The long-awaited update of Analogue Pocket 1.1 will finally arrive in July, Analogue announced in a brief blog post on Friday.
Version 1.1 of Analogue Pocket OS will include beta versions of the Library, Memory, and FPGA development features, according to the blog post. You can read more about the first two features in our October article; The Library will be a great historical archive on retro games, while Memories will allow you to capture and upload saved states as well as capture screenshots.
It seems that the development function will allow developers to take advantage of the second FPGA (field programmable gate array) of the analog. “Pocket is designed to be as easy as possible to develop and carry FPGA cores,” Analogue says on its website. “We’ve added a second dedicated FPGA just for developers to develop and bring their own kernels. Developers will be able to connect to Analogue OS: Library, Memories and Tools. And to pocket hardware, I / O and climbers.”
It’s not clear why the update is so late
At the time of the launch of the retro handheld in December, Analogue told Polygon that the update would arrive in January, but now, the company says a beta version of the update will arrive six months later. It is unclear what the hurdle has been or when Analogue expects 1.1 to be out of beta. Analogue CEO and founder Christopher Taber did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.
Even without the features coming with v1.1, Analogue Pocket is still an awesome device, with my colleague Andrew Webster saying that “the pocket gives new life to old games by showing them the best possible” your review. But if you don’t have one of your laptops yet, you may have to wait a while to get it. The next set of pre-orders (group B) is expected to arrive in the fourth quarter, and if you pre-order a Pocket right now, you won’t receive it until 2023.