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Pods Unite
burgburgburg writes "Apple has released the QuickTime video of the new commercial they made in conjunction with Volkswagen. The connection between the two? Buy a New Beetle. Get a new iPod. Take a look at video.
It's the 15 GB iPod and all the accessories needed to hook it up to the new Volkswagen." It uses a casette adapter, which is really lame. Of course, I use a casette adapter with my iPod, but I am not a German engineer.
Oh wait. this is the part where i am supposed to whine that it does not have Ogg Vorbis support right...?!
Would it kill these guys to put a mini-jack on the dash (or somewhere) and an AUX setting on the stereo.
Bueller? Anyone?
Hedley
Why, oh why, can't they just start giving us a 1/8th input jack on car stereos?? I've been wanting this for years, before mp3 players even, becuase I had a car that didn't have a tape player in the stereo and at the time I wanted to plug one in.
You'd think that designing and implementing such a thing would cost a fraction of what it costs to make and run this advertisent.
I would like to see some kind of poll of which is more useful to people.. a tape player or a 1/8th inch stereo input jack. After all, you can plug an external tape player into a jack easier, with more elegance, and for about the same cost as you can plug an external mp3 player into the tape player.. and I don't have any tapes anymore...
IANAGE.
i just bought an ipod. do i get a new beetle?
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
So Is there a car with Firewire or USB connectivity from the manufacturer ?? If not how long before we see it ?
BTW I think this will be better than those in car removable hard drive solutions from 2-3 years ago
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
If someone can afford to lay down the money for a new VW, couldn't they afford to get a new ipod if they really wanted to? I wonder then whether this is more of a promotion for apple than VW.
This is a good thing. Many companies are indirectly promoting mp3 music, etc.
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This would have been back around the '94 model year or so (on a friend's car, not mine). As I remember, the sound was not great, but certainly better than any of the tape adaptors available at the time. No idea why they ditched it...probably so they could sell you their $349 single-CD player, or $699 changer...
For all the people who do not want a cassette adaptor. Check out the ITrip. I need to order one of these. My brother stated that he has good luck with it. http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/itrip/
AFAIK the beetle is designed in the US and since this is totally US-specific I guess no German engineers were involved whatsoever. I mean, if they were, then they propably wouldn't have use the casette-adaptor anyway. (Especially since noone uses cassettes in Europe anymore. Boo hiss, old, ancient!)
still waiitng for the Beetle with an Imac style flat panel popping out the top. 100 inches or so to keep the proportions...
This isn't VW's big pull to align with apple (obviously the thing interacts through a tape deck). This is a gimick. They going to throw in a chop-o-matic too?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The holster is a bit hokey... would it kill apple/vw to design the ipod so that it can go inside a slot fairly deep such that only the lcd screen is showing? I'm thinking on top of the dash, kinda like a toaster. If necessary, the ipod should be able to rotate the image on its screen accordingly (for upside-down or sideways installations).
I wonder if the car can control the ipod - i.e. fast forward, rewind, etc. The older-style remote protocol is documented here so that you can build an interface to anything you want. It includes nice pictures & working source code!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Yes, but does the cassette adapter work in one of those 8-track adapters? You know the ones; they plug into the 8-track slot on your dashboard and you can put a cassette in them.
The website has been stating "shipping soon" for a very long time now. At any rate, this could be an easier connection than a tape cassette, except for the possible trade-off of sound quality.
-jc
When CDs started becoming more popular, the tape-players had aux inputs meant for discman-type players. Then they switched to in-dash CD players and dropped the inputs... now they're being caught behind the MP3-player curve again and are trying to re-add the input. With a car lifespan so long, you'd think that car manufacturers should give up trying to predict what personal electronic trends will be 15 years in the future, and just add the jack to all radios.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
If you don't have a CD Changer installed, you use this adapter. It will change the CD wiring to a standard RCA plug. It also provides a serial line, which with some hacking can be used to control your iPod from the head unit.
In 2003 beetles, the CD Changer is prewired to be installed between the seats (remove the insert). In the older models, it's wired to the trunk. There are also adapters that plug in behind the head unit, rather than using the cd cabling.
This way you don't need to use a FM transmitter or casette adapter, and you don't need to change the stock radio (and run into the K-wire problem)
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Damn, that sucks. Especially when the commercial kinda makes it look (to my unfamiliar-with-VW eye) like the iPod is a little better integrated with the stereo than that. Oh well.
:-(
Depending on what kind of stereo you've got, you may be able to get an auxiliary input cable adapter. I got one from XMFanstore for the OEM stereo in my car, which has an unused aux connector for a CD changer-- the adapter I bought just ends in female RCA jacks, so you can hook up pretty much any audio input to it. Maybe one of these days I'll be in the mood to take the center console apart and pull the stereo out to connect that cable. Until then, I'm using a crappy cassette adapter.
Another product I'll be getting when it's available is this RF iPod remote control. I plan to run the cable to a storage compartment in the console, so the iPod will be out of sight/the way but I'll still be able to control it.
I agree with the "Why aren't they putting God damned input jacks on car stereos yet?" sentiment. What we really need are car stereos and MP3 players with Bluetooth, so they can connect that way. Of course, then you'd have short battery life without plugging the MP3 player into an auto power adapter-- but at least pretty much every car has someplace to plug one of those in.
~Philly
It's not to hard to rig up a custom set up yourself. For most stereos you can at least get an adapter to allow aux inputs. On mine it runs through the cd changer controls to the aux input adapter. Then that runs to my belkin auto charger which has a little amp in it. The auto charger is spliced into the cigarette lighter, but this is all under the dash so all you see coming out is the data cable from the belkin charger. And the vent clip on cell phone holder that they sell at radio shack is a perfect fit for the iPod. Here is a pic of the setup. My iPod Setup
-Alex
i'm just fine with my setup. my ipod plugs in to the AUX port on the faceplate of my aiwa deck in my toyota corolla.
cassette adapters are a joke.
I've driven pretty much every late model VW that there is, and every single one that had an OEM stereo had incredibly terrible sound, this for a car that is basically bought and marketed towards younger people who DO play music. In a new Jetta for example, the sound was so bad I couldn't even belive that was possible. My 1993 Cherokee puts out better sound, and the two rear speakers don't even work, and to top that I'm using a tape adapter as well. So, I wouldn't even want to put an iPod in there at all... who says it has to live in your car? It would just be a waste since the sound systems stink so much.
Oh, I know, maybe you thought they were giving away the ipods.
For a group that does a lot of whining about generic music a la britney spears every time the music debates come up, slashdot sure has a nice way of playing the marionette whenever some new pseudo-kitsch gadget or anime box set comes out..
You're at the VW dealership, and you climb inside the brand new Beetle. And you see this little white thing near the stereo. You ask the dealer what that's all about, he encourages you to play with it. You see that it's filed with literally thousands of songs that you can play in the car's stereo instantly. You ask. He says it's yours with the car. You go across the street to anotehr car dealer. Inside the car you find the usual CD player with some lame CD they stuck in there. Just one CD at a time. It's all about overwhelming the prospective buyer with the experience. And the idea of all the music you could ever need at your fingertips is definitely a compelling one.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
PhatBox
I know, it's not cheap and doesn't support vorbis files and the manager is Windows only.
But to me the ability to control it through my factory head unit makes that a non-issue.
It does support mp3, wma, flac and audible.
If I wasn't leasing my car I would have gotten one as soon as Audi officially supported and started installing them.
The original air-cooled Beetle (introduced back in the 1930s) is discontinued. The New Beetle (front-engine water-cooled) is still being produced worldwide.
I bought a 92 Honda Accord from a friend, and she had installed a Blaupunkt CD stereo. The cool thing about this stereo is that it has an aux in cable that is connected to the stero and ends up in the glove box. I have a 2nd generation 10gig iPod and I connect it to the stero using this cable- and leave the iPod in the glove box playing away. There is a button on the stereo that lets you choose the source of the music, aux, cd, or stero. It's a nice set up. You might want to check out the Blaupunkts to see if they fit your needs.
Which just goes to prove my theory: German engineers love cassette adapters.
And David Hasselhoff.
Wow!
I can't be the only slashdot poster to see past the technical aspects of hooking up an iPod in a car and see one very very beautifull add. Without looking it up my guess would be that the Volkswagen people put the add together, it's in their style.
With its style & music I put it on the same level as the recent technically cool Honda add.
Some manufacturers are getting the right idea. Honda's Element has a power source (cig lighter thing) and a mini-jack input in the glove box. It also has a third power plug in the cargo area for a cooler.
Of course, the Element is targeted to the surfer wilderness crowd, but hopefully they'll start to see that other people have iPods, too.
Kevin Fox
Why do marketing people still insist in talking like this?
"It was inevitable, really. When two groups of people have so much in common, eventually they find each other. Volkswagen and Apple. Buy a New Beetle. Get a new iPod. And the kit that brings them together (plus a lot of other cool stuff like free music and a $100 Apple Store coupon). Learn more about this special deal."
I noticed that if you want to generate a feeling in the reader's mind, lots of short sentence fragments really prevent that from happening.
You do realize that a restored beetle is much more affordable than a Toureg. I've seen some really nice frame off, nut and bolt, complete restorations go for around $10,000. You can get a Restored VW for each day of the week instead of a Toureg. Lets say an Oval window for Monday, A split for Tuesday, A Super for Wednesday, A convertable for Thurdsay and a Baja for Friday.
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
a car stereo that has a "docking bay" slot in it where you can just plug in your iPod? That would be ideal, just stuff it into the dash to play your tunes in the vehicle, while charging the iPod, then take the iPod with you when you go. No need to pull the stereo out of the dash to load new music onto it either. And having an important component removable should make it less prone to theft also, as the MP3 stereos seem to be very high risk right now.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Instead, its a lame combination of just a generic casette adapter, a generic cigarette lighter slot charger, and a bumper sticker, which they're ALWAYS out of. Instead of buying a beetle with this lame system,
I think that I can build my own. All I need is a spare iPod dock, that kit that you can use to connect to the RCA ports behind the radio, and the charger that plugs into the dock. Then, I simply attach the dock to a drink holder or something, and there is a MUCH better solution than the one that Apple/VW is offering. All I would have to do is plug the iPod into the dock, instead of messing with wires.
If the world's safest compact, and the world's highest capacity sub 6 oz mp3 player, are underperforming technologies, I wonder what you consider the par to be.
You see, there are many different directions engineering goes in. Making faster engines or bigger SUVs is one direction. Making efficient engines and safer small cars is another. Making a high capacity hard drive is one. Making a regular capacity hard drive light enough to carry around is another.
But maybe you're right. Maybe there are some things we just shouldn't bother engineering. So, you know, all of these "feed the world" biotech kooks and "reduce the depletion of our natural resources" solar energy kooks should just give up.
Oh, and as for the "50% too high" comment: fuck you. You don't know what the margin is, know less about business than you do about engineering and Apple shouldn't drop the prices that are keeping them alive just to appease people who don't want an iPod anyway. My 30 gb iPod was the easiest $538.92 I ever spent (after selling four shitty mp3 players that were too big, bulky, poorly designer or low capacity, I found myself with over $600...enough to buy a couple CDs, too).
Hey freaks: now you're ju
And here's where the Bluetooth phone could shine, as the simple act of bringing the phone into or out of the car could magically set up forwarding for you.
And for that matter, if the car had Bluetooth to work with your phone, and your hypothetical third-generation iPod had Bluetooth support as well, then the need for the AUX jack would be very much diminished for you.
Someday, maybe...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Um, I like VW and Apple, and no way am I "left" or "liberal".
I think you should put down the crackpipe.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
this ipod thing seems a little silly, given that they are selling phatboxes as dealer installed options on vw's and audis. (and yes, it runs linux and plays ogg vorbis)
unofficial ogg for the ipod is found here