News In-dash iPods

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/08/04/in-dash_iPods/

now if only I owned one, or needed a new car, this could be cool.

 

Its not a bad idea i guess... But im sure it will anoy alot of people that this is an ipod only solution. They should make a nice open standard for this so people can control all sorts of music players with it.

 

It is a great idea but like you said theo, it irratates me that its only ipod. I personally own a creative Zen micro so looks like im out of luck. THen again im out of luck on just about anything with my Zen the market is dominated by ipod things. Just go to Bestbuy or CC sometime they have a row of ipod things then a corner for other MP3 player stuff.

WEll atleast the car companies are on the right track and moving towards more intergration.

 

Since basically every MP3 player apart from the iPod works as a standard USB drive, it would be trivial to fit a car with a USB port that would work as an open standard connector. One problem would be physically mounting the unit somewhere to stop it rattling about, but hardly a massive problem. The second problem is that Apple owns the vast majority of the MP3 player market. Why bother fitting a port which works with most non-Apple players rather than one that works exclusively with the market leader.

I can foresee Apple ending up having to open up their 'Dock' standard to other manufacturers, on the basis that it is maneouvring itself into a monopolistic position.

 

Seems kind of an awkward solution. Why not have a slot in your car radio dash which you just pop your MP3 player into? You could have exchangeable slots that fit a range of players.

 

Thats what they do with phones and the handsfree car kits at the moment.

I think the idea is that you can use the cars controlls to control the media and so have the controlls directly on your steering wheel where your used to having them, rather than having to look and reach over to change track you can just flick a switch on your steering wheel where your used to it being.

edit: do you recon anyone has copyrighted 'iCAR' yet?

 

i have a cd player with an aux in jack which is just a standard 3.5mm phono cable.

 

icar.eu
icar.co.uk

gogo buy

 

ill think ill stick to my new head unit im getting that has a usb port on the back and i can hook up my 30gb hard drive to it

 

I'd buy it. Yeah, something more universal would be great, but as I do own an iPod, I'm not that bothered. There's always the line-in jack. And I'd rather have controls on the wheel for 80% of players in 70% of cars than just a line-in jack for everything, so people aren't mucking around with a scroll wheel or whatever else while trying to drive (I've tried, and it's VERY dangerous).

 

My friend uses that iTrip radio thing and then tunes the car radio to recieve whatever the iPod is playing. Didn't think about that, very ingenius. You can't control it with the steering wheel or have details of tunes on the HUD (lol, handy?).
I do think iPod is getting everywhere nowadays - I still like them but the dominance of Apple really can be felt everywhere. I bet in the future, very luxurious type cars you will find white (or black) leather and polished surfaces to match your ipod. :/

 

this is starting to get out of hand, i each day like ipods less. they are dominating the market, and there are better MP3 players out there.
a good way to make this universal would be a USB interface between the car and mp3 player so the car can access the songs from the internal memory of the mp3 player, making this system universal.

 

Why don't they just build them with car pootas that have a wi-fi connection to transfer all your music over?

 

"The accessory is projected to add about $160 to the price of your new car."

RIPOFF.
It's a dock connector you get on a $30 pair of speakers.
Apple and friends screw the market over AGAIN.

 

Just fitted my aftermarket head unit and it's box which allows the iPod to interface with it. Best of both worlds .

Quite a lot of people (well, people my age) change their standard stereos anyway, so aren't likely to pay extra for the iPod functionality in the first place.

 

$160 does seem like a lot for a glorified car docking station. Some of the auto makers (such as Ford Mo Co) are taking steps to include other devices by adding auxiliary audio input jacks on nearly half of its lineup, starting this fall. Tunes from any gadget — iPods, other MP3 or CD music players, cell phones and game handhelds — will then be playable on the cars’ audio systems without the need for extra adapters or FM transmitters. It seems like a step in the right direction.

 

i own an ipod, and love it. best GUI on an mp3 player. and it does exactly what i want it to do, play mp3s.

i just got an '07 scion TC and it came with the ipod connector. its awesome. the ipod stays stowed away and i just control everything with the HU. perfect. it also has an aux line in.

why would they try and make it work with 30% of mp3 players when they can make it work with just one type of mp3 player that controls 70% of the market. it just makes sense.

$160 is def a ripoff, but when compared to the price of other factory addons, it should be expected (unfortunately).