Was thinking on the drive into work today...........why haven't Apple made a car stereo that could sync with iTunes etc?. The number of people who own an iPod plus the number of people who then want to use it in the car but end up using inferior kit like cassette tape adaptors, iTrips etc. etc. would surely warrant it?. Think of a good car stereo with a decent hard drive that could be sync'd to your PC (maybe via removable front panel) to download your iTunes content. If the quality etc. was good I'd buy one!. Any thoughts??!.

 

I've wondered this too.

 

Because the iPod is designed around being portable? And because they sell a separate interface to allow it to be plugged into modern head units?

There are a number of decent solutions for plugging an iPod into an older HU that doesn't have a direct connection. The Dension one is used by a number of people on the board and seems to get the

 

They probably charge HU companies to be iPod compatable .. so sit back, rake in comission and do nothing.

 

Because the size of the HU market is small compared to portable mp3 player market.

 

Just get a Alpine 9850Ri... works amazingly well with my ipod. It can control virtually all menu functions including:
- Playlists
- Ablum
- Artist
- Song
- Recently added
- Shuffle / Albums / Songs / All

The good thing is that I now never have to change my old poxy CD Changer... the only downside is that with 200 albums it can get tricky to find some of them. My solution is to create some decent playlists.

My question is not why Apple haven't created a car stereo, but why all car stereo manufacturers haven't created the same interface and adapter?

 

there are a number of very good ways to connect your ipod to your head unit depending on what HU you've got. i use the dension ice-link which i would say is very good.

the alpine solution is also very slick IMHO.

bottom line is i don't think there is a need for an apple HU. it's easy enough to get your ipod working through your HU with no loss of quality.

the main advantage this gives over a car specific product is that you can still use your ipod as a portable mp3 player as well as an in car juke box.

 

 

Why iPod!!..personally there are far better portable MP3 players etc in the market and Apple's dominance is mainly due to "badge", "marketing" and being there first, but that is a completely different debate.

A while ago there were hard disk MP3 HU's, home brew, can't remember the name etc, but one of the developments was to add wireless connectivity (802.11), such that when you got home you could download your MP3's over your wireless network from your PC. Don't know what happened to this but sounded like a good idea.

 

See my sig. I-GIMPS!