“About using Apple’s iPod in the car: it’s kind of a pain right now with cords, devices, adapters, chargers, FM broadcasters, and your iPod sliding around on the seat or stuck in some weird mount screwed or stuck to your vehicle. Not as smooth as Apple, I’m sure, would wish,” SteveJack writes in the MacDailyNews Opinion section today in response to an earlier opinion piece, “Apple request: we need the Apple ‘iBox’ and ‘iPodCar’ products now” also posted today.
SteveJack has an idea called the ‘iTunes Car Stereo’ – read about it in his article, “Apple’s new iTunes Car Stereo should debut this fall for holiday sales season.”
I agree SteveJack…. I’ve been saying the same thing since I bought my iPod over a year ago…..
Car stereo market is MUCH larger than the personal stereo market. No more fumbling with cd’s.
Apple has been sleeping letting this idea elude them.
Why does it have to be Apple? Let Apple license their DRM system Fairplay to other manufacturers, and let the iPod sync back to other devices.
If they don’t, the iTunes Music Store will be seen as “not-compatible” with the rest of the world. Some proprietary technology from Apple, that doesn’t work with anything but the iPod.
Future JVC, Philips and Sony integrated hifi-sets should have a hard disk, Fairplay and AAC support, firewire and/or wireless card and rendez vous support. Automatic synchronisation. Same goes for Tivio, car-stereos, other portable mp3 players, television sets,..
I don’t care who makes the head unit. I just want the damn thing to fit into an Audi w/o any of the additional ugly mounting kits.
Shaaaaaame on the car audio mfgs that discrinate against Audi. Shaaaaaaame on Audi for making non standard size holes for the head units.
Can’t we all just get along?
ROAD SAFETY!
The biggest benefit is the user can set up an all-day “On the Road” play list, and never be distracted while driving by swapping CDs or skipping certain tracks.
Apple simply needs to bring the iPod’s innards to a car stereo and add a Bluetooth and/or Airport card so no physical connection is needed to upload music to the car. Although a firewire port for quicker/cheaper connection from a laptop (or if the car is close enough to the den’s window).
Most car audio fanatics have huge CD collections. For them to be able to bring their whole collection with them would make a major shift in the mobile audio industry. I don’t see how Apple’s production could keep up with demand. …and if Apple does produce iTunes for Microsoft, this would be huge!!
[Personally, I think Apple should stay away from the unstable MS Windows. I have great pity on Apple’s customer support once people try to use iTunes on Windows. They will blame Apple for all of their computer woes. If people want the best aps, they will need the best OS and hardware. I can see iTunes as an in-road to give the unknowing a taste of Apple’s world, but nothing more.]
dMac,
I’ve got a 2 component Nakamichi unit in my Audi (A6 4.2) It fits and works perfectly (it also has inputs that can be feed from any source) plus I had the speakers replaced with MBQuartz. I had an input setup for my 2G ipod (it slides into the center console/armrest) and it works perfectly.
(BTW, 4th Audi and I’ll get rid of this one when my RS6 shows up (damn waiting list!!) and hopefully sooner or later the whole stereo system (including next gen iPods) will be digital coax linked.)
This retailer sells dashboard mounts for iPods. No more slip sliding away…
http://www.gpscity.com/gps/brados/192.3.13535815231223332940/ipodmounts.html
hakles, if apple was a product of the rest of the world, it would have sinking sales just like every other product on the market. There is truth in the phrase, “Mac is a state of MIND!”