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Integrate iPod with Car or Risk Death
An anonymous reader writes "CNET has talked to Apple about its big plans for the car. Apple say they're keen to save the lives of anyone who risks death by "reaching into the footwell of his car to retrieve an iPod nano at around 90mph" and anyone who "considered skipping tracks on his iPod more important than the lives of multiple humans". Apple are also said to be "delighted by the efforts of Mac users who retrofit the Mac Mini into cars" and are "keeping an eye on what these hackers are up to with their Macs." The writer also pitched his own design ideas to Apple's director of global product marketing, Bob Borchers: "We suggested to Borchers that Apple should allow drivers to use their car steering wheel as a giant Clickwheel interface, so that you can change tracks by changing lanes. Borchers foresaw certain safety problems with such a device and rejected the concept.""
You can kill someone by just focusing on the stereo display instead of the road, too. This guy was just more Darwinian than most.
Perhaps car stereos need to be rubber-padded to accomodate the lowest common denominator, like so many other consumer products. Something to prevent you from changing discs, tracks or stations unless the transmission is in park.
John
I've never almost died by trying to use my RF intefaced iPod on the freeway. Nope. Never.
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We suggested to Borchers that Apple should allow drivers to use their car steering wheel as a giant Clickwheel interface, so that you can change tracks by changing lanes. Borchers foresaw certain safety problems with such a device and rejected the concept.""
Jesus, is it April already?
I know a lot of manufacturers have started including iPod connections in the glovebox with stereo's equipped with direct control of the gadget, but has anyone made a headunit with a cassette-like bay for the iPod? It would be like, retro cool. I guess the problem comes with the different form factors of all the different iPods, but I suppose they could include various shims.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Hey, at least he wasn't placing a needle on a 45 while driving!
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
You missed the joke - go get your morning cup of coffee, then reread. Repeat until it's at least slightly humorous.
Please ignore any obvious problems in this post.
Obviously they've never had somebody 'borrow' their music player of choice and load it down with eight hours of 'Therapeutic Gong'.
Turn the steering wheel, and your get the scroll function. Horn selects.
It's beyond darwinian. He's prepared to take out smart people in other cars.
Developers: We can use your help.
And we could tie the accelerator to Volume control, and the brake could be the Pause button. Oh, and we could have the engine make funny clicking noises to provide sensory feedback and we would be all set.
We'd have to ban Brittany Spears though, because mayhem would quite likely ensue as thousands of drivers struggled to hit pause, turn down the volume and change tracks simultaneously.
We could call it the iPod MEGA. An iPod you can drive around in.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Nissan has a unit which connects through my satellite wiring, my car was prewired, that will allow me to control my iPod from the built-in stereo. This will also allow me to control the iPod via the steering wheel controls.
I honestly am not sure whats worse, being able to use it this way with all the distractions it may cause, or not having the option available. I will figure that out for myself.
Still it makes one wonder, should functions which inherently distract you from driving be prevented by the hardware? I know some navigation functions are disabled if the vehicle is moving, why not other functions?
I can change radio stations without visual queues but selecting playlists isn't going to be as easy. Sometimes I think answering your cellphone should shut your car off.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
...I just grab the wire that's attached to it and start pulling. I use a lighter plug charger which has an audio-out jack on the charger plug, and the cassette adapter plugs into that. Ergonomically, it's like using a wired remote, only the music is in the "remote" itself. It cost a bit more for this than the other cheapie brands that don't have an audio jack, but I had already been using an MP3 CD player for a few years and was never happy with two wires to the player constantly getting tangled.
And why has it taken car stereo manufacturers so long to put input jacks on the damn things anyhow? Mine is seven years old, and I'm not too aware of what the norm is now. For all I know, they still aren't including input jacks. Cassette adapters are an ugly workaround that shouldn't be necessary, and FM transmitters are usually too weak or imprecise.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Mopar (Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep/etc) has a system that gives iPod control to most of their vehicle's radios over the last five or so years.
The problem is, it doesn't work. They claim it works with all Dock iPods, and explicitly list all of them, but it just plain doesn't work with any 3G iPods. The radio comes up and says to update the firmware on the iPod. Of course 3G iPods haven't gotten any updates in a LONG time.
My girlfriends Mini (4G?) works with it... sort of. Only half the albums, artists or playlists show up... even if those songs play just fine in a playlist that references them.
It remains to be seen if later iPods actually work as advertised. The problem is, these products are not well supported (or supported at all). An iPod cable is a different beast from most car accessories or features. A quick search through various car support forums makes it sound like the problem is pretty common -- these non-Apple integrations sometimes work great, sometimes work some, and sometimes just don't work.
Caveat Emptor.
Unfortunately, I don't think even a Heads Up Display (HUD) + controls integrated into the steering wheel would really solve the fundamental problem that people can't focus their eyes on two things at once.
Most people can't even be expected to react quickly to outside events if they're talking on the phone while driving. Why would we expect anything more if they're not even focusing their eyes on the road, much less their brains.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I remember back when I'd leav my discman on the passenger seat (as it was too big for the cup holder). That thing was always falling into the footwell on sharp turns and such. But I never-ever-ever attempted to reach down and pick it up while driving: that would be insane (and possibly fatal).
It could have simply been the guy wasn't thinking clearly that one time. It's happened to me dozens of times where I won't be thinking and will do something incredibly stupid that I'd never do under normal circumstances. But I like to think that this is limited to putting the organge-juice carton in the dish washer and not doing something that could lead to my death.
I think that must already be implemented because I already see that behavior on all sorts of drivers every day.. And here I thought they were just idiots!
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
Ban ipods, radios, phones, noisy kids, and all other distractions from automobiles.
There, we can all drive safer now.
Rule #1 of iPod safety: People reaching for their iPods don't cause car accidents. Idiots reaching for their iPods do.
Corrollary to rule #1: Anyone causing an accident while reaching for his iPod is an idiot.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
qoute "Hey, at least he wasn't placing a needle on a 45 while driving!"
Yeah, singles are so out. Custom 33 1/3 LP all the way.
Didn't a luxury car maker feature a turntable in one of their commercials?
I've been driving with a Creative Nomad (well, now it's a Zen Sleek) since I started driving over 5 years ago... it's never caused me to be in an accident. It's called common sense -- use it! "Oh, I want to find that one album by so-and-so and play it right now teheheheh" Well, have your passenger do it / pull over into a parking spot or onto the shoulder / hit the "next track" button until you hear it (Creative has a menu action when a song is playing called "play album"... I'm guessing there's an iPod equivalent) / decide that not getting in an accident is a little more important than listening to some certain song. Personally, I use my sense of touch instead of sight when I'm using my Creative while driving -- I think it's a very simple thing to do, iPods don't need to scan your retinas in order to change the song or up the volume... so in theory, iPod users should be able to do the same (in fact, I know they can because I've seen friends do it).
First rule of driving -- don't be an idiot!
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
"Sure, officer, I know I'm driving the wrong way, but the music's better here."
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most of the cars coming out of BMW plants over the last several years have had supposed iPod "integration" -- including my Mini.
For a collaboration between two companies known for their design elegance, the BMW iPod dock is an abomination.
Basically, it fools your car into thinking that the iPod is a 6-disc CD changer, and yes, the stereo controls on the steering wheel do control it. Sort of.
You have to create 6 playlists called BMW1,BMW2 or MINI1,MINI2 etc and you're basically limited to using only those playlists unless you want to go through your entire 60gb library in alphabetical order. The model I own doesn't show text on the head-unit either, although I've been told that newer ones do this.
Top it off with the fact that the 'dock' is just a cable floating loose in the glove box allowing your 'pod to bounce around all over the place and you've got basically a hack that reduces your iPod to a stack of MP3 CDs because you can't find anything and the interface is completely crippled. Seriously, why would you create an iPod dock and then rob every trace of iPod-ness from the user experience?
I loathed this solution so much that I went back to the dealer and had an Aux jack installed in the glove box and just ran a cable down to my cupholder through the console.
Here's hoping that Apple comes up with a truly elegant solution.
I don't have any links, but a few manufacturers attempted to heed the calls of people who wanted to play their LPs on the road. None were sucesseful for a few reasons. Suspension tech was pretty bad and the roads were worse. There was no way to have a record play continuously over anything but perfect driving conditions. Applying more force on the arm broke needls over the bumps and occationally damaged the vinyl.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Now that I don't have to worry about changing songs on my iPod, I can free up my hands to read a magazine while talking on my cellphone and eating a Cheeseburger.
I swear! I once saw a guy do that! I wasn't driving at the time...
Seriously, when people invent stuff like this and say it's 'Fool-Proof', they're basicly just sticking their tounges out at God, says "Lord, not even you could make a human so stupid, that they could screw this up!" God disagrees, and proves them wrong with horific, yet hillarious ease.
Driver distractions in general are the problem. "Eyeballs off the road" or "fishing around in the footwell for my stray iPod" are extreme (and extremely stupid) cases. But just the thought process of "hmm...which CD has my Led Zeppelin and which CD has my Devo?" is enough distraction to take my focus off the road.
Another example is thinking I'm "safer" with my handsfree car phone than I am fumbling about with a handheld. Sure, that's a bit safer than not fumbling with it, but I guarantee that if you're on a hands-free phone call and get into a heated argument with your spouse (or any other emotionally upsetting phone call) that your concentration isn't going to remain fully on the road.
If car stereos were locked down while the cars are in motion, the temptation to change tracks would be gone, and so would the distraction.
John
I don't own a car or an ipod, do I really have to die?
I rarely talk on the phone while driving. I only do so if the call can't wait and there is little to no traffic. Even then I find the extra gadget distracting. My MP3 player is conveniently located within a finger's reach when I have my hand on the gearshift, so as long as I'm in 1st, 3rd, or 5th gear I barely have to glance at it to change volume or tracks. Talking on a cell phone with a manual transmission is a bit tougher, which is partly why I don't like talking on it while driving. Headsets aren't a problem for me as long as I get the call set up while I'm stopped.
I think the key is knowing your limits. I know that trying to keep a phone on my head in the right spot to hear it while turning the wheel and shifting gears is more than I can handle, so I don't do it. I know my truck can't take corners well, so I have to slow down. I know my car can take the corners with its front wheel drive. I know I can talk easier on a cell phone in my (automatic) car, so my limit there is a little more relaxed.
Every day I see counterexamples, though. People driving big SUVs like sportscars when they can't corner and can't handle like one. Talking on cell phones in heavy traffic. Eating while driving in heavy traffic. Et al. This is a driver problem, not a gadget problem.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
This is a great argument for traveling with a spouse/significant other/friend. All you need to do is ask them to fix the iPod. This works well for all sorts of other mundane chores one shouldn't perform while driving.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
If I am able to turn the player off, I will become frustrated and unfit to drive.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I know when I am in a high speed chase on Santa Monica Freeway and the news helicopters are overhead, the last thing I want to be doing is fumbling for my copy of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" on my ipod!
Any recent (e.g., last 4 years) factory stereo has a special port on the back for connecting a CD Changer to the unit. Some ingenious companies have figured out ways to use this port to bridge any music player into the stereo system -- essentially fooling the head unit by emulating a cd changer with an iPod or whathaveyou. These bridges generally include a true iPod cable connector which allows the iPod to be controlled directly at the head unit, so using your ipod is about as safe as changing CD tracks.
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Most also include a less-safe option of an RCA bypass jack that you can use with other players. Online car stereo places sell good quality ones for between $100 and $200 depending upon your model of car. Not bad for CD-quality sound out of your ipod, through your car, when the Griffin iTrip FM adapter costs about $95 these days.
Read more info here:
http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/ProdGroup.asp?
i have one for my new corolla... took about 10 minutes to install and works flawlessly.
Unfortunately, so far, the best controller for an iPod I've seen is still the iPod itself. All the iPod interfaces to car-stereo unit's I've seen use the car's head unit as the controller for the iPod, including setting up playlists and what not. This isn't practical with a 60GB iPod loaded with tens of thousands of tracks and hundreds of playlists.
Just place the iPod near the steering wheel, use that as the controller for the tracks and playlists, and forget about all the horrible interfaces in the head-unit. It should only be connected with an Aux cable for audio. Actually, a bluetooth interface for audio transfer to the car would even be better, since there's no cable. Need apple to come up with a bluetooth equipped iPod, though.
The placement of the controls isn't the problem. The visibility of the controls isn't the problem. The driver who thinks he can drive the radio and the car at the same time is the problem.
Driver distractions in general are the problem.
No, the problem is that cars are driven by human beings who are inherently fallible. This is very old, but poor technology. Even if every distraction/impediment is eliminated, more people still will die from traffic accidents than any other preventable form of death.
It's a bit worse than talking to an adult passenger, because a passenger is usually aware of the road conditions and will shut up at the appropriate time, and will understand when your concentration needs to be fully on the road. People on the other end of the cell call usually don't recognize that I'm driving and certainly aren't aware of my traffic situation. Occasionally I have to butt in with a "Sorry, I'm driving and there's a problem, could you hang on a moment?" The other party is almost universally accepting of this -- if you bother to tell them. But I remember at least one occasion where traffic was tight, and my boss just wouldn't shut up, so I hung up on him. Yeah, that's why I hung up.
John
...if everyone drove bumper cars we wouldn't be having this discussion.
I have a '99 Camry, which is, of course, before they started making iPod retrofits, steeringwheel controls, and all that jazz. I got a nice leather case by Vaja, with a rivet in the back, that hooks into a little belt clip. What I did is bought a second beltclip device, and mounted it on my dashboard in the center console, above the stereo. I ran a Blitzsafe connector (which delivers line level audio, as well as power) to the CD changer port on my stereo. So I basically have a quick little clip to hold my ipod (I went in and bent down the clip so I don't have to press the button to remove the iPod) on top of my dashboard, and I can bring it right up in front of me when operating it, so I can keep my eyes on the road. When I get out of the car, I can pull it clean off, in one swoop, and clip it back on my belt. So when I leave the car, it goes with me, and it's become second nature to do so.
For safety reasons, I wait until I'm at a red light, or when there's no traffic around me to switch tracks (and no, I don't use playlists, I hate playlists). If you change albums, I usually wait until an oportune time (like a red light), and navigate to the track I want before the previous track finishes, so all I have to do is hit "menu" "center button" to play the next track I want to hear, I don't even have to look to do that! Also, I listen to a lot of prog, which has 10-20 minute tracks, so I don't switch tracks very much, if at all...
The real killer is people who do custom mods that require that your iPod be docked into a stationary location, so you have to actually bend over and squint to operate it. I was blown away when I noticed how many people are doing this, it seems like the worst thing in the world to do. Go onto iLounge and they have a forum for car modding, and so many people have done this thing of putting a universal dock into their ash tray. I think the solution is to be able to move the iPod around at will, so you don't feel the need to bend down to operate it, or a passanger can operate it. In this way, it's probably even safer than a car stereo... and less prone to theft, as well.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Most people can't even be expected to react quickly to outside events if they're talking on the phone while driving. Why would we expect anything more if they're not even focusing their eyes on the road, much less their brains.
Have you ever seen the workload a beginner pilot takes on. He's constantly on the radio to ground, has one hand on the yoke or stick, both feet at rudder pedals and his other hand controls throttle and every other instrument that has to be regulated (mixture, prop) and to tune radios and transponder etc. All while flying a small aircraft which if it gets too slow will happily stall and if you're not high enough to recover fall out of the sky, and keeping an eye out for traffic.
Granted this is one reason why flying a plane is harder than driving a car, however what we need is better training so that drivers can cope with distractions, rather than assuming that everyone is a moron who can't multitask. The bottom line is something's always going to be there to distract you. Whether its a cell phone, a radio, the spouse and kids or stuff shifting in the back that you thought you'd secured.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer