I think we've been more responsive to client requests for changes to functionality than any other car stereo manufacturer in history. The fact we're even talking to you about this is something almost unique in this industry.

I think it's because you've been so responsive that we maybe go a bit overboard with the suggestions, but I personally wouldn't want it any other way, some things we get, some we don't...

Most new clients wouldn't even think twice about having to press a button to switch on a potentially distracting feature in the car.

And neither would I, I'd just like to see it slightly more accessible from the front panel buttons, mainly because I'm lazy!

I'm still looking forward to buying a Mk2 (bank manager permitting )

Geoff
---- -------
Reg No. 554, s/n 00064 - It's mine I tell you.... all mine :)

I wasn't going to post any more to this thread, but seeing as it's you.. :)

> Rob, I get the feeling you are not very happy about this.

Actually I think it's a common sense approach.

Consider Mr Twatt of New York NY. He crashes his car because visuals on his empeg were distracting in the corner of his eye. If he should decide to go to court, how much stronger is our case if we can demonstrate that he had chosen to switch on that visual for that specific journey? Choosing to switch something on is often a stronger indication of responsibility than not choosing to switch something off. That's my understanding of it anyway.

Not giving people rope to hang themselves is generally a sensible commercial move, but I certainly don't think we take it to extremes. In this case we have changed a default action that can be over-ridden with one button on the remote (less convenient for those people who don't carry a remote, but the same is true for the entire UI in that instance).

We may be able to work something out with emplode to switch off the safety feature, but it depends on whether the disclaimers at that point are considered acceptable by our advisors. There's no point hassling us over this, though, we won't release anything before it's been checked out.

Rob

Rob, I just wanted to chime in here and offer some words of encouragement.

Reading the rest of this thread, I'm kind of surprised. I thought the existing owners had a pretty good relationship with Empeg. I knew this change would have an impact, I just didn't know everyone would get so hot-under-the-collar over it.

What surprises me the most is that everyone else didn't see it coming a long way off. I predicted it a long time ago. "Litigious Society" comments aside, it seems like a perfectly logical feature.

To Rob: Don't let the negative comments dissuade you. You've been doing a great job by keeping the customer relations positive. Your company will be successful if you can continue this. Keep the faith (and keep listening to the customers, even if it means having to tell them "no").

To everyone else: I understand why you are unhappy with the feature, but please try to understand that Empeg has little choice in the matter. Anyway, it's all in software, and you've all seen how refinements in the software can improve the product. Maybe, if you're really nice, they'll consider altering the button-press structure to allow easier vis-switching, or give you a config.ini option. So try not to start a flame war over it.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Rob,

I have been very impressed with your company, your system and your service. I have put off buying a car stereo and started saving toward buying an empeg.

I am not trying to bully you, I am just stating a plain fact. And yes, it is a deal-breaker for me, but don't take me off of the list just yet.

If you can't provide that option because of legal constraints, can a third party provide it as a small add-in program? Here in the States, we are required by law to have air-bags. We can, however, have a switch installed to turn off the passenger side air-bag if we so desire. All I want is the equivalent in the config.ini file.

Stan Simmons #8438

Dear everyone,

I don't like the idea of having to switch into visuals mode anymore than the next person.

I'm aware that the Prolux visuals are harmful to health when not behind the wheel, so the effect whilst driving could be potentially lethal.

I have to go with empeg on this one (obviously) - Prolux compile the following disclaimer into every empeg: "Orogenic Developments accept no responsibility for damage incurred to people or vehicles through the use of these visualisations"

Personally I reckon it's enough to have that message compiled into an obscure binary that no-one will ever see, let alone scan for a disclaimer. However I also don't want to find myself in court accused of indirectly killing a pedestrain in New York whilst I'm in legally uncomplicated England (or even when I'm not).

Toby
(Prolux Real Time Visuals)

Pardon me for saying (particularily because I don't own a unit yet), but I am allready happy with this visuals selection process even without seeing it yet.

As I see it, there isn't much argument for changing it at all. Either you startup the visual mode before moving the car or you remember to carry a remote with you. If you can't keep the remote from sliding all over the place you get some velcro. Heck, the visuals aren't really that important. They are probably the last thing on my mind as I am waiting for the chance to buy this thing. I can't believe you'd give up on the product for something this trivial. It's a CAR. You DRIVE it. You don't look at flashing lights and stuff (unless they're traffic lights).

I totally agree with Rob's logic on this one. As a company providing a possibly dangerous product, you want to make sure it's the user who uses it incorrectly or in an improper manner. I know that doesn't really sound quite right, but you know that there are people out there like that. Hell, you don't see the Washington Post getting sued because someone got in an accident while reading the newspaper, do you?

Looks like the heat is really rising on this thread. Empeg as a company has to ride balance between sound business and legal decisions and the general demand of the client base. It seems to me that the bullying going on to get this feature yanked is a little hot, but the "threat" to pull stan off the queue is a little surprising and perhaps out of line.

It seems to me the business problem is how to shift responsibility for visualizations over to the occupants of the vehicle rather than the maker of the stereo. We shouldn't deny the business problem at hand, but the clients seem a bit unhappy with this 10a solution. It looks like several possible solutions ranging from a once-only disclaimer to a user togglable setting on the emplode software. Rather than wash your hands of it and call it solved, it seems like some of these alternative approaches should be placed under consideration. Rob, if you can determine that an alternative technique to cause the user to use judgement purposefully to accept responsibility then I'd say go with it. Maybe not now, but at least put under consideration for the to-dos for some later release.

I personally am unswayed either way and I am definitely sticking to the waiting pool :).

Calvin

Rob just suggested yanking him off after he "threatened" not to buy the unit if the feature was not removed. Personally I like the idea that the company can see if someone changes their mind and wants off the waiting list. It's better than sending out an email to someone who decided not to purchase, then waiting for a negative reply. The people behind him will be thankfull.

So I have to agree again. The communication between empeg and its customers is unprecedented. The only other company I've seen talk this much to buyers is Klipsch. They set up a BB on their site and are very good at feedback to dissatisfied users who have legitimate complaints. I can only pray that this trend continues.

This will probably be my last post in this thread, although I guess the subject matter will be debated for some time yet..

So on to the subject of this post, Some Observations...
If you look at my posts, I've tried to rationalise why the feature change has annoyed me, and I've tried to be constructive. With that in mind...

Rob, Hugo, Mike and co.. Nowhere have I tried to tell you how to run your company, you've been doing a fine job, as I have a mark one in my hands... However, just because most of the stuff you do is great (and you receive a harty pat on the back from me and almost everyone here for your hard work and customer service) doesn't mean we have to _agree_ with every decision (we are all individuals, right?).
I'm surprised that any slight negative critisism has such a reaction from the regulars, and if all a company receives is praise for the good stuff, they'll never know what they can improve. We all want the empeg to be the best product it can, which is why we've spent hours testing, breaking and enjoying it, and you've spent years developing, reacting to us and fixing it.

I know that empeg is a for profit company, who have to answer to people such as lawyers and shareholders, nobody has disputed that. Also everyone knows you have to protect yourselves from idiots with a lawyer (or is that idiot lawyers) who wouldn't know common sense if they drove into it...
We are all used to seeing disclaimers on things, and all I and others have asked for is a way to agree to this disclaimer so we can continue to enjoy the use of our empegs in the most user friendly way.
I fail to see how forcing someone to press an additional button (or without the remote, several) is legally a better defence than forcing them to agree to a disclaimer to turn the feature off, but that's not for me, or you to decide, it's one for the lawyers and litigators, and If you've already spoken to them, (or quite likely you want to avoid talking to them) you're hardly going to want to go through the time and expense for such a minor (relatively speaking) change.

I'm not expecting a reply, and I doubt you'll want to read more drivel from me, but this is one of those things like the copyright warnings on dvd's that you have to sit through, or the sony boot up screen on the playstation that assumes you are going to pirate everything... It's not the end of the world that you have to sit through it, but you'd like to turn it off (right?)

So I hope we can continue to suggest improvements, and where they fit into your project plan, that you will respond to them...

I leave with the senario that brought about my involvement in this whole issue (as for some sick reason I want to justify my points on this)
Over here (Guernsey) the average journey is quite short... Quite often this is the average day...
Get in the car, drive to work (switch visuals on)
Go home for lunch (switch visuals on)
Go to the garage for petrol (switch visuals on)
Go back to work (switch visuals on)
Go Home (switch visuals on)
Go fetch mates to go to the pub (switch visuals on)
Go home from the pub (switch visuals on) dropping mates off and sometimes going in for a coffee (the switch visuals on again on the way home)
Times that by 6 days a week (with small variations) and you see why it's suddenly a big issue (at least for me).

I've said my piece, and sorry if it's sounding like a broken record, but this is the first real issue on this board where we as a community have disagreed strongly, and it probably won't be the last, please don't take it the wrong way... =)

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

If you can't provide that option because of legal constraints, can a third party provide it as a small add-in program? Here in the States, we are required by law to have air-bags. We can, however, have a switch installed to turn off the passenger side air-bag if we so desire. All I want is the equivalent in the config.ini file.

Actually, my Jeep came with that option built into it. Passenger side air-bags are required here, as you said, but can even be more dangerous than NOT having them in the passenger seat in the event of an accident depending on if you have small children, etc in the passenger seat. So Jeep decided to install a "air bag kill" switch. It's even documented in the owner's manual about how to disable the driver's side airbag as well, plus has a disclaimer in there regarding it.

I haven't read the entire thread yet, so I'm still a bit fuzzy on it all, but what was the rationale behind NOT putting an option to disable this feature in emplode, with big red blinking letters saying "YOU CANNOT SUE US" if need be if you click on it? Or even better, putting a config.ini option requiring you to knowingly go in, install the developer image, mount the drive read-write, and go edit (create) a file specifically for the purpose of disabling the feature? It seems to me that would be MORE than enough protection from the masses who are sue-happy, but then again, I'm not a lawyer.

To empeg: If this has been such a big deal, why has it taken 8 months for this feature to be implemented? It seems that you would have wanted to protect yourself from the very beginning.

I can understand both sides of the argument. As an owner of the empeg, it is a little annoying, but not earth-shattering. But as a business not wanting to get their pants sued off should an unfortunate accident happen and they try to find a "scapegoat" this can also be understood.

Rock on with your bad selves, empeg!

(O|||||O)

...who cares about looking at visuals when you're careening down a 45 degree hill dodging rocks, trees, and small furry animals? Right JeepBastard? 8)

...who cares about looking at visuals when you're careening down a 45 degree hill dodging rocks, trees, and small furry animals? Right JeepBastard? 8)

What I want to know is who's doing the dodging? The Jeep or the small furry animals?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

> the "threat" to pull stan off the queue is a little surprising and perhaps out of line

Hey, he was the one who stated his intention not to buy an empeg over this, I just couldn't resist calling his bluff. I guess I was a bit grouchy today!

I wouldn't take anyone off the queue unless they asked me to, though.

I honestly think that many of the reactions expressed here have been over-reactions, and that if everyone had waited a couple of weeks (to see how much hassle this really is in practice) before posting then things might have been more constructive. Don't forget that most of us at empeg use the product at least as much as you guys, and we run the same software. If the visual thing has driven me nuts after a week or two I'll be honest and admit it!

Rob

I was a bit grouchy too. I've had it up to here (Hand held WAY over his head) with having options taken away on all kinds of things I buy because of stupid lawyers/lawsuits.

Sometime last year I got fed up with it all and now I refuse to buy anything that is unreasonably (IMHO) crippled or annoying due to lawyers. I always make an attempt at getting the company to do the right thing, then I go about my business. I was shocked and surprised that you guys would let lawyers decide features.

Hopefully this will be resolved to everyones satisfaction.

Stan

Feedback is certainly both constructive and appreciated when it's expressed like this. Speaking personally, my mind turns off when I see people saying how disgusted they are, or how this "feature" is going to prevent them from buying a player. That's out of proportion to the issue and it detracts from more rational arguments and suggestions.

The suggestion to override the default boot action seems reasonable (but probably NOT with a simple .ini modification - we need to flash some big disclaimers, so emplode would seem like a better tool for the job). I'm sure it will be discussed (in fact it already has been, in part) but these decisions can't be made as quickly as we are used to with other issues.

Do keep the feedback coming, but prepare yourselves that sometimes the answer will be no. I think this one has only blown up because it's taken on a kind of civil liberties slant (like the GPL thread!) and that's something that will always provoke a flamewar.

Rob

Oh boy, you're starting on the road to living in a small hut in a forest someplace if you are going to avoid products that are strongly influenced by lawyers. I have to say, though, that sometimes I find the whole hut idea rather tempting.

Anyway, if you think empeg is a company that suffers from corporate stench then you don't know us too well. I work here because MOST decisions are driven by technical considerations, which happen to be compatible with our commercial goals.

I've worked at companies where ALL decisions were made in the technical domain, but I'm afraid they're not in business any more. There's a balance that must be made!

Rob

I have to say, though, that sometimes I find the whole hut idea rather tempting.

Heh. I feel that way about twice a week. One of my favorite lines is from Firesign Theatre's "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers". I refer to it every time I'm confronted with the pressures of the modern lifestyle:

"So is that what you're gonna do- re-enlist?"
"Heck, no. I'm going to cut the soles out of my shoes, live in a tree, and learn how to play the flute."

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

You misunderstood me! I was shocked and surprized at this turn of events BECAUSE you guys don't have a "corporate stench" (big grin) I really like most of what you have done. This is the first thing that I really disagree with on your product. (Well, second. I listen to AM too, but can live without it. No AM was a technical decision.)

As soon as I read about having to turn on the visuals every time the system boots I envisioned exactly what Jazzwire described. This is what I was talking about when I said I refuse to buy anything that is in my opinion UNREASONABLY crippled or ANNOYING due to laywers.

I hope you show your lawyers the post by ClemsonJeep describing the steps one would go through to edit the config.ini file. That, along with a disclaimer in both the manual and the config.ini file should satisfy them.

You would be amazed at the number of companies that have products with "no user serviceable parts inside" that will send you some of those parts when you start making noise about them letting the lawyers run the company. In the past few months I have talked to the presidents of four different companies about "stupid lawyer tricks" and have been successful with 3 of them. The other, Bunn, a maker of coffee machines has lost my business because they wouldn't sell two washers to repair a machine I bought a few years ago. They still make the exact same model, and they confirmed that they do have repair parts, just not for sale. They wouldn't even tell me a supplier and part number! They wanted me to send it in for repair for about the same cost of buying a new, competing product. Their loss, I now own the competing product.

Stan

For those of you with remotes flying around the car, try and slide the remote under the sun visor (that's worked for me since Velcro stopped working when i tried to stick it to the roof of the car in the summertime), and if you use the visor, get one of those things that attaches to the visor, (it holds CD’s and other stuff) and stuff the remote in there.

I think that's the best place for it. Easy to get to, and won't slide around.




-CHiP

My Friend's Lexus has a GPS and about a 5inch LCD screen with a map program built into the dash, and when we get into the car, he has to press a "yes" or "no" button to agree (or disagree) that he is responsible for looking at the visuals ( map in this case) get into the GPS. This is every time he starts the car, but only if he wants to use the map. This is a bit of a hassle, but he says you get used to it. I think they even go as far as to make him STOP the car ( pull over) before you can bring the map visual up if you are already driving.

As much as I don't like the text visual at start-up ( less impressing to passengers) I think if empeg was sued, it would be bad for everyone.

..right?




-CHiP

why did you use me as an example?


Mr. Twatt

Empeg Kicks Ass
S/N 00203
http://www.iretro.com

Rob said "Speaking personally, my mind turns off when I see people saying how disgusted they are..."

I said I was disgusted not because of what Empeg did -- but because of WHY it was done and HOW it was implemented. I don't like the fact that I will have to toggle something everytime I hop in the car just because some moron might sue a company for something that isn't the company's fault. What did I do to deserve the extra steps. Even if it's an extra 1-7 seconds per trip it's still an annoyance and it CAN be avoided...

I also said I was disgusted to make it very clear how unhappy I was with the present solution -- in the hope that someone would stop, think about it, and consider alternatives. "I'm not happy with this implmentation" was not strong enough to capture the feeling. "Disgusted" was the right word. Know that it's not targetted at the company -- but at the REASONS why the functionality changed on the Empeg.

If I'm happy with something I voice it -- usually with much strength. The same goes for when I'm displeased with something. I think I've given a LOT of positive feedback to both Empeg and potential new owners in my area. Now there's a new implementation whose effect could be easier on the owners and I made one vocalization of displeasure (a strong one). That's certainly not wrong. And I'm glad it was noted. Now my hope is that something constructive results from the time spent by both me (and others) who took the time to tell Empeg how they felt.

It's hardware/software. Empeg can't please everyone. Empeg MUST protect itself. It -IS- a delicate balance. Contributing feedback -- good or bad -- that has a bearing on the balance I just mentioned is what being a beta owner is about.

Hopefully Rob, Hugo, and other Empeg owners on this forum can see past the complaint, itself, and realize that it stems from something none of us likes.

I don't think this thread has become over-reactionary at all; I think it's been a much-needed reality check. With all the positive feedback there will always be some negative feedback. The positive outweighs the negative manyfold for this company and this piece of hardware. The implementation that people don't like is new and certainly isn't be perfect. I trust that Empeg will work to bring it to a state that both it and its users consider as close to perfect as one can get -- given all the constraints (time, resources, legal concerns, etc) involved.

-- Bleys




"If you would judge, understand." -- Seneca

Maybe in the Mark2 we could have the empeg voice recognition accept the phrase "Empeg. I will not sue. Honest." to switch the visuals on and this could be sampled and stored off to disc in case the driver lied (kind of like a cockpit voice recorder - store the last 10 minutes of conversation prior to a crash )

I can see it now... some newsreader solemnly announces a pile-up on the motorway, rounding off with the comment "...crash investigators are currently searching for the Empeg unit"

(tongue firmly in cheek!!)

Geoff
---- -------
Reg No. 554, s/n 00064 - It's mine I tell you.... all mine :)

Well, i AM goddamn annoyed NOT by empeg, and NOT by the fact why they had to do it, but still i personally have to suffer the strange laws in a foreign country, THAT annoys me ...
Hopefully that will be solved by a control in emplode ( prepare for flashing and for big letters in red :-) ), but if NOT, then please have a heart for the people living under sensible laws and post a US version and a rest-of-the-world-where-lawyers-dont-rule-the-people version.

Thx, Nils, #123 & annoyed by 10a

Unfortunately an increasing number of societies are moving in the same direction as the US. Litigation on grounds of user stupidity is becoming commonplace in the UK, although the payouts aren't usually quite as astronomical.

Rob

eeeeek .....

Maybe you could set up an "unofficial" Website in south korea or something, and post the "patched-to-usable" release versions under a seret name "Freedom4empeg_Cracker" or so :)

If yes, dont tell us, that would blow that secret thingy ....


:-)

Not to beat a dead horse, but wouldn't the whole problem go away if (on the Mark II, at least) we could just take advantage of the voice recognition and say "Empeg. Visuals On" and continue on our merry way?

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Not to beat a dead horse, but wouldn't the whole problem go away if (on the Mark II, at least) we could just take advantage of the voice recognition and say "Empeg. Visuals On" and continue on our merry way?

But then it would have to respond with "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that".

You'd probably find all your music had turned into "Daisy" too...


--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)

Good point, Doug.

Of course, that only applies to you Mark 2 folks. There are about 350 of us Mark 1 folks who don't get VR.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144