iRiver to Build In-Dash Digital HD Players

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like iRiver is going to take over where the Rio Car left off. Their CEO announced today that they are near completion on a new plant in China that will produce HD-based in-dash digital music players for automobiles. The new plant can push out 700K units a month. With the iPod dominating the digital portable market, iRiver sees this as a wide-open area they can move into. According to MacWorld iRiver is the third leading seller of MP3 portables with 5.6% of the market, following the number two seller Rio which holds 6.4% of the market. And the Apple iPod? No surprise, only a whopping 65.8% of all units shipped. 92% if you only count HD portables."

Comments

Networking - The Missing Piece

[superid]

I don't want to yank my player out of the dash when I want to add songs. I want to drive my car into my garage and have it present on my home network. Then from my desktop I will drag/drop songs to the car.

Why the heck is it taking the auto industry so long to add simple network connectivity to cars? I know it's a price sensitive market, and potentially a security problem, but I've been anticipating this "no brainer" option for years....where is it???

Re:the problem is

[Inda]

That's nonsense.

Wiring up a car stereo is easy. It's no different than pluging in the speakers of a house stereo. Removing the trim to hide wires is the hardest part but even 'shop monkeys' can do this easily enough.

Are you also saying that my Alpine is worse than the piece of crap that came with my Honda? I don't think so.

Input jack

[fossa]

Can someone please make a car with a stereo that has an audio input? Does such a thing exist even in aftermarket? Assuming I already have a portable music player, I could just plug it in to my car stereo. Instead, I'm stuck using some pathetic mini FM transmitter, or cassette adapter if I have a cassette deck, or buying a whole new HD car stereo.

*sigh*