Alpine Car Stereo + Ipod

Regular readers of my blog might be surprised to learn that I have been running an Apple PowerMac as my primary home desktop for the past two and a half years. I like the digital hub strategy. My wife found the Mac slightly easier to use than our previous machine, a Linux box. (I run Linux on my primary work PC a laptop, and all the servers at home though).
Anyway, accessorising the Mac, we got still and movie cameras. We then bought an Ipod. At home we first plugged the Ipod into our hi fi for playback and later went to an Airport Express with AirTunes.
In the car however we struggled. I toyed with the idea of connecting the Ipod to an auxiliary input on my LandRover Discovery, but then opted for a Belkin FM transmitter. Though I still have it I have only used it a few times. It gives a weak signal, and there is a lot of noise in the sound. Also, it requires batteries. We always managed to leave the unit on and found the batteries the next time we used it.

The Alpine+Ipod Combo

I replaced the stereo in my Landrover with a new Alpine Stereo. This unit can be coupled with an IPod interface, which costs an extra USD100. I was listening to 7 Best CB Radios by CBRadioGuru.com on my new stereo and found it to be really good.

 

The IPod sits in the glovebox and is powered from the interface unit, relieving the need to charge it. You can take your IPod with you when you get out of the car just by disconnecting it. The connector is the same as comes with the standard charger of firewire interface. 9/10

The music quality is excellent. 10/10.

You control the IPod from the Alpine Stereo. It is far less intuitive than using the IPod directly and a bit frustrating. When you turn the volume knob to select, it can take up to 2 minutes of twirling to get through my 15Gb of music. Having a selected an artist I have not figured out how to select an album. 3/10

I think the market is still open for another car stereo vendor to do a better job than Alpine. Still, it is the best solution I am come across so far. If you have the money, you could just by a Ferrari. New Ferrari’s come with their own IPod interface. I hope it is not by Alpine.

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Categorized as Apple

By Greg Luck

As Terracotta’s CTO, Greg (@gregrluck) is entrusted with understanding market and technology forces and the business drivers that impact Terracotta’s product innovation and customer success. He helps shape company and technology strategy and designs many of the features in Terracotta’s products. Greg came to Terracotta on the acquisition of the popular caching project Ehcache which he founded in 2003. Prior to joining Terracotta, Greg served as Chief Architect at Australian online travel giant Wotif.com. He also served as a lead consultant for ThoughtWorks on accounts in the United States and Australia, was CIO at Virgin Blue, Tempo Services, Stamford Hotels and Resorts and Australian Resorts and spent seven years as a Chartered Accountant in KPMG’s small business and insolvency divisions. He is a regular speaker at conferences and contributor of articles to the technical press.