iPod, uPod, wePod

It's a sad fact that Apple's iPod, the best thing to happen to portable music since Sony's original Walkman, is useless once you get behind the wheels of most cars. Why? There's no way to plug it in. Many Pod people resort to static-prone RF modulators or low-fidelity cassette hookups. BMW and Alpine promise better iPod solutions with their new adapters, but these cumbersome first-generation products don't come close to the brilliance and simplicity of the iPod itself.

BMW

The best thing about the iPod is that it stores days' worth of music organized automatically for quick access. The BMW iPod adapter forces you to make as many as five playlists named BMW1 through BMW5 that it presents as discs one through five in an imaginary CD changer. You don't get any display on the radio other than a track number, so good luck finding a specific song unless you remember its position within the playlist. The sound quality is great but no better than it is through BMW's auxiliary input adapter. With that, you give up the ability to change tracks with the steering-wheel audio controls, but we'd rather use the iPod's interface to select any song or artist. Working the iPod is distracting but less so than BMW's own iDrive system. $149 plus $150 installation. (www.ipodyourbmw.com)


Alpine

Alpine's solution is much more versatile than BMW's, because you can select any existing playlist or song by name using the radio controls. Unfortunately, it requires an Alpine head unit, and few modern cars have the standard-size dash openings into which one will fit. The sound quality of this setup is stellar, and we love how easy it is to choose playlists. Alpine touts the ability to search by artist or album, but the interface is slow-it took a minute just to get through the As. Alpine admits that if you have a lot of music, you should put it in playlists before accessing it through this product. Once we did, we found that it works, although small, fussy controls require too many clicks and spins to get to your music. CDA-9833 receiver $450, free installation; KCA-420i adapter $100 plus $35 installation. (www.alpine-usa.com)

Excerpt from Automobilemag.com

I don't know what all the hype is about the iPod. There are so many other brands for so much less money that you can do all the same things as the iPod.

All you need is any aftermarket head unit that support RCA Input and get one of these handy dandy plugs:

And VOILA! Tou can connect ANYTHING with a stereo mini plug headphone jack into your Car Audio System. Who gives a crap about the over priced iPod at that point. Plug in your laptop to your head unit if ya want. The possibilities are endless. Damn that Apple for brainwashing people!

I never understood the whole philosophy of the Ipod or any mp3 player for that matter. If i am in my car I want to listen to CD, not compressed MP3's. Also portable cd players are so small now and days I dont see way size of it is an issue anyways either. And like you said Tom if you want a bunch of mp3's to listen to then hook your lap top up. Ipod is the only mp3 player that took off and the only reason why is it intigration with iTunes. Oh well I will stick to my cds, and the mp3s on my laptop. my 2 cents...

Jeremy

jeremy...i respect you opinion but all new ideas especially good ones create lots of criticizm. i for one already converted to mp3s... my cd player is mp3 compatable and on any 1 disk i have at least 10 full cds some up to 20...beyond that the mp3 displays many cooler things like cd title song title artist, all sorts of stuff, plus i went from carrying all 100 or so cds in my car to 10 disks with all 100 cds on them... and in my opinion the audio quality is much better. i say if you can take the remaining disk i carry and narrow that down to zero and still have all the same capabilities and capacity i say bring on the new tech i know i would buy one.

plus look at the size difference and convenience between a laptop and an ipod...i mean i love my laptop...im typing this message on it but its not at all reasonable for a car and i dont know about you but after spending $1500 on my laptop i really dont want it in my car to either slide around and break or get stolen!

i'll tell you what they need is a head unit that has a hard drive so you dont have to deal with all th wires and units

Ask and you shall receive:
[web:29466ddde8]http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=73[/web:29466ddde8]

Now Tom that is what I need. And Matt I was bashing mp3s i listen to them all the time. What I was more bashing was the ipod stuff. I do what you were talking about and put a ton of mp3s on a CD. I dont understand why some one needs an ipod when almost all cd players today play mp3s and the such.

Jeremy

Because its cool to hop on the iPod bandwagon and take you one step closer to being a MAC Hippie

lol my bad dude...i need to check that cd player out

I have a Creative Zen Xtra, best bang for the buck, Apple and Mac just SUCKS, pound for pound, I got a better deal only 280 for a 30 Gig, I woulda had to pay at least 400 for the Apple.

well i dont have any of the apple/mac whatever shit in my car but i did just install (last night) actually a new head unit in the gst. It has MP3 on it so honestly i dont really care that im limited to only about 200 songs on a cd as compared to however many the others can hold. Fortunately it came with a motorized 7" lcd screen that plays dvds and is freakin sweet looking. It has to external rca inputs to allow for whatever else you want to run on the screen. Anyhow at night it looks really nice...ill get pics up later so you guys can see.

Yeah, iPod shit is totally outrated. There are so many other MP3 / Portable Media center devices out there will do more for the money.

But, an MP3 head unit is def sweet also sonce you can fit 700MB on a CD and play it all day long in the car. If you get tired of the CD that cost you $0.30 to make, just make another. Sure beats falling under the control of the Apple Empire.

Pretty soon the single-task oriented portable MP3 players may phase out with all the cell phone manufactures offering MP3 player technology. One of the new Samsung's even has iPod-like controls on the front(the track wheel).