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You've spent hours getting your favorite music into iTunes, your iPod is synched up and ready to rock your world. Yet, when you get in your car, you still listen to top 40 radio. Aacckk! You can change that scenario by finding out how to use your iPod with your car's stereo. Here's the scoop, with a little reward at the end.
Some of you may have newer cars with built-in iPod connections. You lucky people don't have to do anything except place the iPod in the car's dock and crank it up. Instead, you can use your time to make sure your TV is ready for the digital transition, or to bake someone you love a scientifically precise homemade chocolate chip cookie.
The rest of us must adapt. That means spending a few of your hard-to-find dollars on an adapter that is compatible with your car and your iPod.
If your car has a cassette deck, the least expensive option is a cassette adapter like this one from Radio Shack. You connect the cassette adapter to the headphone jack of your iPod. Riebee has one of these, which she describes losing (and missing a whole lot) in Butterfly Blues - Yawn. I'm thinking if she misses it, it must work pretty well.
Many adapters like the Monster iCar work by broadcasting an FM signal to your car radio, which is then audible on your car's speaker system. An FM device like this should also work with the FM radio in your home. The two main points in favor of this type of adapter are that it's less expensive and you don't have to remove anything from your car, or install any thing permanent in your car. If the area you live in is crowded with FM signals, it may be hard to find a good frequency you can use for the iPod signal. A main seller of this type of adapter is Griffin. Another is Belkin.
I don't know how the FM transmitter sound quality compares with the less expensive cassette adapter, but the FM adapters do not have the sound quality that you get from the "installed" versions described next.
Another type of adapter plugs into your car's CD changer port. This may be a solution if your car is too old for the built-in connection, but of that era when auto makers were starting to accomodate driver's requests for a way to use iPods on the go. Some car radios have an input on the front that would connect directly to the headphone jack on the iPod. Easy peasy. You can see this type of "line in" connection in Clare's list of favorite things at Diapers to Designs.
Other car radios provide an auxiliary input connection on the back of the car's radio or CD player. One product that connects to this is Neo iPod kit. There's a video of a woman pulling out the dash panels and factory radio to connect the wires to the auxiliary input on the Neo iPod site. She makes it look easy. Another product that works this way is the iPod2Car Kit.
Perhaps a more reliable how-to for you DIYers than the one from Neo iPod is this one from MacLife. At CNET, you can find a number of brief video tutorials showing you how to iPod your car.
Jenn, in A few photolicious moments, describes the iPod-to-CD device on her Christmas wish list. The device she's getting from Santa can be controlled using the car stereo, rather than the iPod controls, once it's hooked up. There are several models with this feature.
Another option is to install an adapter that mounts somewhere in your car, often atop the dash. The iMe Dock is an example. This is another more complicated installation process adapter, but you get better sound quality as a result.
Crutchfield, Amazon, and iPod Car Pros sell all the various types of adapters. One tricky part of figuring out what to actually buy is that there are so many sizes of iPods and so many types of cars. At iPod Car Pros, the site provides a way to use your car info to show you the proper one of their products for your car.
Many of the adapters work with iPhones and other types of mp3 players such as the Zune. If you're a multi-device household, look for something that covers those situations, too. Some of the
