Is DIN really dead? Seems like tons of aftermarket audio companies are doing quite well. In fact, cars marketed toward younger buyers feature popular aftermarket headunits as a selling point. The empeg has shown that the hardware is really secondary. We are running very similar software on our empegs as the Karma owners are on their portables. I don't know of any aftermarket audio manufacturers that are making non-DIN units, so if a company were to get started in the aftermarket audio business, it'd make sense to do DIN units. Otherwise, they would be trying to break into two markets at one (mp3 car audio and non-DIN car audio.)

Don't get me wrong, I see the advantages of a portable/dash integration method, but I don't think that DIN is as dead as we might think. It might at least get them into the market and they could take their software with them to wherever the market goes.