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iPod Car Integration Reality Check at Apple Expo
An anonymous reader writes "At the last Apple special event, Steve Jobs was almost bragging about the fact that 70% of new cars sold in the U.S. this year had (optional!) iPod 'integration' available ...
Obviously, he didn't talk about the rest of the world. But most of all, what Steve didn't tell us is how crappy the existing "integration" solutions actually are!
Here is a review of actual iPod car integration solutions showcased Apple Expo 2006 Paris.
Some of the nicest cars (like the Audi TT for example) don't necessarily have the best iPod interfaces."
I rather like the integration in my Scion tC. The iPod is hidden in the center console, while I control it from the head unit.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
In case anyone is interested in Honda's solution, here is my review of the Honda Music Link iPod Adapter.
After being burned by the purchase of the Honda Music Link earlier in the year I wrote up that review to try and keep others from throwing away their money on it.
This is shocking - simply shocking, I must say!
My new 06 Rabbit has iPod integration...and it sucks. Only 6 playlists and you can't see any of the song info on the stereo, plus you can't access songs any way except to click through them one at a time. So much for the click-wheel. It would've been nice to have steering wheel mounted controls too... I know it's an entry level car, but c'mon - it's supposed to be German engineering! I guess the Germans don't like music?
I want the 5 minutes of my life back that I spent reading through that badly-written drivel. The only thing worse would have been the same stuff in an audio or video format. Ugh.
To save others from the same pain, here's a quick summary: the vast majority of iPod integrations work either by pretending the iPod is a CD changer, or by sending RDS (radio data stream, I think - it's the stuff that piggybacks song info onto the AM/FM signal) to the radio. Which means they all still suck. It's cumbersome to navigate stuff and you don't get the info you expect (songname, etc). We get promises that next year, everything will be better, but we heard all that stuff last year already.
In short, if you want to use your iPod in your car now, use your headset. And if you live in California, just hope the cops don't catch you.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
What a terrifically interesting topic for conversation. I am completely amazed that many of the offerings suck. And incredulous that Steve Jobs would crow about the percentage of cars available with iPod integration w/o mentioning that many of them suck.
whoohooo
I'm busy looking for any good solution for my iPod and my 2000 Acura 3.2TL. The tape or FM adapters have poor, inconsistent quality, and my CD player stopped playing burned CDs (it seems to only like 640MB discs and I can't seem to find them anymore). Crutchfield says if I replace the CD player, my factory sub stops working. They have an iPod adapter that plugs into the CD Changer input on the factory stereo, but to install it, I need to remove my console and gearshift! So, in conclusion, any sort of direct-input auxiliary connection for an iPod is better than nothing, bad reviews aside. It could be worse!
At least none of the control schemes have tried to introduce the dangerous fusion of the click and steering wheels...
"Honey, why are we driving in circles?"
"I wanted to listen to some Frank Zappa, but we're still in the L's"
Or, worse yet...
"Dammit, I can't change songs because there's a semi along side me!"
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Why don't they simply use the touchscreen solution so many of my friends have done? They have a touch screen modded into their console, then have it hooked up to a nix laptop and can run a complete media center with it. Considering a lot of cars have LCD displays for whatever, would it really be that hard to put a little 'iPod' button on it to display the car's media center?
The Scion xB is the best. It just has a line in to your stereo. Simple and effective, and I can attach any device I like (my iPod or my piece of $#%& iPaq).
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
The article is loading very slowly so I haven't read it yet, but what constitutes iPod integration? I just ordered an '07 Mustang. It comes with a basic stereo input jack. I would prefer a really well done total iPod integration, but this still works well. The other benefit is that in 10 years if I'm not using an iPod (or the hookups change), it will still work perfectly with my car.
why not use a standard USB connector, Steve? Instead of forcing on us all of your proprietary crap.
The MINI Cooper is the same way. I'm pretty sure all BMW products have the same 'integration' as well as your Rabbit.
My Pioneer DEH-6800MP's iPod integration works very well. The receiver has a wheel that works similar to the iPod's wheel. The reciever's remote would work fine except that it has no repeating or hold-down scroll, so it's useless unless you're near what you're looking for.
The default list gives me Genre, Artist, Song, and Album. Selecting Genre lets me choose the genre and then artists within the genre, so that's my preferred method of finding a given song.
The display shows two lines of song info; I leave it on song title/artist.
Those of us driving old clunkers with cassette decks are snickering, as we can purchase low-cost cassette adapters for iPod or generic MP3 players that take about five seconds to install or remove and don't suffer from interference like the FM transmitters.
Butt ugly.
I used to think the Aztek was an abomination, but wow.
I've complained plenty to Subaru about the lack of options for my Outback. Up until the '07 models, the only solution was the less-than-optimal FM transmitter or an aftermarket replacement for the factory stereo. Unfortunately, in the '07 model they gave it zero effort in "integration" - all we get is an AUX input plug. Sure, this has the benefit of not being iPod specific, but it requires that I have an additional piece of hardware between the iPod and the car to take unamplified (ie, not from the headphone jack) output from the iPod and to feed into the car. Otherwise I'll have the fun that I used to have with the cassette deck adapters where you have to find that nice balance of cd player/iPod volume and system volume. Subaru is near the bottom of the heap with respect to iPod or Satellite radio integration, relying on external units with FM or (now) a single AUX plug as connection. There are many other manufacturers who have done it much better than Subaru has in terms of getting the audio signal into the stereo, and integrating control of the radio/iPod into the car controls to reduce safety risks. For a daily long distance commuter, this is definitely impacting my next car purchase. It's really a shame that such a nice car on the driving end of things fails so miserable in features like this.
We need some intelligent control mechanisms for song selection with the iPod/car integration. For example, if the control scheme detects rapid acceleration and braking, along with heavy steering, it starts playing something from Crazy Taxi. If we just get left hand turns, then start playing music from, I dunno, Days of Thunder maybe? If the traction control system detects lots of skidding, then music from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Also, we'll need some microphones in the car to listen for gunfire, in which case we have a much wider selection of music to chose from.
Remember, the point of this technology is to let you keep your hands on the wheel at all times - safer driving, you know.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
http://www.tomtom.com/products/features.php?ID=212 &Category=0&Lid=4
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I have an Alpine deck, forget which model off hand. Anyway it has an input for an ipod and you are able to control the ipod through the deck. Only down side is when you go to scroll through your music it always starts from the beginning. Its not like the ipod where it starts where you last were. Other than that it works great. It even displays the song info on the deck and you have a few different scroll/display options.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.
Has anyone tried and can they comment on the functionality of the Aux-Pod? I believe it's from PAC audio?
I just ordered a new car stereo, after a couple idiots smashed my window and took off with my cruddy old one. One of the features is USB, another is iPod integration. I don't know if I'll get an iPod some day (when the prices drop considerably I might), but I picked out the model just in case I might.
This is about as welcome as buying a car and then getting home to see it feature prominently on the evening news for an urgent recall.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There is no standard for media player integration, unless you consider the Dock Connector a de facto standard. If all you want is the sound, the iPod has a standard minijack connector and pins for line-out, but it's not "integration" if all you're getting is sound. There isn't a standard, USB or otherwise, for selecting playlists and all the other things that people want to do in their cars.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
There is one option that he forgot to mention, when going over a final rundown of solutions to use: the generic, CD changer interface that doesn't try to read a specific playlist, and you simply control it with your iPod. Seriously, there is NO better interface to control an iPod than the iPod itself, and I'm sorry, but the difference between an interface display with a 10 point font and a 12 point font is really insignificant (especially when one you can hold right in front of you when operating it), so just use the fucking iPod itself.
What I've done, on my '99 Camry, was I bought a "Blitzsafe" iPod adaptor, which plugs into the generic CD Changer port behind the console. I then built a little custom mount, using a modified Vaja case "rivet clip", to be able to quickly pull the iPod in and out of the mount, and attatched it to the top of my dashboard. This way, the rivet clip itself, on my case, acts as the mounting bracket. I left enough cable so that I can pull the iPod up to my face (while at a traffic light, or during light traffic), and operate it normally. If I'm just switching tracks, I'll just use the clickwheel. I've never seen a simpler, more reliable, safer, and more user-friendly iPod integration system than this.
Basically, all I'm trying to say is that with a little research and some ingenuity, anyone can create something far better, and far cheaper than the ones shown here. Everyone has their own way of using their iPod: some people use playlists, others don't, some people put their iPod in a leather case, some put it in a clear rubber one, some (stupid people) don't put the iPod in any case and let it scratch to hell. From what I've noticed, is that most these iPod integration systems virtually require that you 1) use playlists (I don't) and 2) not have your iPod in a case. My suggestion, build your own out of generics if you have the time, then you can customize it to your own style of usage.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Sure spiffy integration would be great. But if 70% of cars just give me an audio line in, I'll be happy. Last car I bought and my last trip to the car radio section at Best Buy a couple of months ago this definitely wasn't the case.
Get into my car!
I have spent quite some time evaluating the current situation of iPod integration capabilities of various car hifi products. And the result? Most manufacturers that brag about iPod compatible head units offer terrible capabilities, most of which were mentioned in other posts (lack of control, only a few (6-10) visible directories ...). This manufacturer shitlist includes names like Sony, Blaupunkt, Kenwood, Pioneer and VDO.
According to a very good car hifi dealership in my neighborhood Alpine and Becker are two of the few that offer great quality of iPod integration (all data visible, freat control and integration ...)
Never underestimate the power of idiots in large groups
Deaf people drive all the time. They just learn to look out for flashing lights and to be careful.
My other first post is car post.
My bypass jack into the amp board on my radio has yet to fail me while listening to my Zen Touch. Plus it costs less than a dollar.
Never heard of it. Durango?
The guy talks about the Dension unit as FM only and uses RDS. That may be true for the version he looked at, but Dension offers several models, most with full integration with the car bus for many cars. I have the iBus version and it sends information to the head unit about tracks, and offers a relatively decent interface using steering wheel controls already built into the car.
The sound is fine, since it goes directly from the connector on the iPod into the car stereo. It looks somewhat like a CD changer to the car, but that's only of consequence if you use playlists (I listen to full albums). You have full control over the iPod by scrolling through the album/artist lists and choosing an album or artist that suits you. Installation is relatively painless and allows you to manipulate the ipod fairly safely. I think it's the best interface out there. Another great use of this interface is that it charges your iPod as you play.
There are many other units; some are better than others. But this writer is blissfully unaware of the actual good interfaces that are out there.
And I agree with another poster here about the Honda interface. I paid almost $200 for it, and the interface is so awful on it that my wife refuses to use it. It's beyond bad. It stretches into that territory that is so comically bad that you have to wonder what product line manager looked at it and said "Oh, that's not so bad, we can ship".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"when you can just stick a tape in that connects right to your ipod?"
A tape in what? Tape players stopped being put in cars right around 2000. You can find them as options, but it's hardly worth it.
Plus, it's a pain to worry about turning off the iPod when you shut off the car, you can't charge the iPod, you have wires hanging over your dash. I'm not clear why somebody buys a $400 iPod (because of aesthetic and sound quality considerations), and then decides to hang wires all over the dash in pursuit of a lo-fi solution to save $150.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
My 05 Murano does not have a specific kit from Nissan for it but I use the XTerra's kit.
It plugs into an extra coupling on the Satellite connection. From there it goes to a "magic box" which has a standard docking cable attachment.
My iPod charges and plays while hooked up. While the stereo controls are not intuitive, forum help was great, I can select ANY playlist I want. I can skip forward and back with the steering wheel controls and control the volume as well. To change playlist I have to use the far selection button on the Bose 6CD In-dash player. I can select playlist, artist, etc - just as if I were using the iPod directly. Selecting "Enter" is one of the buttons on the left. Scrolling between artists/playlists takes a second to response but can be done with the tuning nob.
Not the best but from it sounds like its far better than most setups. I get the full quality of playback as its sourced from the dock connector.
This works with or without the fancy Navigation screen. Non-navigation equipped Murano's have an Orange LED screen that displays text just fine.
One day they might even have a real unit for my specific model and year. I have not used the 6CD player since I hooked up the iPod. It cost around 190 and I got it from http://yournissanparts.com/
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Cars that have satellite radio interfaces in them can adapt better to iPods. Many iPod interfaces use the CD changer interface which does not have a way of sending back a track title. With the satellite interface the title *can* be sent back to the radio. This doesn't necessarily help the overall control of the iPod, but it will display something other than TR04.
For us people that want our SatRad *and* iPod there are interfaces that will allow easy switching between the iPod and the SatRad.
I think this is less a case of Apple doing a poor job, and rather the specific car manufacturer doing a bad implementation. In any case car companies are pretty happy updating their consoles with each revision... so even though it's an Audi which is supposed to be a nice car, and the console is currently unusable, it will be better in the next revision. (Cars often get system updates at services.)
Has anyone else used an iDrive? It has to be the best iPod car solution I've seen. It runs a separate screen and click wheel wannabe while the iPod is tucked away in the centre console. It pauses the iPod when the car stops (so I can come back to the same point in a song when the car starts again - just like a real CD!) and plugs in through line in, so sounds terrific. I have been using mine for 6 months and am really happy with it.
I've hooked my iPod up with four different devices over the past couple years with aftermarket devices; the quality varies greatly. I skipped the FM and tape units as the sound quality isn't satisfactory. So these were all direct-in solutions, using the dock connector and the CD-changer hookup that most cars have today. The one that I most recently installed is called the DICE, and I'm really happy with it. Previous tries had problems with the iPod not always shutting down or starting up automatically when the car was turned on and off, and some of them would introduce odd noises now and again. But the DICE hasn't exhibited any of these problems, and also has some really cool extras like text display of the artist/song if your stereo does CD text, and steering wheel control while still allowing direct control with the iPod.
Anyways, that worked well for me!
Cheers.
The other benefit is that in 10 years if I'm not using an iPod (or the hookups change), it will still work perfectly with my car.
Seems to me this is a hugely improtant point that might make iPOD integration totally irrelevant. I'm not sure, but none of the different iPODs I've checked out from different generations (okay they're all two generations apart, but still) have the same hookups (all kinds of weird mini firewire, thin and wide usb, connections). This means that any solution is completely non-future proof, ie. any bleeding edge, must have the newest, latest and greatest install will be locked at the present generation, and iPOD generation time is a lot faster than car lifetime. I guarantee you there will be another interface change in the next few years, the size of these things is getting to the point that to download all your TV and movies onto the suckers, there will have to be an update in the connection interface, and a change in connection format to prevent usse with legacy hardware (ahem, I means, to prevent confusion).
In dash iPOD interface, the 8-track player of the future.
Also, my new Prius has a simple stereo line in too. A simple, straightforward and relatively futureproof solution. I guarantee that either the same cables will be in use, or simple adaptors will be availible for at least twenty years (heck you can still get the big fat headphone jack adaptors)
I have a 2006 VW Passat. I love the car, but if I had known the the iPod integration was going to be as bad as it is, I wouldn't have bothered.
The iPod is, effectively, treated as a 6 disk analog CD changer, with the first five playlists (alphabetically) and the whole library comprising the virtual "disks." No track info is displayed, just numbers. And if a playlist (or the library) has more than 100 tracks, then you only get the track%100, which makes skipping around (which you do a track at a time with the FF/REW buttons) worthless.
It's enough to make me want to just burn CDs and use the CD changer. Thank God for XM!
Here are my wishes:
#1 - I wish I had more control from the steering wheel. I can't scan through playlists or artists or whatever with the steering wheel, I have to lean over and use one of the knobs or arrow buttons.
#2 - I wish I could navigate into Artist then Album. You only have one level of navigation. However, in my case I long ago had set up a playlist for every album I have on my iPod. I did it because there were way too many albums and artists to scan through because of all the one or two tracks I downloaded from some artists. So this isn't a big issue for me.
#3 - I wish that it didn't default to random off when turning off the car. This is a drag because I'm constantly starting playlists over randomly and it's a different order each time so I end up having to skip tracks I just listened to.
#4 - I wish there were more characters than 9 displayed when scanning through playlists. The display does show way more characters when playing so I don't know why they limit it to 9 while looking through playlists or artists or albums.
Cool things:
#1 - I can skip tracks from the steering wheel (I wish I could fast forward them from the steering wheel, I can fast forward from the head unit but no rewind).
#2 - By default I have the track name displayed but with a push of the DISP button I can see the artist name.
It's much more integrated than the Honda one we looked at for my girlfriend. I think because it connects to the satellite radio port rather than a 6 CD changer port.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
I want a head unit that I stick the ipod unit into like a cassette tape.
*That* would be "iPod integration".
CD Charger? Last time I checked around, it was called a CD Changer, as in "changes CDs for you"...
I dunno, but this guy writing this article seems like a pissy whiner. "Pioneer didn't contact me... I'll never buy from them ever." It seems that Pioneer is making a pretty good iPod interface. I'm impressed they've maintained the same bus throughout the years... I could still plug my 12 disc CHANGER into a new head unit... along with this iPod adapter.
---from Pioneer Electronics ---
* Text Information Display
Song/album titles, artist names, and track length -- memorized by connected iPod -- are conveniently displayed on the monitor or headunit display. This capability also permits multiple "search" functions, making it a snap to find a song to play back.
* Multiple "Search" Functions
Just like looking for files stored on a PC, iPod-recorded songs may be sorted according to registered playlists, genres, artists, or albums to ensure easy access to each music file.
* Repeat Playback
The Repeat Playback function offers two options -- repeat playing of a particular song or playback of all tunes from a specified playlist.
* "Shuffle Songs" Function for Random Playback
Everybody's favorite option for mixing things up, Shuffle Songs randomly plays the songs in the iPod music library. Every song is a pleasant surprise, and the more files that are stored in the iPod, the greater the surprise.
Car stereos that offer miniplugs are the best. This is THE WAY to do music player integration without the expense.
http://brandonbloom.name
There isn't a standard, USB or otherwise, for selecting playlists and all the other things that people want to do in their cars.
That's really too bad, but there are standards if you use the right software. Tags are standardized and mounting USB or Firewire file systems is not tricky. Would it be too much to ask for a customized Amarok that could query a mass storage device for music and playlists? A ten inch touch screen LCD and a volume knob would work that interface. Yes, people have made Amarok work with iPods, despite it's firecly non free and standard busting storage formats.
Oh but oh, no, the "pirates" might use such a device to share their music on those rare occasions people share a ride. Better just build your own.
If you own a Honda, like I do, you won't be able to replace the head unit because it's the alarm, but you can cover it up.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
but what are your alternatives? in fact, if you own anything else besides an iPod, what are your choices?
My wifes Audi A4 comes with a Bose sound system that has both a CD player, and a tape deck. Very easy integration.
..........FULL STOP.
... it's a mess of wires because there is no iPod integration. Bah!
Just strap one of these babies to the dash and you're good...
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
I've been futzing around with iPod integration for the last couple years, trying a couple different solutions and, every 6 months or so, trolling all the various electronics shops looking for new head units, and I've come to one unavoidable conclusion: head units suck. They're screwed up in many ways, not least of which is a useless focus on form over function, but that's a rant for another day. When it comes to iPod integration (or XM, which I've also been playing with), they're totally useless. Many of them only display 8 or 16 characters of the song title!
Both the iPod and the XM SkyFi have good sized windows that display artist, track, and album (the XM doesn't show album, but the screen space is there). Both those windows would fit in a standard-sized head unit, but NOBODY makes a unit with that kind of screen. It's damned annoying.
Anyway, to get to specific integration experience, I used (for a while) one of those "fake CD-changer" Aux inputs on my Ford Explorer, for XM and iPod, and it worked pretty well, until the CD button on my factory radio stopped working. (I could still play a CD, by inserting one and it'd automatically start playing, but if I switched to radio I couldn't get back to CD without ejecting the disc and re-inserting. Because the CD button also switched to the "changer" (the aux input box), I couldn't use that for XM/iPod any more. Now I use a cassette adaptor.)
For our other car, a Toyota Prius, I found a pretty nice system that mostly integrates with the big display: A VAIS Tech system (actually, the predecessor model to the one I've linked here). It also has to fake-out the head unit -- in this case, it pretends to be an MD changer, so I've got 12 "discs" to choose from instead of 6. Each "disc" is a playlist, and it shows the playlist name on the screen. It'll also show the song names as they get played, along with either the playlist, artist, or album (selectable). Most of those limitations are in the way the Toyota screen works. I would like to have thought there'd be a better way to add a new device to the system than this changer-simulation, but I guess that either there isn't or Toyota simply isn't sharing. The other nice thing about this is it's got a second Aux port that I've got connected to the XM radio, so I can pop back and forth between the built-in CD changer, the iPod, and the XM easily. Again, because of the limits of the built-in head unit, it's much easier to use it in "simple mode" whereby it's basically another Aux input and I just use the iPod to control and select music (though the steering-wheel buttons for forward and reverse track still work). (BTW, the "official" Toyota XM interface works almost exactly the same way, so even when Toyota can do better for such an interface, they don't.)
One thing I've definitely noticed, though, is that even if the integation into the multifunction display screen on the Prius were "perfect" (showing everything you'd possibly want to see from the iPod), I'd probably never use it. Most of the time, the display is showing my mileage/efficiency information, or the navigation screen. And when it's doing that, you can't see what's being played (I'm not even sure that it'll show a popup of each song as they start up, though it might). I've really decided that a dedicated screen for music information is required, so you can glance down and see the track, jump ahead, etc.
What I'd *really* like to see is either a head unit or small external unit (like the SkyFi) that can do both XM and iPod, using a full-size SkyFi/iPod like screen, preferably flourescent instead of backlit LCD, with a wheel that works (the SkyFi wheels are notoriously bad). Put that screen into a standard-height head unit, hide the CD slot and some kind of iPod slot behind a pop-down panel, and put a *good* user interface with more than 6 station presets in a bank on the unit (there's that other rant starting up again), and you'd have a real winner.
I think there'd be
The best solution would be for Steve and Johnny Ive to design an Apple branded in-dash head unit that major car manufacturers could offer as an optional accessory for new cars. It should have 802.11n and be able to sync wirelessly to your home computer while it sits in the driveway or garage. No iPod to plug in, It IS an iPod that happens to be semi-permanantly mounted in the dash.
Once Apple takes over the car-space and has a micro computer and Wi-Fi in every new car...imagine the possibilities!
I don't suppose anyone has a rational explanation for something that's been bugging me for the past quarter of a century. Well, one other than "car companies and car stereo manufacturers are run by right daft bastards".
It's still a matter of amazement to me that a stereo mini plug hasn't been a standard part of all car audio systems since, oh, about 1980 at the latest.
I mean, we're talking about a feature that would cost them pennies per unit in a device.
The only vaguely rational explanation is that they're terrified by the possibility that if people could plug their own kit in easily they'd do that instead of upgrading to a better unit. As if someone spending a minimum of ten or twenty thousand dollars on a car is going to hold back a buck a week on their payments so they can have a more easily stolen CD player and more cables strewn about the inside of the car.
At the last Apple special event, Steve Jobs was almost bragging about the fact that 70% of new cars sold in the U.S. this year had (optional!) iPod 'integration' available ... Obviously, he didn't talk about the rest of the world. But most of all, what Steve didn't tell us is how crappy the existing "integration" solutions actually are!
How is this Apples fault? Not to sound like a fan boy (which I'm not) the point here is that 70% of motor manufacturers selling cars in the US are offering some level of iPod integration. That in itself speaks volumes about the market saturation and mindshare of Apples product, so of course Jobs is going to make a song and dance(pardon the pun) about it. OTOH the fact that the type and quality (for want of a better word) of the integration offering varies from very good to very crap is besides the point.
When I got my new car last year, I wanted to be able to do mp3s. I went out and got an iPod and an iTrip. That was thrown away as soon as I got in the car. I live in Toronto, and there is approximately 1 free spot on the FM dial that you can get FM on for the iTrip, and even it gets overrun sometimes. I found the quality horrible, so blah. Next was a tape adapter .. that worked great, but was messy (cables for audio and charging). VW didn't offer an iPod integration kit at that time, and 3rd party kits were like $500. So I started looking at VW options and found this:
http://www.phatnoise.com/
I got a Phatbox. It plugs right in to the the desk, through the CD Changer control cable already in the trunk. It's fully accessable through the deck (And steering wheel contols). The cartridge comes out of the player (it's just a laptop HD in a fancy case) and you plug it in to a cradle to load music on it. When you change songs/cds/artists, depending on what mode you're in, it reads you the title, so you don't have to look at anything. It's completely simple to use, and I never have to take my hands off the wheel, or eyes off the road.
The point of this is - while the iPod is a good device for mobile use, if you want something in your car, it's probably not the best solution. There are many solutions out there that are sound better, work better, and are cheaper (The phatbox was a whole $300 installed).
plus, for the Phatbox, the hacking community is alive and well, because the Phatnoise player actually runs Linux. And now that they've figured out how to upgrade the drive sizes, you can buy the 20gig DMS and drop whatever size laptop HDD in there you want.
http://www.phathack.com/
Just my $0.02 CDN
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
... and I forgot to add:
If those minor gripes are all I have to b*tch about, either I'm a total princess or Scion/Pioneer did one hell of a job here!
I'd try and stick an "Apple Remote" wired equivalent in the steering wheel, this way it's function/usage is known, simple and consistent accross (car) manufacturers and I don't need to think too much about it. Any more than that and you'd have to have a HUD as a FrontRow display.
Is there a way I can moderate this story down?
Steve Jobs said that "70% of new cars sold today offer iPod integration." He was basically showing off the fact that they offer specific integration exclusively for their product.. WHO CARES if most of them are not ideal integrations. The fact that they're there is a milestone for Apple, and that is all he was saying, nothing more, nothing less. He didn't go into detail about it, or brag about any specific brand of integration.
This seems to me a pointless jab at Jobs' keynote, and feels like it's more qualified for a personal blog rather than a reputable news website.
Just the opinion of a long time Slashdot reader..
- Alex
Jeez, you guys! Yes, there ARE still some people who have cassettes. I'm not really all that old, and I still have a box of cassettes; I never play 'em much, but they have music on them I recorded in the 80s that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. And for people who still record their CDs onto tapes this is a reasonable solution.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Right there - re-read it again, then go google up on the story behind the "exploding Pinto"...
The gist of that story was that Ford made the Pinto with a "saddle fuel tank" - that is, the fuel tank straddled the rear drive shaft of the vehicle. When the Pinto was in a rear-end accident, there was a high probability that the axle would be pushed up and into the fuel tank. There was also a small bolt involved, but the main thing is that the axle would tend to rupture the fuel tank, spilling fuel and ultimately causing fire and/or explosion.
The punchline? It was found that a simple 10 cent piece of metal or such placed at a certain critical area would stop such an accident from becoming a miserable fatality. When the CEO (at the time) of Ford was asked why they didn't add such a part to the Pinto, the response was that it cost too much money, and it was cheaper to simple settle the lawsuits as they happenned.
Yep, the beancounters at Ford and many other companies do have a price for human life, and they know compared to their profits, it doesn't amount to much. Is it any wonder that Ford also created the Crown Victoria Interceptor, another saddle tank design, which was responsible for many fires, including one that severely maimed a Phoenix police officer?
Of course, they settled on that one as well - offering retrofit kits (essentially puncture proof racing cell bladders) and such on all Interceptors being used by police departments across the country. Of course, a standard civvie Crown Victoria has the same design flaw, but there was never a recall there. Plus, many Interceptors were sold at city auction prior to the retrofit kits being available. Add this all up, and you may think twice before stepping into that cab (many cab companies and independant cabbies drive Crown Vics).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
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