Thanks!

(I'm still hoping someone will port empeg to an ios ap. It's way beyond my skillset. My last - and only - real port job was in the early '80s, bringing Adventure to our high school BTI system. "Plugh")

-jk

The thing I'm really hoping for is if somebody would create a smartphone app that would emulate the Empeg's functionality, with the mp3's on the smartphone. I had very high hopes for that Empeg on Raspberry Pi project, but unfortunately it seems to have died before it was even born...

I might be interested in giving that a shot on Android...I don't have any time right now, but I might steal some weekend evening hours here and there over the summer.

Are you thinking of replicating all empeg functionality?

That might be one of the very few reasons that I would switch to Android. I'm not sure, however, how much of the empeg you would want to keep. The tactile UI is obsolete, since we're pretty much stuck with whatever the car gives you over bluetooth. The database with FIDs, etc... would probably have to go too, since I'm sure Android has its own way of storing music already.

So we're pretty much just left with the player app and the visual UI. I would think the place to start would be to find an open source audio player app, and then tweak it to add the features that we love on the empeg.

It would be a good idea for us to put together a list of feature requirements. (must haves, nice to haves, don't wants, etc)

I highly value a web interface, which could essentially emulate the empeg weblite.

Since there would be no Emplode app, at least in the way I'm approaching this, the process(es) for building playlists would need to be as simple as possible. (I have no time/interest in spending hours recreating the playlists as they currently exist on my empegs via touchscreen. Perhaps it could be accomplished easily enough via the weblite-esque http interface mentioned above.

Having said those things, playing music on an Android device is very easy. The MediaPlayer API is rich and there is lots of documentation. It would be a fun project for sure.

Hi Jason! That would be awesome!
No, I don't need all functionality, but what I would love is :
1. Being able to browse by playlist (effectively play a folder - I use my own folder structure) and turn shuffle on/off at will.
2. An easy way to search for tracks and insert them into the playlist to play next - while playing of course
3. Also, when playing a playlist and I hear a track by a certain artist that I like, I then often pressed a button that inserted another random track from that same artist to play immediately after. That for me was the most used feature!! No other player currently does this! Also, when I didn't want to hear a certain artist anymore, by pressing and holding down that same button, all other tracks from that specific artist were purged from the playlist.
4. The Empeg's intelligent search feature where you'd only need to type in a few letters to find what you need because it would limit the possible results based on the available tracks in your collection. (and make suggestions and show you what it thinks you meant). Also when you eg. searched for "Peter Gabriel", it showed the total number of tracks by Peter Gabriel in your collection (well, on the phone anyway) between brackets, and then you could immediately add/insert those into the playlist.
5. A play bar so I could easily scroll through the track (the Empeg does not have this, but it didn't have a touch screen either of course, so it's kind of mandatory now)

Currently I use Car Tunes. While it does have its flaws, I do like the interface. It gives a good overview and is easy to use. It also allow you to search via voice control. That would be a big bonus of course, but I would never expect you to implement such a thing. Oh, I don't really need to see the Empeg interface for nostalgic reasons. Just (some of) its features.

I would also like to offer you to help wherever I can, more specifically eg. if you would need somebody to betatest the app.

Thanks very much for wanting to give this a go!

Agreed, that's what I thought also. We don't need a program to put the music files onto the phone, also no program to manage playlists and no FIDs etc. Basically, all that would be needed would be (some) of the functionality of the Empeg which made it stand out from the rest and the reason why we all loved it.

For me personally I would also not need to see a copy of the Empeg look or interface. This is not necessary at all. I just would like the Empeg's features.

Heresy! The empeg has every feature imaginable!
Instead of a simple, primitive scroll bar, it has the "Info Seek Tool", which in combination with Hijack's "KnobSeek" allows scrolling through a track with the high/low intensity pattern all mapped out!

!!

I should have known! My deepest apologies Mark!

I would just like an empeg shrunk and made into a phone. Still Be able to look the same in the car except for a phone like screen. So basically you have a phone look like a combination of an empeg and phone while able to just click to a slot in your car the size of a DIN slot, just shallow.

Or a nice port into a phone app would be good by me!

The best we have seems to be the rather excellent Android remote control app for the empeg. Still needs an empeg on a network, but everything else is done from an Android device.

Not quite the same thing, but thar she be.

I'm still hoping for an Android app emulating the Empeg with the MP3's that are on the phone. That would be awesome. But I know that the chances of that ever happening are really, really slim...