[keith]

There's probably something to that. On the other hand, I've been hitting
the Brick and Mortars auditioning HU's for a few weeks now, and I'm
amazed that it's all come down to Alpine, Pioneer, and Kenwood (along
with JVC and other assorted crap at the big stores). I asked about
Eclipse in the highest end shop I visited, and the sales guy / installer
said "Huh? never heard of it." Sad...

I can say this, head unit tech has EXPLODED in the last few years. Way
back in 2002, MP3 capability was just gaining wide exposure. Now it's
just a matter of how that content is delivered. The power of apple
aside, it's us, the consumers who will dictate the direction of those
formats. Remember Mini Disks? the wave of the future, until consumers
poo-hoo'd them...

Really, I think that Apple is already ten steps ahead of in-car tech -
and probably not all that concerned with it. iPod owners will own iPods
anyway. It's just a good product. It's more likely the Hu producers
who are jockeying to get in on the iPod direct interface game - at the
expense of other technologies. Notice the differences between the iPod
interfaces of Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood and the like. They all have bugs,
and their own particular pros and cons... Once the big boys get those
systems ironed out (access time, track searching, GUI's, etc.), it'll be
industry standard (like CD changer controls of the '90s), and they'll
move on to the aforementioned technologies.


I'm not saying there's not a conspiracy, it's just probably not the one
you think it is...

KeithS



MOSFET wrote:

BTW, what I said also goes for why we haven't seen more HU's with built in
HD's which, again, seems like a PERFECT and logical feature for a car's head
unit.

I just can't help thinking dark forces (Apple) are involved. I mean, SO
MANY people buy and use their iPods for their cars (many people ONLY use it
in their cars). Beyond that, Apple (AND other manufacturers) make a bundle
on iPod integration products for the car. Built in HD's and large capacity
(5+ gigs) flash memory ports would render the iPod (and iPod integration
accessories) obsolete (at least in the car), and that would not make Apple
very happy.

It kind of reminds me of when pocket calculators were new (yes, I'm old
enough to remember that). At first they were rather large, and pretty
expensive. But in an INCREDIBLY short amount of time, calculators became
amazingly ubiquitous. They would give them away at bank openings. Things,
all of a sudden, had built in calculators whether it was useful or not.
They got really, really cheap and really, really small. We even had
calculators on our wrist watches, and they were DIRT CHEAP.

My point is I wonder if Apple is trying to hold on to a technological point
in time, like when the calculator was brand new.

MOSFET