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The iPad As In-Car Entertainment System Killer
theodp writes "Cars.com's David Thomas speculates that the iPad could prove to be a serious problem for automakers that charge a ransom for rear entertainment systems. The base iPad, Thomas notes, costs far less than most DVD options offered by automakers. Ford charges $1,995 for a dual-headrest-mounted DVD system in its Flex crossover. In the Acura MDX, its single-screen system, with three wireless headsets and a 9-inch screen, costs $1,900. At $500 a pop, giving two kids their own iPads would cost far less than what the automakers charge for an ICE system. The Cars.com article mentions some of the advantages of ICE, including being weather-tested to work from -5 to 160 degrees F (-20 to 71 C), and being far less prone to breakage."
I thought mounted entertainment systems were killed by portable $100 DVD players already...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
...to steal the factory installed DVD system than they are to grab the two iPads in your back seat.
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Automakers still seem to charge ridiculous amounts for integrated navigation systems - the fact that you can pick up a GPS unit for under $100 doesn't seem to prevent them from charging $500-2000 for nav systems. Somehow I doubt they'll change anything here either. I figure that the thinking is they can charge a huge premium for the benefit of having a system integrated vs. just a separate device.
i figured that out when the iPad was first announced. $2000 for a glorified $300 DVD system vs $500 for a dumbed down computer that can play movies and games and you don't need to take shiny discs with you that scratch easily
and you can use the ipad outside the car as well. and if you're an IT geek with kids, the App Store has tons of IT management apps to give you console and any kind of remote access to almost any platform from anywhere. just in case you get a call while on vacation that something is wrong
Though it doesn't have a key element for kids: A DVD drive or a suitable ability to play the same movies they watch at home.
Anyone who has a kid knows if they like their kids movies then there's got to be a easy way for them to watch it. Most parents aren't going to be ripping their kid's whole collection of DVDs and putting them on an iPad. There needs to be a connection here for this to be even semi-viable for parents. That or iTunes is going to have to try to get some more kid's videos than I believe it has.
I don't think Jr is really going to be all that excited about all the apps.
No, you get it. That's the purpose.
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Dick waving contest. I always love driving behind a car that has two tvs in the headrests that are on and no one in the backseat.
Damn right!
Kids these days with their "in car entertainment" and their "iPods" and whatnot; when I was their age all we had to do in the back of the station wagon was fight with our brothers and sisters and make faces at the cars behind us! And we were damn glad to do it!
Now get off my lawn!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
...to steal the factory installed DVD system than they are to grab the two iPads in your back seat.
Maybe one day Apple will develop an iPad which is portable so that it can be removed from the vehicle? One can only hope!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Well, the stories that appear on slashdot are submitted by slashdot readers, so clearly some people are interested.
They're obviously news for someone. Might I suggest submitting stories that *are* news for nerds if you think the iPad is not worth it to you.
Or just turn off the "Apple" section in your preferences, which is much more effective than moaning about it on the actual story, as many people seem to do.
As soon as I heard about the iPad 3G, the first thing I though of was velcro-attaching it to the dashboard to use as a GPS unit, with full true Google Maps functionality ("My Maps"). A couple of 3m Command Jumbo Hook "velcro" strips should hold an iPad on the dash just fine, until some company makes a decent suction mount.
The Cars.com article mentions some of the advantages of ICE, including being weather-tested to work from -5 to 160 degrees F (-20 to 71 C)
Great! Glad to know the ridiculously expensive option allows the little tikes to enjoy their Disney fare while dying of hypothermia or heatstroke.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
So what is so new with the ipad in this sense?
When you really want to buy an ipad for yourself, and you tell the wife its actually for the kids.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
We have two vehicles - one with an integrated dual-screen entertainment system (screens fold down from the ceiling), and another vehicle with a $100 DVD player strapped to the back of the seat (actually came with two screens, but the wires going between them got in the way too much so we only use one screen).
Let me say there is no comparison. Having an integrated system is so much better it's not even funny. There are audio IR blasters integrated into the ceiling which allow 4 people to listen to the movie simultaneously via wireless headphones. If the movie is piped through the car's sound system then it is in full surround through the Bose audio system. My HTC Touch Pro 2 has video out, so I can plug it into the car and play Youtube, encoded videos, etc, right through the integrated system. Wired headphone jacks throughout, DVD controls on the ceiling in addition to standard IR remote.
And the best part is the screens fold flat into the ceiling and totally disappear. Out of sight, out of mind, can't be stolen, scratched or have crap spilled on them.
The BEST option, if money was no object, would be to purchase a vehicle with a fully integrated entertainment system, then add an "automotive" PC that can play back through that system as a secondary display (with the primary display being a touch screen in the front).
Better known as 318230.
Quit bitching or go somewhere else. Lots of Apple fans read _and contribute to_ Slashdot. There are a variety of subjects I don't care about but I know numerous Slashdot readers are passionate about them so I know I'll continue to see those subjects in submissions. I just skip them. The content I want to read is interesting enough that I can just skip over the content I'm "sick and tired" of seeing. So, seriously, you have a choice - quit bitching about it or go read your geek news somewhere else. It isn't going to change so you might as well complain about death and taxes while you're at it.
What we need to do is stop bombarding kids with constant streams of electronic entertainment.
If a kid always has a screen with moving pictures (be it a dvd player, game or whatever) in front of his face, how do you expect them to sit still when you take it away. It like digital crack.
Yes, kids can be a pain - but part of being a parent is dealing with those situations by interacting with them in a positive way.
I'm not saying no TV ever, but people wonder why kids have attention deficit disorder. I'm sure most of those kids can hold their attention perfectly fine when it's focused on a TV. How is a teacher supposed to teach a class when most of the kids are used to constant electronic entertainment?
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
As any parent with a kid will (or should!) tell you, giving them access to things like that is all part of a managed activity schedule, much like access to TV or the computer. You can set aside times when your children can use these things, and for how long, and various other rules. In car entertainment is just another medium where this occurs.
in the same way that multiple TV sets in homes added more flexibility for families where someone wants to watch channel A while others watch channel B, the in car systems mean not everyone has to listen to the radio, which can be a total blessing if your kids really want to listen to the high school musical soundtrack *again*, or the Bob the Builder greatest hits.
Like anything involving parenting though, not everyone makes good parents, but allowing kids access to things like this doesn't automatically put people into that category.
Sure. I have a just-turned-2 year old. Legally he cannot be placed in the front seat (even with a proper carrier), so his car seat is in the row of seats behind me, where I cannot even physically touch him. I cannot read to him, or play with him, or do anything but say words out of my mouth. Last week we made a 14 hour round trip (and Mom couldn't go), and I was very, very thankful that he enjoys watching Curious George and Elmo on the integrated entertainment system, because otherwise he would have been miserable - bored out of his mind, screaming his head off, and stressing me out and taking my concentration away from driving.
We stopped and grabbed a couple DVDs out of a RedBox for a buck a piece, and returned them the next day at our local RedBox when we got home.
We even have a TV and DVD player at our house too. More than one, believe it or not.
Better known as 318230.
Yes, bringing a collection of a hundred DVDs is far easier than storing those hundred on 64GB of flash memory.
Pray tell what kind of quality you'd have to rip down to to get 100 movies onto 64gb of flash memory, some of which is already used by the OS and apps.
I think most people would rather keep their cheap, rather small, perfectly portable DVD wallets and not end up with abysmal quality, and have to spend hours and hours and hours for the privalage I'm afraid.
I could understand your argument if anyone actually carried their DVDs around in their original standard DVD sized cases, or if anyone owned an automatic disc loading and ripping device, or had the will to literally spend days manually loading, unloading, and ripping their DVDs. But right now, it's far too time consuming and dull a job, for most, particularly when you can just buy a cheap DVD wallet to carry the lot around with you.
Your sarcasm was misplaced- carrying a hundred DVDs around really is easier than ripping them to flash memory, and you wont have to try and destroy the quality to squeeze them into 64gb of storage either.
No kidding! We made our own entertainment as kids. We played games, and not just the tame ones like "I spy" and the like. We made our OWN games, thus increasing our creativity! We played games like, "What's that smell?" and "Does this hurt?" and "Let's make the veins pop out on the driver's forehead"! And, of course, the ever popular "I'm not touching you!" while waggling a finger mere millimeters away from your siblings body after being instructed not to touch them. This last game was a real challenge, as a pothole or sudden change of direction could jostle you just enough to come into contact with your sibling, and therefore breaking the "rules" and getting you into trouble.
Ah, good times. Good times.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
I would prefer the iPad, because I personally hate a bunch of shit in the car, including a mound of DVDs. They just clutter up the whole car, and usually become unplayable either through sticky fingers or scratches from going all around uncased, and what not. Not to mention that in an accident, shit flying all around can cause problems. Heck, it can cause an accident just from sliding around and somehow ending between your feet and the brake.
In fact, unless it's a real car trip, I hate the thought of bringing up kids conditioned not to be away from a screen for a minute, being fed it nonstop. Not too long ago, once you got out of the house, you got to escape the TV at least.
At least a portable gaming system is interactive. The iPad wouldn't be too bad either, with movie downloads and whatnot, especially netflix. But I won't be buying downloaded movies from apple or anyone else until the sell DRM-less versions just like the music now. They might as well, people just convert and upload the DVDs/Blu-Ray without problems as it is.
But I do wish a simple book would be adequate these days. And I'm saying this as a frequent flyer who appreciate the personal entertainment systems in the seats these days, and their role in shutting the brats up.
The Edsel was actually an excellent tech testbed and spawned several ideas used in later products, despite being a financial failure as a product itself.
Either way, I'm not sure that I can take the word of an AC on slashdot that the iPad, which has been on sale for about a month is a "dismal failure" and a "turd of a product". From what I have seen of a broad range of reviews, both positive and negative, I don't think it can really be classified as that.
Perhaps your anti-Apple anger is making you resort to hyperbole. Perhaps that is also why you accidentally checked the "post anonymously" checkbox.
There's a cool app on the App Store called "Air Video", it requires a server app on your normal PC (Windows/Mac), and a client App on the phone, the server reads your videos from its disk, converts it on the fly to an iPhone-compatible format, and streams it over WiFi (or 3G if your 3G is good enough) to the phone.
I suppose for the ultimate in-car entertainment hackery, one could store an SSD-disked PC in the trunk, with WiFi that can connect to the "MyGarage" SSID, as well as offering in-car WiFi (or would that have to go the other way around, the home PC/server connecting to the "MyCar" SSID?), and with a network drive so you can just drag&drop stuff from your home PC "into" your "car". Maybe cron-job too for TV episodes. Add Wake-on-Bluetooth too so you can just click a button to turn on the in-car PC from the comfort of your own desk.
Would surely save a lot of time compared to doing an offline conversion/USB sync...
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Buddy of mine ripped the DVD player out of his and left the screen. he built a XBMC to feed the screen and headphones and carries 250 gigs of movies and TV shows in the car with no cluttler at all.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And plenty of Apple customers don't care one bit about what people think about them, or if it is "cool" or not to be using a MacBook, iPod, iPad, iPhone, or whatever.
I bought a WD TV mini and burned my movie collection onto a 500GB USB drive. I didn't rip out the old DVD player I just connected the WD TV to the existing AV ports. We still use the DVD player for movies we haven't converted yet, but have access to the rest of our movie catalog while in the car. The best part is that the DVD's aren't constantly getting scratched up by the kids. Oh and it frees up a lot of space in the glove box where we had a case of DVD's now there is just a USB drive and the very very small WD TV box.
Heck, it can cause an accident just from sliding around and somehow ending between your feet and the brake.
Is that you, Toyota?