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iPod car integration: not quite!
09/25/06
iPod car integration: not quite!
On the last Apple special event, Steve Jobs was almost bragging about the fact that 70% of new cars sold in the US this year had (optional!) iPod “integration” available…
Obviously, he didn’t talk about the rest of the world. But most of all, what Steve didn’t tell us, is how crappy the existing “integration” solutions actually are!
At the very same time, I was at Apple Expo 2006 in Paris, checking out what the car manufacturers had to offer…
iPod & Audi TT
Audi was showing off their new TT. Nice car. Wanna check the inside? You gotta ask the blonde to unlock it for you…
...
Get inside. The blonde would not let me connect my own iPod filled with 7000 songs. She insisted she was only allowed to connect her own nano with 40 songs on it… What was she afraid off? That my iPod would spread a virus to the Audi TT?
Guess what! I did not manage to connect my own iPod to the TT, but last year, at Apple Expo 2005, I could connect my iPod to a BMW Z4. And the catch is here: the integration works pretty fine with a few dozens of songs. But with a seriously loaded iPod like mine (I had about 6000 songs last year), the whole thing gets insanely slow and barely usable. It would take hours – literally – to scroll down to the artist you want.
Worse: See the screen on the picture? All it says is “Track 4″! You can’t see what you’re listening to.
No need to say, no way to browse through your podcasts and choose what you want to listen to.
Nice new Audi TT but old outdated iPod interface.
Note: I got to talk to the manager. He said they are currently still using Dension OEM equipment but they are now partnering with Apple in order to come up with a better solution of their own.
iPod & BMW
BMW wasn’t at Apple expo this year. But last year they had approximately the same system, with the added ability to browse though artists which would display on an *extra* screen. No way to listen to podcasts though.
It seems that BMW has greatly enhanced their iPod interface since (including podcasts). A shame I could not see it.
iPod & Mini (the car!)
See the picture? Get the picture? “TR02″ is the only visual feedback you’ll get. This is the typical “CD changer” interface again.
Most iPod car “integration” solutions work that way: they pretend to be a CD changer. So all you can do is select one of 6 playlists and then skip to next and previous tracks within that playlist (which is seen by the head unit as a CD).
Crap.
iPod & Dension
Dension offers after market iPod integration products. For a long time all they had was the crappy CD changer interface used in the Audi TT and the Mini above…
On some models though, you can disable the CD changer interface and use your iPod’s native control interface, so you can scroll easily to all artists or podcasts. While this gives you better control, this actually boils down to a $179 audio cable between your iPod and your head unit.
A little more interesting is their new FM tuner interface. This one, you don’t connect on a CD changer port on your head unit. Instead, you insert it between your antenna and your head unit. When activated it will shut out FM radio stations and emit from the iPod as if it was an FM radio station.
Again, you use the regular iPod interface for control (it’s the only option here). The plus is that the track name gets broad-casted by RDS so that it displays on the head unit. The downside however is that the sound quality falls down to FM quality. Good FM quality, but still…
iPod & Kensington
Kensington has a similar RDS enabled offer except that you do not connect the device to the head unit. It transmits over the air. So you get constant interference from actual FM radio stations. Plus, emitting on the FM band without authorization is illegal in many countries.
Nice device though. (Nicer than the dozen other similar cheap solutions you can find at your local retailer…)
iPod & Pioneer
Back in summer 2005 I bought a Pioneer head unit for my car because they were one of the first manufacturers to offer an (overpriced) iPod add-on. It looked like the same technology as the (old) BMW interface already mentioned above.
Painfully slow. Impossible to use with more than 200 songs. Impossible to use with podcasts.
After showing them how crappy it was, I had the retailer take it back.
Note: Neither Pioneer France, nor Pioneer Europe cared to answer to my email inquiries back then. 
Needless to say, I’ll never buy Pioneer again…
My personal recommendation
I could go on and on with other iPod integration solutions, but really, most of them are pure crap. The only thing they get right is charging your iPod while you drive!
However, if you seriously care about listening to your iPod in your car, if you want to listen to podcasts and not to the same old playlist again and again, I think the only effective solution today is to use the iPod’s native interface and get the analog sound out, either through the headphone jack, or through the dock connector with an adapter.
You can then pump the audio into your car stereo in several ways:
- A cassette adapter (bit quality sound won’t be that good)
- A jack connector on your head unit if you’re lucky to have one
- RCA connectors at the back of some head units (you can get an optional box from some manufacturers, like Pioneer…)
Then of course, some kind of docking system to have your iPod accessible at a convenient position can also help, compared to leaving your iPod on the passenger seat.
If you can’t live without charging your iPod while you drive, then the Dension RDS solution may be the best deal.
Anything more “advanced” is currently a waste of money. It’s good for demos and showing off. It’s useless for daily use.
BMW’s new system may be the first usable iPod car integration solution… but, unfortunately, I could not check it out yet.
If you liked it, you could [Digg this story] 
58 comments
About a month or two ago I had VW's official iPod adaptor installed in my '06 Jetta. It wires the first 5 playlists to the buttons for CD 1-5. And yes, I just get a track number and elapsed time indicator. No other info. Nearly all Audible content purchased via iTMS will randomly hiccup during playback.It really kills me that so few OEM radios can come with a simple jack on the front. Multi-CD, Satellite, etc but line input? Heck no! That would add $1 to the system cost!
I fear the lack of a line input on all major brands is a deliberate marketing choice! :(If they give you thet jack, you have little reason to by any other option from them, like said the multi CD charger, the satellite receiver or the crappy iPod integration... it would be so easy for you to connect a portable device and they would not make any buck from it! :/
Several low tech unknown Chinese brands do have line in jacks though. Of course, their head units look like crap and you cannot possible have that in your car when on the other hand you've bought an iPod partly for its crisp design!
Or you can put a Mac Mini in your car (véridique !). 
Check out Alpine's models. I put one in my car last January, and it works great with my iPod. Full control from the dash, with the iPod out of sight. I can view Playlists, Artists, Albums, almost everything except the "Star Ratings".Other limitation is that it will only show the first 256 items in any list, so if you have more than 256 artists, you can only see the first batch. The solution is to create playlists of the artists by the alphabetical order.
I have an Alpine Deck in my car with iPod integration. It's actually the second one I've had. The first one, which I found to be rather crappy because of the way it made you browse things, was still way better than anything you describe here. The current offerings work great - and I am always connecting my full 40G iPod. Granted, there are limitations. It doesn't support grouping compilations into the Compilations meta-artist, but neither does my iPod, so it may not be an alpine issue. I can browse by artist, playlist, album or genre. Shuffle works fine. I think the button choices are a little odd, but that's ok. And it charges.
Give it a shot - it's by far the best thing I've seen for cars so far.
I also bought an Alpine (9847 and 57 respectively). The 47's ipod integration was good, with full features, but it was slow in scrolling. With the new model, the interface has been updated, with a higher-res screen, and it works like a charm. I have over 5000 songs on my ipod, and it's easy and intuitive to find any of them while driving. 
I have the USA Spec iPod interface in my Tacoma and I love it. There could be improvements but all in all, it's the best value for the $$ for listening to an iPod in a vehicle. Plus you don't need to buy a new deck, works with the factory one. I've got a couple of questions for you guys who are satisfied with their iPod integration. I'd be really interested about your feedback on this:Have you tried listening to podcasts?
Can you browse through your podcasts?
Can you see which ones you have already listened to and which ones are new?
What about Daimler (Mercedes)? '07 is supposed to have iPod integration. How good is it? 
I have a Dension iceLink in 01 Jetta. There's a feature in it to disable to the Dension UI that pops up on the iPod and use the standard iPod UI. I find it infinitely more useable in that state. 
Obviously you have never used the Scion interface (I have one in my '06 tC). Interestingly enough, it is made by Pioneer. It is perfect, except when the menu times out or you try to go "up" one from the currently playing song, it takes you to the top level (Playlists, Artists, Tracks, Albums, etc). Other than this it is fine - I haven't run into any issues as far as too many artists or playlists or anything.It docks in the center console and charges nicely. And you even have an EXTRA aux in to go with it.
I would like to add my own experience of the Pioneer iPod adaptor.They recently brought out an updated version of the adaptor (basically a cd changer interface on one side, including pass through to your regular stacker, a power input to charge the iPod from 12v and the (hardwired) iPod dock connector).
There are of course limitations to the unit, it can only show 8 characters of the song title (but you can scroll in a way) and you cannot control the ipod directly through the ipod interface when it is plugged in, only from the head unit.
However, the audio quality is as good as it can be, as it takes the proper line out (headphone socket is crap in comparison) and once you learn how to use the quite strange controls from the headunit, it works quite well.
There are two suggestions to make it easier to use the pioneer unit - playlists are your friend! and also, before you get in the car, select the album, artist, shuffle or other that you want to play when you are in the car, and start it playing on the ipod yourself, THEN plug it into the pioneer adaptor - that way you avoid painful initial selection from the head unit, and it continues to just play whatever was playing.
Unlike the original article, I have not returned my pioneer unit, have been using it for four months or so (but i did get it on sale!).
Another possible option is the latest Tom Tom GPS unit, which has iPod in, and line out to your stereo, you can then use the Tom Tom touch screen to access the iPod menus. Haven't used it, but the idea seems sound.
Another option is a cigarette lighter adaptor from Belkin which gives you a feeder of the line out from the dock connector, which you can then plug into your head unit if it has an auxillary connector (or tape adaptor). This solution is cheap, charges your ipod, very portable, and it uses line out rather than the headphone jack.
In my experience, I have tried two FM adaptors (iTrip and Belkin) and both worked awfully - very hard to set the radio station on the iTrip, but worst of all, in a big city (Sydney) there are two many real FM stations to interfere, you can never find a clear channel that lasts more than a few kilometres.
Hope these comments help!
See my link if you want to get instructions for installing a head unit in a 2003 subaru forester/imprezza!
I have a Harmon/Kardon unit and it's by far the best offering I've seen. It runs over FM or line in (so great sound quality), charges while the car runs, pauses the ipod when the car stops, and has most of the ipod's interface, displayed through a separate screen and controlled via a dash-mounted click wheel wannabe. Highly recommended. 
Just looked at a Toyota Prius & Honda Civic Hybrid today, both had headphone AUX inputs on the dash for the iPod use. so if you don't mind using the ipod for your interface while driving, these aux inputs are pretty cool. That is strange. My parents bought a Prius last year and there is definitely no such thing as an AUX or Line IN jack input on the dashboard. Is this new on this year's Priuses?(Matt: there are no Scions in Europe... and obviously there was none at Apple Expo... so I got no chance to look at one indeed)
I'll add my $0.02 about the Pioneer iPod control.I bought a Pioneer head unit and the CDIB100II iPod interface back in February when my last radio was stolen.
One of the great features is that you can also pass through to other interface adapters, such as the aux input adapter.
I agree that the iPod control from Pioneer is crappy, although it does charge the iPod well and does sound good.
But the control capability is pretty lousy. Only about two weeks ago did I figure out that it's possible to switch the shuffle feature on and off from the Pioneer radio. I also discovered that it's possible to switch the Up/Down control on the head unit to Playlist, Genre, Artist, and Album.
But you then have to scroll through every possibility, so if you have 500 artists on your 60 GB iPod, it's tough to get past the B's or the W's.
What I don't understand is why none of the regular face buttons on the Pioneer work with the iPod control. There's a TON of buttons, including the PAUSE button, that don't do squat once you switch to controlling the iPod. I don't get it.
The '06 Range Rover Sport has an Aux-In and a dedicated 12v connector. 
I just installed a Panasonic stereo with ipod integration and I love it. Nearly full-speed scrolling through artists/playlists/albums/songs and full two-line display of title and artist or artist and album. 
I have an older Audi (2001) and decided that I was tired of keeping my ipod in the car and managing it and the cruddy CD Changer based integration.For $125 on ebay I picked up a 20GB PhatBox and never looked back. In this mode you replace your CD Changer with the PhatBox and insert the 20GB cartridge on which your music is loaded.
The 6 CD's become different modes. Playlist, Artist, Genre, Album, Options and one other I forget.
How do you browse music? Via a spoken interface that tells you what is going on. Yes, its not perfect and a bit hokey sounding at times but two things make it fantastic for me.
1) The track #'s MEAN SOMETHING. Based on the context your are in the track numbers are numbering that item. So, in Album mode you get to see that you are on Track 13. Is it iPod like? No not at all, more CD like actually. Functional? You betcha, particularly when trying to zoom through a lot of tracks.
2) The voice interface is actually very intuitive. Holding the button down takes you out of 'item mode' and into 'letter mode' where you can zoom through 'A' and 'B' and 'C' and stop at 'D', all announced over the speakers.
With the IBM voices its quite nice and if your really anal you can teach it the syntax hints it needs to properly pronounce the names and album titles.
So, its no ipod, its not perfect but for me, after 4+ years of bogus iPod integrations, works exceptionally well. Give it a look.
Of course, if we ever get a good iPod interface I'll probably jump back over but this to me is a great comfortable medium that I never remove from the car, never fails me and is very easy to manage.
A followup to the question from above:You'd asked about experiences with podcasting with these solutions. That's really all I listen to in the car. BUT I must confess I make a playlist after updating the podcasts. I figure out the 6-10 podcasts I might want to listen to for my commute, drag them into the top playlist, and sync. The reason I do this is that I don't want to do any more iPod navigation than is necessary once I start driving. Keeping things down to a list of likely candidates means the most I would do is a track skip or two. I acknowledge that it takes a few minutes to setup each time, but I find the safety tradeoff worth it. I'd rather finagle the iPod at home than in my car.
I imagine you might be able to approximate this with "Smart Playlists" based on a genre of Podcast with an update of the last n days.
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