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Great, now they just need to expand their IPod business by merging with P.I.E. and then get into the Real Estate software business by merging with A La Mode. Appleberry Pie a la mode. Now that's a company I could sink my teeth into.

sorry. ok bye.

Neither FM transmitters nor cassette adapters are a good solution - both greatly reduce the quality of the signal provided to the stereo.

I have an MP3 player in my car, and was using a cassette adapter to interface to it until I could get the head-end adapter (that fooled the stereo into thinking it had a CD jukebox attached) for the car. The difference between the two was not merely night and day - it was night and nova. The cassette adapter had no bass, no treble, and poor stereo seperation.

FM transmitters are just as bad - the maximum frequency is limited to 15 kHz, and the stereo seperation is poor due to the multiplexing of the L-R signal onto the 38kHz pilot tone.

If his stereo has a CDR MP3 player function, it likely has support for a CD jukebox - go to Precision Interface Electronics and order the appropriate adapter, it will be much better.

Well, if the front panel has a button for a CD jukebox and your car doesn't have one, you likely have an input for it, but would need an adaptor - check Precision Interface Electronics and see if your stereo is on the list.

There are other FM transmitters, but you might consider using one of these. They fake the in-dash stereo's CD changer input into thinking it's there and playing CD 1 track 1. That selects the analog input, and you just hook anything up to it.

P.I.E. makes adapters for Kenwood head units so you can hook up other brands of changer. They run about a hundred bucks. I just emailed 'em and asked them if they are planning a computer interface, but I'm not holding my breath.

Actually, they do make "protocol converters" (which provide an AUX input for your car, and convert it into a signal that your car stereo can handle) for a lot of cars. Basically, if your stock/replacement head unit is capable of controlling a CD changer, you may be able to hook in this way.

Try http://www.pie.net/ - I got a converter for my 2001 Honda Civic for $50.

All you'll need to do is figure out how to get to the back of your headunit. My install details are at my blog.

There's more than just those listed out there. Do some searching if yours isn't on that rcainput.com page.

Pacific Accessory Corporation makes several different adapters, as does Precision Interface Electronics.

Note that some of these require that you have a CD Changer or some other form of accessory slave device (like a factory XM receiever, perhaps) already in the vehicle. For an example, the Chevy Impala has the capability to have a CD Changer and the newer Impala's have the built in XM slave device. These use the same connection (a 12 pin connector) to talk to the radio. If you want to use PAC's AAI-GM12, you must have some form of slave. These don't emulate the CD Changer, they simply provide a switch to the audio signal inputs.

It's entirely possible for someone to make a device to interface with the radio as a slave unit in the same way the factory devices do. The advantage to this method would be that stuff like text could be put onto the Radio's display. Newer GM cars, for instance, use the Class 2 Serial Bus (J1850 VPW for those of you in the know) to talk between the radio and the radio's slave unit. The text you see on the screen is actually coming from that slave unit over the data network. That's why you see different things for the XM slave unit, the radio itself is identical, the data it's getting is not.

Nobody I've found makes a device to do specifically this task, but it actually wouldn't be difficult to roll your own. Devices to convert J1850 to RS232 Serial can be had for $75 or so, and usually have a "sniffer" type of mode so you can easily reverse engineer the protocol. If you're into this sort of thing, you could probably write some code to actually display song titles and such from a laptop playing MP3's without a heck of a lot of difficulty. And all your steering wheel controls (which are also on the bus) could work too.

Cars are getting more and more networked, and it's only a matter of time before some bright boy creates a portable MP3 player with an in-car docking station to let it:
a) get power from the car, and possibly recharge
b) send and receive serial type data to the car's network thus allowing in car controls to work and stuff like ID3 tags to be displayed on the radio.

Nearly all modern GM cars have this potential right now. Most Ford's do too. Probably many foreign cars as well, albeit I'm not familiar with their systems. If I could find a MP3 portable device with connections that could allow a docking station in car to be made, I'd roll my own.