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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.
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
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...
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.
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
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..
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.
Which just goes to prove my theory: German engineers love cassette adapters.
And David Hasselhoff.
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.
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