Oh, by no means was I trying to imply it would be "easy", just that it seems it would be totally different now. And I totally agree that touch screens really have no place in a car - for the driver anyway. But again, thinking about what makes the empeg great as opposed to an ipod or other MP3 player, or even most if not all in car entertainment systems is... what? IMO its:

- Database driven, not relying on just MP3 tags at runtime
- Tactile easy to use interface, that is logical, customizable to a certain extent, and most importantly relatively safe to use while driving
- The features of the player software. I.e. how it works. Shuffle mode, the various ways playlists work, and of course things like crossfade, EQ, realtime volume normalization, etc.

Again, not a dev, but been in IT for close to 30 years. Built the proverbial heathkit stuff as a kid. Hack and tinker with anything, etc. It just seems that starting with a new platform, once could design a "player app" that has all that we love about the empeg, perhaps even hardware controls (steering wheel, bluetooth, who knows).

I kinda think about an empeg Gen3. A newer "carputer" platform, one of the available single board PCs, use whatever display works. Use whatever input method works (keyboard - via bluetooth? Custom designed "keyboard" which is really more like an IR remote or button set that uses BT to talk to the PC and could be mounted anywhere? Part of the display/2DIN part? Something like the old Sony stalk? Just tossing out ideas). Perhaps all written on Android? Newer Linux? Windows Moblie?

Pipe dream Im sure, but really, I STILL havent found anything that is just plain as GOOD as the empeg. Nothing. Still planning to somehow hack it into my dash, but its not going to be easy...