Ben,

If I read your profile correctly, you haven't been around here as long as some of us have. You registered on the BBS here about four months ago, so I'm assuming you've only owned your car player for about that long.

The tone of your message seems to come down to this: You're slightly disillusioned because you've been promised upgrades, but haven't seen a major one yet besides 1.03.

You weren't here in the days before the Rio purchase, when we'd see upgrades every couple of months, and the new features flowed forth like water from a well. Perhaps you don't know what it was like back then. They really did send new software upgrades quite frequently, which is why the "old timers" on the BBS aren't complaining too loudly about the delayed release of The Software Formerly Known As 1.1. Sure, some of the old timers are anxious, but they're certainly not feeling disillusioned. They know the software will come soon, and because Empeg treated them well in the past, they are patient to wait for it.

Sure, the 1.0x code base hasn't changed appreciably in a long time. This doesn't mean the Empeg team is abandoning us. All this means is that the thing you've got plugged into your car's dashboard is a stable product that works well. This is a good thing. Okay, there are some features and bugfixes that would be nice to have in 1.03, but for the most part, the thing just works as-is. Wish I could say the same for my PC and its software.

There are a couple of important reasons why 2.0 is taking so long:

1) Some of the underlying components have been completely overhauled to allow for new features. For example, a replacement of the decoding engine, a new database structure, and a rewritten version of emplode. These things take time. What you don't see (but what the alpha testers do see) is that these kinds of overhauls mean a lot of new bugs. Some of them are show-stoppers, like the one that erased the player's hard disk. Just be grateful that they're taking the time to get it right before going public-beta.

2) Since the Rio purchase, they have been pressed into service doing other projects for their company. They have had to take time off of their work on The Software Formerly Known As 1.1 in order to do these other projects. We haven't seen the results of these projects, but they assure us that we will when Rio releases them. So understand that they're not just drinking ale and eating curry food, they are actually working their arses off. Just not on the car player software.

Okay, now, having said that...

Don't set your hopes too high for 2.0.

I've been testing the 1.1 alphas, and it's not that different from 1.03. At least not on the surface. I know it's been talked up as if it were the Second Coming, but when you actually use it, it behaves like an incremental upgrade, not a big overhaul. All the big changes are the ones you can't see. The new architecture allows for other advances in the future, things which you won't see for a little while.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... Don't be disappointed because 2.0 is coming along slowly. It's still coming, and in the meantime, be happy that 1.03 works so well.

___________
Tony Fabris