I haven't tried an iPod with the car yet (mine isn't compatible) but from various Fit forums, the consensus is that the iPod interface is not worth the rather expensive option price (it came standard on my car because I got the Nav unit).

In my case, the UI isn't that important because I do all the setup on my computer. By that, I mean that the Nav/Stereo lists all the tracks (or albums, or artists, or genres) in the order they were added to the flash drive. So I organize everything on the computer to be in the same order I want to see it displayed (in my case, alphabetically by artist/composer) and then load the flash drive. It is very quick, for example, to scroll down to Mozart on the Nav/Stereo, touch the List Tracks button, and pick out Rondo Alla Turca. Currently I just have about 40-50 hours of my most favorite picks from my "Favorites" playlist filling less than half of a 4GB flash drive, and I let the Nav/Stereo play them in a random shuffle.

Now I'm trying to decide whether I want to buy a larger flash drive (16 GB? 32 GB?) and load up lots more music; or buy half a dozen small flash drives (2 GB) and load them by category (i.e., audiobook; classical; contemporary; etc.) and just swap them in and out depending on my mood. It's an interesting thought that I can store about 600 hours of audio on flash drives in the same physical space that one CD case would take up in my glove box, and that's not even a particularly space-efficient way to store it. I mean, a pair of 120 GB iPod classics would take up about the same room as the CD case, and would have more than 4,000 hours of audio. That just purely beats the hell out of my old 8-track player, doesn't it!

It's no empeg, no doubt about that, but a $4.00 flash drive only costs a third of one percent of what my first empeg cost me!

tanstaafl.