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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / Car Audio / January 2005iPod Ready Alpine
Hi- Has anyone heard from Alpine on there iPod ready recievers? Cheers Beaker Belkin makes an FM tranmitter (88.1MH) that hooks to the stereo output of any MP3 player. @$25. I have one I use with my Karma. >Hi- > >Has anyone heard from Alpine on there iPod ready recievers? > >Cheers >Beaker What does that mean? It just has an AUX input or what? How is it "iPod ready"?? trey > Hi- > > Has anyone heard from Alpine on there iPod ready recievers? > > Cheers > Beaker > What does that mean? It just has an AUX input or what? How is it "iPod > ready"?? The iPod is controlled by the head unit -- playlists, etc. See their press release: http://www.alpine-usa.com/company_info/press_release/010804_ipad.html "With a simple one-cable connection, iPod users will be able to operate key playback features from the Alpine receiver's buttons and have display of playlists, album, artist and songs on the head unit. The iPod can then be safely stored in the glove box or console because it acts like a portable hard drive connected to the head unit through Alpine's powerful Ai-Net system bus. The Alpine connectivity solution also provides charging of the iPod's internal battery. " > Hi- > > Has anyone heard from Alpine on there iPod ready recievers? Have you contacted alpine? Their press releases gave an email address, ipodready@alpine-usa.com, that you could get more information from. The aftermarket stereo companies should just start making Bluetooth capable headunits. Then companies like Apple, Creative, etc... could start making bluetooth capable portables, or someone could make bluetooth attachments for portable players.Then we'd have our choice of units and they'd more or less all be controllable through any Bluetooth enabled decks. 09On 20 Apr 2004 06:47:35 GMT, oneactor1@aol.com (Steve Grauman) wrote: >The aftermarket stereo companies should just start making Bluetooth capable >headunits. Then companies like Apple, Creative, etc... could start making >bluetooth capable portables, or someone could make bluetooth attachments for >portable players.Then we'd have our choice of units and they'd more or less all >be controllable through any Bluetooth enabled decks. That's a good idea, and I'd like to see a move towards fewer standards, like we've gotten in personal computers during the last few years. I think it's going to be a few more years until we see it, though. Bluetooth (or any other Wi-Fi, for that matter) would currently add too much to the price of a receiver to make it worthwhile for anything but high-end aftermarket models, and that would result in a user base that would be too small for for companies like Creative or Apple to care about. Most of us here on this newsgroup are car audio enthusiasts, but if you look at the total number of cars on the road, the percentage that have ANY kind of aftermarket stereo in them at all is actually pretty small. That's why the companies that *do* come out with car-interconnect kits for their MP3 players usually use some kind of least-common-denominator interface, like an FM modulator or cassette-tape adaptor. Scott Gardner > Bluetooth (or any other Wi-Fi, for that matter) would > currently add too much to the price of a receiver to make it > worthwhile for anything but high-end aftermarket models, If Bluetooth's cheap enough to build into a mouse, isn't it cheap enough to build into a receiver? > and that > would result in a user base that would be too small for for companies > like Creative or Apple to care about. Companies are already making weird 802.11b audio player things for home use, though IMHO they're absurdly expensive for what they do. And isn't Apple already catering to a small user base? >> Bluetooth (or any other Wi-Fi, for that matter) would >> currently add too much to the price of a receiver to make it >> worthwhile for anything but high-end aftermarket models, > >If Bluetooth's cheap enough to build into a mouse, isn't it cheap >enough to build into a receiver? Well, there are two things in play here. First, I don't know if all Bluetooth devices have the same data rate, and an MP3 player would require a significantly higher data rate than a mouse. Also, Bluetooth isn't really being "built into" the mouse, almost the entire cost of the mouse comes from the Bluetooth technology. If you look on eBay, you can buy corded optical mice all day long for $0.99, but the Bluetooth optical mice go for between $50 and $100. The people that buy Bluetooth mice obviously want the Bluetooth technology, and think it's worth the extra $50. Someone that buys a car receiver may or may not want the Bluetooth functionality, and may balk at that same $50 price increase. That's why I said that Bluetooth or any other wireless connectivity would likely show up on the "flagship" models first, rather then being introduced as a feature across the company's entire product line. >> and that >> would result in a user base that would be too small for for companies [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >home use, though IMHO they're absurdly expensive for what they do. >And isn't Apple already catering to a small user base? The 802.11b and 802.11g home audio setups have a larger potential user base. They're marketed toward anyone with both a computer and a home stereo, and the particular brand of computer or stereo isn't important. Compare that to a wireless iPod, which would be marketed towards people with both a computer and a compatible wireless-equipped aftermarket stereo in their car. Aftermarket car stereos are vastly outnumbered by home stereos, and wireless-equipped aftermarket car stereos would be an even smaller subset of that. Apple's user base, at least as far as the iPod goes, isn't that small anymore now that the iPods work with Windows and they've launched iTunes for Windows. Apple has sold over 800,000 iPods in the last fiscal quarter alone, many to people like me that don't even own a Macintosh. Wireless connectivity is also much less attractive in a car than in a home or office environment, simply because the distances involved aren't that great. It will become more attractive as the cost for wireless-equipped devices drop, but I think we're still a few years away. Until then, it's just too easy/cheap to use a wire instead. I think the most likely "first step" will be a big company like Sony producing both sides of the equation - the wireless-equipped car stereo AND the wireless MP3 player. That would solve the chicken-and-egg problem of car stereo manufacturers not wanting to make wireless-equipped car stereos unless there's already a wireless MP3 player out there to connect to. As long as Sony (or whoever does it first) uses an open standard for both the data transfer AND the control commands between the car stereo and the portable music player, other compatible products will follow soon after. Scott Gardner >Someone that buys a >car receiver may or may not want the Bluetooth functionality, and may >balk at that same $50 price increase People said the same thing when the first decks with MP3 decoding came out. You start with 1 or 2 models per manufacturer and increase the number of Bluetooth enabled devices as price drops. Bluetooth enabled headunits could allow for wireless integration with outboard MP3/WMA/AAC/ETC... players as well as Cell phones and other devices as well. >>Someone that buys a >>car receiver may or may not want the Bluetooth functionality, and may [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >start with 1 or 2 models per manufacturer and increase the number of Bluetooth >enabled devices as price drops. I don't think MP3 decoding added as much to the cost of a deck, and by the time MP3 decoding on car decks came out, there were already millions of people that had CD burners (which is all the hardware you need to make an MP3 disc), so the user base was already there. In contrast, if the car stereo companies were to come out with a Bluetooth-equipped receiver tomorrow, what would people connect it to? >Bluetooth enabled headunits could allow for >wireless integration with outboard MP3/WMA/AAC/ETC... players as well as Cell >phones and other devices as well. Don't forget that Bluetooth is just a wireless protocol for data transfer - it doesn't specify the protocol for control or format signals. Just because two components both have Bluetooth functionality, it doesn't mean they'll know how to communicate with each other. The Bluetooth car deck would still have to know how to tell the MP3 player to "play", "pause", scroll through artists, playlists, etcetera. Unless all the consumer electronic companies can come up with a non-proprietary standard for control signals, the devices still won't be able to communicate. For a perfect example of this, imagine trying to hook your USB-equipped MP3 player directly to your USB printer to print off a list of all of your songs. Of course it won't work. Even though they both use the USB standard for data transfer, they don't know each other's control and format signals, so they're not able to talk to one another directly. Scott Gardner >In >contrast, if the car stereo companies were to come out with a >Bluetooth-equipped receiver tomorrow, what would people connect it to? Cell phones and portable players, as I said. And there's potential for other devices as well. >Don't forget that Bluetooth is just a wireless protocol for data >transfer - it doesn't specify the protocol for control or format >signals. Just because two components both have Bluetooth >functionality, it doesn't mean they'll know how to communicate with >each other. True. But if Alpine, Pioneer, JVC, Eclipse, Aiwa/Sony and Blaupunkt all suddenly showed an interest in producing Bluetooth equipped decks, I'm sure they'd work out protocall issues. My new cell phone has Bluetooth, but my car does not. Adding a Bluetooth enabled deck would allow me to get wireless handsfree in the car without the need to use my headset. Even better, if they figured out how to get the deck's display to show caller-ID info, I'd never have to grab the phone for a glance at who's calling. It's not perfect, but we can get there. >>In >>contrast, if the car stereo companies were to come out with a >>Bluetooth-equipped receiver tomorrow, what would people connect it to? > >Cell phones and portable players, as I said. And there's potential for other >devices as well. The key point from my sentence was the "tomorrow" part. Even if the stereo manufacturers produced a Bluetooth-enabled deck tomorrow, there's no existing peripherals for it to interface with. Thus there's no installed user base to encourage them to produce the decks in the first place. I'm going back to my earlier assertion that the most likely implementation would be an end-to-end solution from a single manufacturer. For example, Sony could have one or two of their flagship models in their car-audio lineup programmed to control the Sony/Ericsson Bluetooth-enabled wireless phones. Since they produce both the deck and the phone, it would easy for them to write a protocol to allow the two to communicate. Using the Sony deck with a Nokia Bluetooth phone likely wouldn't work, though. >>Don't forget that Bluetooth is just a wireless protocol for data >>transfer - it doesn't specify the protocol for control or format [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >suddenly showed an interest in producing Bluetooth equipped decks, I'm sure >they'd work out protocall issues. Whatever protocol they end up using would also have to be written with the help of all the manufacturers of music players and cell phones (or whatever other peripherals), since those are the devices that the decks will actually have to communicate with. What good will it be for Alpine, Aiwa, and the rest of the stereo manufacturers to figure out how to communicate wirelessly with an iPod when Creative or another peripheral company might use a completely different protocol for their products? >My new cell phone has Bluetooth, but my car >does not. Adding a Bluetooth enabled deck would allow me to get wireless >handsfree in the car without the need to use my headset. Even better, if they >figured out how to get the deck's display to show caller-ID info, I'd never >have to grab the phone for a glance at who's calling. It's not perfect, but we >can get there. I'm not saying that in-car wireless wouldn't be neat, but Bluetooth only solves the easy part of the problem (eliminating the wire). Coming up with the protocols so that the decks and all available wireless peripherals speak the same "language" - regardless of what kind of peripheral it is or who manufacturers it - is the hard part. You could have a Bluetooth-enabled deck in your car this instant, and it still wouldn't know how to do hands-free with your phone, unless the deck manufacturer told it how to. And if they got it to work with one brand of phone, such as Sony-Ericsson, they would have to write a completely-different protocol for Nokia, Motorola, and whomever else makes Bluetooth phones. Rather than trying to come up with a global standard protocol for all Bluetooth devices, a better solution might be device-specific software "drivers" like our home computers use to interface with various peripherals. The driver could come on a CD, and you could use the CD to "flash" the driver onto an EEPROM inside the car deck. That way, if Alpine has a Bluetooth-enabled deck, and you buy a Sony/Ericsson Bluetooth phone, you just have to browse to the Alpine site (responsibility for writing the drivers would probably fall on the deck manufacturer rather than the peripheral manufacturer), and download the driver to interface your Alpine deck with your new phone. This way, when new phones, music players, and PDAs are released, all Alpine has to do is write new drivers. All this will eventually happen, all I said in my earlier post was that we're a few years away from it being a reality. People (I'm not referring to you, Steve) talk about Bluetooth like it's some kind of universal, automatic translator (an electronic "Babel Fish" for you Douglas Adams fans), when in reality it's just another wireless protocol. Bluetooth doesn't solve any of the hard problems. Scott Gardner >The key point from my sentence was the "tomorrow" part. And the key part of my post was farthur down. When manufactures start making Bluetooth decks, other comapnies will jump in. Besides I see no reason why my Bluetooth enabled phone (or ANY Bluetooth enabled phone, they all talk the same way) shouldn't be immediately compatible, if the stereo guys are smart. >Using the Sony deck with a >Nokia Bluetooth phone likely wouldn't work, though. Of course it would. Bluetooth phones work under a communication stadarn. That's why Jabbra's Freespeak wireless Bluetooth headset will work with ANY Bluetooth enabled phone. >What good will it be >for Alpine, Aiwa, and the rest of the stereo manufacturers to figure >out how to communicate wirelessly with an iPod when Creative or >another peripheral company might use a completely different protocol >for their products? Ever take a marketing class? 2-way tie-in deals are done all the time. It's a way for both manufactures to benefit mutually. Alpine gets to advertise a deck that'll communicate wirelessly with a portable player and Apple gets to be the only compnay making a portable that'll talk to the Alpine. Besides, I don;t see why it need work this way. If Alpine, Pioneer and Eclipse all agreed to share the same bluetooth protocall, someone could produce attachments that would enable portables to talk to them. Jabbra makes a kit that will let ANY cell phone, regardless of make or model speak via Bluetooth to a wireless ear piecee. >You could have a Bluetooth-enabled deck in your car this instant, and >it still wouldn't know how to do hands-free with your phone This isn't neccesarily true. As I mentioned, Jabbra's Freespeak will communicate WITHOUT ADAPTERS with any phone that's Bluetooth enabled. There's no reason that any Bluetooth deck and any Bluetooth phone shouldn't be able to talk. >And if they got it to work with >one brand of phone, such as Sony-Ericsson, they would have to write a >completely-different protocol for Nokia, Motorola, and whomever else >makes Bluetooth phones. No they wouldn't. If this were true than Jabbra would be making seperate models of their FreeSpeak for every different Bluetooth enabled phone. Phones all talk the same way. >>The key point from my sentence was the "tomorrow" part. > >And the key part of my post was farthur down. When manufactures start making >Bluetooth decks, other comapnies will jump in. Besides I see no reason why my >Bluetooth enabled phone (or ANY Bluetooth enabled phone, they all talk the same >way) shouldn't be immediately compatible, if the stereo guys are smart. But they DON'T "all talk the same way". Some of the simpler features have been standardized - many others haven't. (more below) >>Using the Sony deck with a >>Nokia Bluetooth phone likely wouldn't work, though. > >Of course it would. Bluetooth phones work under a communication stadarn. That's >why Jabbra's Freespeak wireless Bluetooth headset will work with ANY Bluetooth >enabled phone. How much of a phone's functionality does a wireless headset really need to control? Can you initiate or end calls solely from the headset? Can you adjust the volume from the headset? How about storing a number in memory? I'm not very impressed with a wireless headset that works with several different brands of phones, because there's simply not much in the way of control or formatting information being passed between the two devices. Honestly, it's not much more complicated than me using my Sony headphones with my Apple iPod. There's simply not a standard yet for all of the control and formatting information among the different phones, much less things like PDAs and music devices. The command sequences you'd need to send to a Nokia phone to do something like store a number in memory aren't going to be the same as for a Motorola phone. Pulling up a playlist in an iPod would require different commands than pulling up a playlist on a Creative Labs Nomad. To use your example of pulling calling ID information from the phone and displaying it on your car receiver, not all phones display the caller ID the same way, or would output it in the same format to an external display. The control sequences to initiate the transfer of caller ID information would likely differ as well. Go to Bluetooth.org and you'll see how little is actually standardized yet. There's a wireless headphone standard that was adopted in Bluetooth v1.1, which is why Jabra and Logitech (among other companies) now have Bluetooth-compatible headphones. But look at other features like phone book access and subscriber number information, and you'll see the standards haven't been developed yet. The FRDs (Feature Requirement Documents) have been written, but an FRD is just a wishlist of features, not an actual specification document. The specifications for those two features haven't been written. When they are, they'll go into draft form, then they'll go into final review. Sometime after that, they'll actually be written into the Bluetooth standard, perhaps several versions down the road. Right now, if all you want a car stereo to do with a Bluetooth phone is provide hands-free functionality, you could do that by adopting the wireless headphone specification from Bluetooth version 1.1. You'd still have to initiate and end the call from the handset, but the hands-free part is workable. Things like auto-muting, phone book access, localization through the GPS phone feature, and other features will have to wait until the standards for those features are developed. Over time, the Bluetooth standard will evolve to a point where a wide variety of devices will be able to talk to one another and control all of one another's features, but we're not there yet. I never said any of this was impossible, just that we were a few years away. Scott Gardner >Can you initiate or end calls solely from the >headset? Yes. Every Bluetooth enabled phone I know of also supports Voice Dialing that can be used through the wireless headset. >Can you adjust the volume from the headset? It depends on the headset. Usually the volume needs to be set the the phone, but it's not the kind of thing your constantly adjusting, or should be while driving. >How about >storing a number in memory? This isn't something I want/need a Bluetooth enabled device to do for me. I simply want the ability to add hands-free calling via a Bluetooth enabled deck. And if Jabbra can make a universal Bluetooth headset, I see no reason why there can't be "universalized" Bluetooth enabled decks that could all make and recieve calls through enabled phones. >I'm not very impressed with a wireless headset that works with several >different brands of phones, because there's simply not much in the way >of control or formatting information being passed between the two >devices. What kind of headset are you using that gives you any extra control of the phone?Jabbra is the largest company around right now making Bluetooth headsets for cell phones. All I want the thing for is so that I can make and recieve calls, hands free and without having to be wired to my phone. >There's simply not a standard yet for all of the control and >formatting information among the different phones, much less things >like PDAs and music devices My Sony Ericsson T616 has a Minigolf game in it that has a "network" play feature. Any other phone with Bluetooth and the game installed can play wirelessly with me. There seems to be a fair degree of conformity. >The command sequences you'd need to send >to a Nokia phone to do something like store a number in memory aren't >going to be the same as for a Motorola phone. This may be true, but again, I'm not planing on using a deck to add numbers to my phone. If I can be distracted enough to fitz with the decks "add number" feature, I can be distracted enough to pick up the phone and add the number there. I simply want the ability to make and recieve calls, handsfree and without the need to be wired to my phone. >Pulling up a playlist >in an iPod would require different commands than pulling up a playlist >on a Creative Labs Nomad Not neccesarily, this is what I'm getting at. NONE of the portable MP3 players have Bluetooth yet. If the major stereo manufacturers agreed to use the same variant of Bluetooth in their decks, than any compatible portables that came out afterward should be able to communicate with any of the decks. How hard would it be to produce an AI-Net Bluetooth unit for handsfree phone operation? Better yet, something that integrates into the Navigation display? Since BT is catching on in Japan, can this type of unit be that far off? An AI-Net unit would certainly solve the problem of having to buy the flagship HU for the feature. I recently put the Sony Ericsson bluetooth unit into my truck... and its great. The one complaint is that I couldn't integrate the unit into my aftermarket HU and amps. The sound differential was too great and it introduced a lot of noise into the sound system. Now all I have to do is sound dampen my interior so I can actually use the handsfree while speeding down the highway! >Not neccesarily, this is what I'm getting at. NONE of the portable MP3 players >have Bluetooth yet. If the major stereo manufacturers agreed to use the same >variant of Bluetooth in their decks, than any compatible portables that came >out afterward should be able to communicate with any of the decks. But that's the whole problem. The most recent version of the Bluetooth wireless standard (version 1.1) doesn't have the necessary protocols written to support wireless MP3 players, so there's nothing the stereo manufacturers could put in their head units today that would guarantee compatibility with Bluetooth MP3 players that come out in the future. Once the necessary additions are made to the Bluetooth standard, stereo manufacturers and MP3 player manufacturers will know how they have to design their products to meet the new Bluetooth standard. At that point, any Bluetooth-enabled MP3 player should be able to communicate with any Bluetooth-enabled deck that uses the same (or newer) version of the Bluetooth standard. I think we're at the point in this discussion where we're basically saying the same thing. Bluetooth looks to be an ideal candidate for wireless integration of music devices (and other devices) with aftermarket head units, *once* the necessary additions have been made to the Bluetooth standard. Some of the standards are already in place, so we could have wireless hands-free in a car deck right now, but other features, like being able to select playlists on an MP3 player from the head unit, will have to wait until the appropriate enhancements to Bluetooth have been written. Scott Gardner What kind of bandwidth does bluetooth have? Is it *enough* for high quality audio? > >Not neccesarily, this is what I'm getting at. NONE of the portable MP3 players > >have Bluetooth yet. If the major stereo manufacturers agreed to use the same [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > > Scott Gardner The bandwidth for the Bluetooth standard is 1 Mbps, so it should be enough for any of the common compressed standards like AAC, WMV, or MP3. An uncompressed CD stream would be asking a little too much of it, though. Scott Gardner >What kind of bandwidth does bluetooth have? Is it *enough* for high quality >audio? [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] >> >> Scott Gardner >The bandwidth for the Bluetooth standard is 1 Mbps, so it should be >enough for any of the common compressed standards like AAC, WMV, or >MP3 That's fine with me. I find 320Kbps AACs (which I believe are totally lossless) with a 44.000Khz sample rate to be more or less indistinguishable from the CD's they were ripped from on most speakers. And with anywhere from 5GB on up in a good players, you can still store plenty of them. This article will give you step-by-step instructions on how to successfully obtain your iPod using freeipods.com for as little as $1. Many think that this site is a scam but it is not. The guys from Tech TV proved this. Check out there website: http://www.g4techtv.com/videos/index.html?video_key=8872 In order to get your free Ipod, You must get five friends or relatives to do exactly the following... Step 1: Click here to go to the free iPod site. http://www.freeipods.com/?r=13662965 To participate in this great offer you must live in the US Step 2: Use an email address at the bottom of the page and choose a password. (they will send you email, so please use a secondary account) Step 3: Fill out all required shipping information. This tells them where to send your iPod. Step 4: (Do not exit at this point) This is the part that over 90% of the people start thinking: "Maybe this isn't for real." They present to you 10 different "optional" offers. These offers you can skip without completing. They are not applied towards getting your iPod. Step 5: Complete an offer. This is where real companies like AOL, Real Networks and more are advertising through freeIpods.com. This is what makes them successful. Choose an offer and purchase or sign up. (Choose the RealNetworks Real Rapsody. This cost $1...yes $1 dollar for 30 days. Cancel after 14 days to get your points. Even if you forget its only $10 a month after the first month. For signing up they also give you 5 free songs to burn. This is the best offer. Nothing is free, but an iPod for a dollar and a little work is worth it. Some offers change. There is always one offer where you pay next to nothing or just sign up for a 30 day trial. Step 6: After you get your points then you can get your friends to do the same thing by going to the refer friends page. Even if you don't complete it you get to download five songs. Note: Completing an offer and not signing up your friends is what they are counting on. It is more likely you get intreagued and then give up. This doesn't mean that it is a scam. All you must do is finish. If this still sounds to good to be true then go pay $300 for a new iPod. Have patience and good luck. If you haven't started yet. Get your iPod here!!! http://www.freeipods.com/?r=13662965 meh, id rather pay 300 dollars and not have to jump through hoops > The aftermarket stereo companies should just start making Bluetooth capable > headunits. Then companies like Apple, Creative, etc... could start making > bluetooth capable portables, or someone could make bluetooth attachments for > portable players.Then we'd have our choice of units and they'd more or less all > be controllable through any Bluetooth enabled decks. Seems Alpine was doing operational marketing here... IMHO: Bluetooth inside a head unit would 'only' cost an additional $5 to $10 (component cost: depending on QTY, on whether you are using an off-shelf module or embedding the BT baseband and transceiver inside your onwn ASIC, etc.). That's not really much, and not what has prevented integration of Bluetooth inside the audio units from happening to this date. Starting with the handsfree function. ... Oops, add an additional $10 for a decent signal processing if you are going to use beam forming techniques with mikes inside the head unit (interestingly, mikes and DSPs are appearing inside head units anyways - but that's to adjust the output of each speaker according to the dynamics of the environment). ... oh, and if you want to do a clean integration job, you may want to use the head unit screen to display phonebook entries, NMEA messages for your Bluetooth pda-centric GPS nav, or, whatever you need display for controlling your BT-enabled MP3 player - no big deal. Add a couple more bucks for that. ... was about to forget the CAN interface so that you can control everything from your steering wheel controls (why wouldn't you want to? CAN do). That adds not much if your chipset was designed to handle that. That puts the grand total to 25-30 bucks, component cost only. Not really a major roadblock... What's prevented all this integration from happening already is that you could not reasonably offer Bluetooth head units (necessarily factory-fitted and NOT after-market (too small fry)) when BT handset market penetration is around 20%... We all understand that iPod is big: a couple million units out already... Well, there's hundreds of millions of cellphones selling each year. If big is big, what's big? Bluetooth in vehicles has started addressing the handsfree feature, and will extend to portable GPS navigation and MP3 players. Remember Bluetooth was started by handset manufacturers... Now 50% of all replacement phones in Europe are BT-enabled. So shortly, you'll have enough of a customer basis there from which you can start working on ('audio unit'-wise). You can currently buy in Europe a Peugeot, Citroen, Mercedes, BMW, Saab, Toyota with the 'Bluetooth option'. It would be in after-market 'black box' form, but you wouldn't know that: they'd install that at the dealership. In the US, you can order a Prius or Land Cruiser with Bluetooth inside, factory-fitted (?). You'd be an early adopter there and still wouldn't be happy with your iPod. Wouldn't work (yet). Since its very beginning, Bluetooth has been running after real-world requirements, with the SIG issuing new application-specific 'profiles' that would take time before being implemented by manufacturers. We're at the point we have a fair headset and handsfree profile implementation on all BT phones. It's taken 2 years to get there. PDAs are not quite satisfactory yet, except for HP, none have an audio profile (give it another year). Yet we have good GPS broadcasting over Bluetooth for graphics-based PDA Nav on all PPCs, Palm and Symbian... Quality audio over Bluetooth: give it another 2 years. Unless Apple surprises us once again. > > Hi- > > > > Has anyone heard from Alpine on there iPod ready recievers? > > Have you contacted alpine? Their press releases gave an email address, > ipodready@alpine-usa.com, that you could get more information from. I sent an e-mail to get on their mailing list, havn't heard anything from them. Did speak to a salesman that was going to a meeting with the Alpine folks, to explain this year's model. Havn't been back to check with him yet. Cheers Mike |
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