don't like the swipe left and right menu at the top to switch between now playing and library. The area to swipe in is too small and jammed up against the status bar. A standard tab bar works far better.

Even if you don't swipe and tap instead you have to put up with a pointless swipe animation.

Everything is too small, I don't want to have to be careful were I tap...

And the now playing screen is just a distaster, as I believe you might say "it makes my eye balls weep". Just show me the album art, the transport controls and a scrollable now and next. I don't need lyrics, links to YouTube, facebook, twitter, email and wikipedia or concert dates. Make it stop !

And on top of all that it hasn't been updated for iOS 4.0, so no quick resumes from the background.

The Now Playing screen *can* just show the album art - that's the view I keep it set to. Just tap the album and that's where it goes.

Like so many other things, this isn't the perfect player, it's just currently the best one available. I have a list much longer than the one you just mentioned of things that should be addressed in Amp. But if I had to make a similar list for the iPod app, I'd pretty much recommend just shuttering the whole thing and starting from scratch. The concept is just flawed right from the core - and I weep when other people copy it in their apps - it's one of the problems I have with iPeng, it could be so much better if they didn't copy a couple of the faults of the iPod app.

If I thought there was a ton of money to be made in developing and selling an alternate music playing app, I'd probably invest in that. But I think most people are just going to keep using the built-in iPod app, so there are nearly an infinite number of other ideas better suited to a commercial venture. Might be one of the reasons Amp isn't being updated daily - it's also free with very little in the way of motivation given for people to pay for it - I did though.

Oh, I've got plenty of more items on my list too. It doesn't remember were you were when it resumes. Even though everything is small it doesn't manage to show as much of long titles as the iPod app does etc etc etc

I paid my £1.79 for the ad free version, but all of the problem with it mean I stick to the iPod app.

And I'd forgotten the killer non-feature, it sorts podcasts alphabetically rather than by date, doesn't show the date and doesn't show how much of the podcast has been played or even whether a podcast has been played. Completely hopeless for podcasts, which is what I use the iPod app for 90% of the time.

This one doesn't appear to be the case. Certainly not when browsing a list of songs in the library. I have just compared and it can fit an entire long title where the iPod list cuts it off "Anti Warhole on the Dancefloor" compared to "Anti Warhole on the Dancefl..."

Even the album/artist text under the song title shows more characters in Amp.

I'm pretty sure your list is otherwise going to be as long as mine and with many of the same criticisms for Amp.

iPod app, Timothy Garten Ash not truncated:


Amp, truncated:

You're using a different UI than I was in the iPod app. You're using Podcasts which, if you notice and unlike you mentioned previously, has smaller text than Amp.

When you compare Amp's library view of Songs to iPod's Songs list, you'll see that, as you mentioned, Amp has ever so slightly smaller text, and as I mentioned, it fits longer titles.

Looks like it is just a podcast issue, Amp does give a small amount of extra room for text when browsing albums. Though of course when I'm browsing albums that isn't normally an issue as I know what the album is called from the start of the text and the album art.

Podcasts on the other hand, being able to read the whole title is much more useful

Yeah. Simply reversing the order of the two lines for the podcasts would likely improve the issue by giving you approximately the same amount of text display as the iPod app in this case. But obviously that would sort of break the consistency with the rest of the UI where album details come under track details. Since Apple have never been ones for consistency in UI, they don't have this issue.

Wow, really?! It read the Zune?! I thought Zune was using a proprietary system, basically non-readable by any car stereo. This is great! Am I assuming wrong? I'd love to use my Zune in my car!

Ford Sync was developed by Microsoft, so it isn't that susprising that it works with Zune...

Well yeah- that needs to be fixed

That would also allow selecting a couple of albums to play rather than having to create an on the fly playlist.

I did not know that. I wonder if it is used by any other head unit?

In any case, I am using an iPod in my car with an Alpine headunit, and I do miss the Empeg every time I turn it on, more and more. I would install my empeg back in if I wasn't using my car less, which allows me survive with it.

It does work with it and it works great. The only thing I didn't like is that podcasts didn't exist to the system. So those didn't work, but music did.

Sadly, no. It's a Ford-only thing for now. Some models of Lincoln/Mercury too, I believe.

That's too bad. I am hoping that if Windows Phone gets popular, it will become an option to use it in car audio systems.

...but I guess that wouldn't even be run when plugging into an accessory interface. As soon as that is connected I suspect that the iPod app will be launched...

I didn't know any accessory could cause an app to launch. I have a Logitech speaker dock that I just purchased this week and it works fine with any app I want to launch on it, including Amp. The iPod app is definitely not auto-launched. It isn't using a Bose dock at a friend's place either.

I'd love Apple to provide a way to define the "default app" or "default handler" for all the functionality it provides baked into the product. Sort of how Microsoft was forced to do in Windows. Then it'd be much easier to specify an alternate phone dialer, messenger, calendar, music player, etc.

It's about the only thing I'm quite sure of that they'll never do however.

There is a mode on the Sync system called "autoplay" that starts streaming bluetooth audio as soon as the system connects to the device (if the stereo was left on). It runs the iPod app and plays the currently playing track. I can switch to Pandora or whatever and it will still stream the audio over bluetooth, but I need to manually switch from the iPod app to the Pandora app. I haven't tried it with Public Radio Tuner yet, or the Minnesota Public Radio app. By the way, there is a fantastic public radio station in Minneapolis called The Current, which you can stream for free from the web or the Minnesota Public Radio app. Worth checking out...

Jim

Hugo, if you know how one might make come mods to control these defaults (Jailbreak) you can PM any info to me. I promise I won't tell anyone else the info came from a particular little birdie.

Yes, HW can make an app auto-launch; that's used on some things like eg the ODB diagnostics apps/tools.

The speaker docks are a little different to the car hookups though; car hookups often provide an absolutely awful browsing interface and I'm totally sure that the 3rd party players are not implementing that protocol (and fairly sure that there's probably no hookup for it). There's an insane amount of QA there to ensure that all the wrinkles with all the carkits are taken care of which probably means that no 3rd party would want to go near it....

Yep, that works beautifully with my new Prius too (A2DP streaming & AVRCP). If I'm in the car, whatever I last had running as an audio app - ie the icon shown when you swipe left-to-right on the multitasking bar - gets streamed to the car and the usual things like track skip work.

I've used this with Pandora and Slacker radio just fine. If only AVRCP would have defined a standard way to send metadata then it'd be probably all most people would need....

They updated Amp today, removed the ads and made it a minimum price paid app.