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Be seeing you zune...

Not!!

why do they insist on hiding it in the glove box...how do you navigate huge menues without the clickwheel?

And absolutely NO word about Zune integration?

WHO ATE MY CRULLERS?

(Oh, yeah. It was me. I forgot. sorry.)

70%. That's very impressive. I wonder what is the percentage of people actualy adding this option when they buy a car.

God I wish my car had an iPod adapter built into it.

In fact, every car should. What does it cost, $5.

To be honest, I am surprised every car does not come with a line input.

Car companies are slow. MP3 players and portable CD players have only been hot for 10 years now.

Crap--will they have any retrofit kits for my new Mazda?? It's killing me not to have my iPod integrated into the system!

BTW, if they don't, what's the best 3rd party solution? I want to control my iPod through the wheel controls, and have song title and such appear on the text screen my car has above the radio. Any suggestions? TIA!

MegaMe: I completely agree about the line in feature. What that's not standard on car stereos is beyond me. And Walkmen have been around since the 80s, so I'd say this kind of portable music has been popular for a lot longer than 10 years.....

Locking out the enemy. The more the iPod is made the only "compatible" choice, the fewer competitors products will be sold. I just hope the anti-trust lawyers are not reading this.

Yet another reason why [fill in this week's "iPod Killer" here] doesn't have a donut's chance in Glaser's corner office.

Or the Zune having a chair's chance of surviving in Ballmer's conference room

And in other news:

Malcolm Bricklin, the American entrepreneur who first imported the Yugo to the U.S. in 1985, says that he has signed a deal with Zastava Motor Works in Serbia to introduce the former Yugo manufacturer's latest product, tentatively dubbed the ZMW.
We are going to set up 12 distributors across the United States," said Bricklin, 63, who also introduced Subaru to the U.S. in 1968. Bricklin said he expects to import the first ZMWs in 12 months and was confident his new company, to be called Zastava Motor Works USA, could sell 60,000 cars in its first year. He said the cars will come in four different models: a two-door, a four-door, a convertible and a pickup truck. Engines, according to Bricklin, will come from a major European carmaker, such as Volkswagen, Fiat or PSA (the maker of Peugeots and Citroens). In keeping with Yugo's reputation as an innovative and hi-tech automobile, every Yugo model will also come equipped with a Zune dock, located in the trunk. Prices will range from $5,000 to $10,000, making them the cheapest cars on the market today, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association in McLean, Va.

Talk about unstoppable force. This is getting ridiculous! By the time Zune comes out Apple will have locked up just about every possible peripheral market. MS should have paid for the "iPod compatible" sticker for the Zune, then they might have a chance.

LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son:

I doubt this connection on car radio will lock the enermy out. MS probably has the pin out definition for iPod, so they could implement same pin out on Zune. Only difficulty will be the protocol, but I'm sure that can be either duplicated or firmware on radio can be modified to accomodate multiple protocols. If the connector and protocol are proprietary, then anti-trust lawyers can take care of that.

John,

Take a look at this product:

http://www.therpmstore.com/product_info.php?cPath=25_26&products_id=142

Not perfect, but close.

Oh No Not FORD!

Even if they can give full audio and video playback controlled from the steering wheel...

It's still in a FORD!

Well, at least you'll have something to keep you occupied on the side of the road. In that case, Genius!

That's a great improvement for your ears.

Now if they could do something equally brilliant like replacing the current combustion engine with something more efficient. They might really help their sagging sales.

Who's to say that Zune won't be compatible with the iPod dock in the cars? There is nothing stopping them from reverse engineering it and making a compatible interface to it. They would not be able to sell it as iPod compatible unless they got the license from Apple (which would not happen). But, once people figure out that it works, it could cause some problems for Apple. Imagine if all those accessories that the iPod has suddenly all started working for Zune? The 'ecosystem' would suddenly not mean as much as it previously did.

As for the line in. I got an aftermarket CD player 7 years ago and specifically found the one that had an aux line in - not many to choose from. At the time, I actually used it for my walkman (cause I had a few tapes), but now I use it for my iPod. Works great and I attach the wired remote to the seat, so I can skip songs as easily as shifting gears.

"Locking out the enemy. The more the iPod is made the only "compatible" choice, the fewer competitors products will be sold. I just hope the anti-trust lawyers are not reading this"

Shurley then it's upto Microsoft (and it's 'partners') to build and sell alternative 'integration' products to those already available for the iPod?
(I'm talking about things like FM transmitters, cassette adaptors, the Dension iceLink in-car interface, that sort of thing, but for the Zune or whatever 'iPod killer' they bring out month after month...)

Then, and if (and that's a very big 'IF'), the Zune player has a large enough market share, the car manufacturers (and ICE makers) will look to offer an integration package for it when it becomes financially attractive to them.

Apple's and other iPod accessory makers have developed this gigantic whole new musical 'ecosystem' from making one player - why should Microsoft be handed equal success off the back of Apples shirt-tails?
Let M$ develope their own ecosystem to rival Apples through their own efforts.

Quevar: I'm pretty sure Apple has enough patents and software copyrights to prevent simple reverse engineering of the interface.

You want seamless iPod integration? Just provide a f'ing aux in jack on your radio.