I just got a double postcard from BMW.
On the front it says "Control freaks, rejoice."

On the inside it says, "iPod your BMW. The first seamless integration of
iPod and automobile."

Aside from the fact that the statement is a blatant lie, it's pretty cool.
(Seamless iPod adapters have been available for other makes and on the
generic front for Bimmers for a year or two.)

Standard dealamabob that you would expect. An adapter cable runs into your
glovebox. You plug the iPod in there, and control it with your steering
wheel controls. It takes the place of your CD changer, which means you get
five playlists. And no tag information on your display. Just the
infinitely non-useful "Track 02" type information.

In other words, just like their choice of Sirius instead of XM Radio, a
near-miss. It shows that they're trying -- just not very hard.

Seamless? Yes. Worth having? Only if you don't know what might have
been.

And for those of us who have portable players which are better than iPods,
or in-car players which are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than "make 5 playlists"
compromises, we're still screwed.

And since old iPods don't have on-the-fly playlist creation, you have to dock
your iPod into a Mac (because they don't support PCs) and re-program it
periodically in order to freshen up your playlists.

Weak.

In fact the PhatBastard is still probably a better deal for people
who want no-hassle BMW installs.

But people who don't know any better probably think, "Wow! I can get a lot
of music into my car!"

I'm not naive enough to expect they will ever officially support my Karma.
But wouldn't it be nice? Of course, hassle-free Empeg install would be nice, too.

It's particularly grating that they only support Apple's proprietary stuff,
when the announcement of this comes just a week or two after Sony announced
that it has a Digital Walkman which they hope to use to eat iPod's lunch.
(Equally proprietary, of course.) But knowing Sony, if they don't get it
right the first time, they will by the second or third. Not to mention all
the other little (and not so little) guys jumping into the fray.
Come on folks! We need a standardized personal audio connector.
Get on the ball, here!

Any bets on timeline? My guess: two auto cycles, probably 5-8 years.
Any bets on standard? My guess: Microsoft/Sony DRM-encrusted bullpucky.

"Empeg, there is no substitute"

I think the ipod-bmw integration thing has been mentioned before.

Whoops. Note to self. If one doesn't read the board for a month or so
one can look like a real idiot.

For those as out-of-the-loop as me, further bashing of this weak BMW/iPod
attempt from a couple weeks ago is here.

Info about the Alpine alternative and Loren's traiterous ramblings
are here.

And the latest failure at BMW installation is here.

No links to the various PhatBox PhatBastard threads.
Search for them yourself if you are feeling weak of will and a deserter to the cause.

I repeat my earlier question. Any speculation on when we will see and who will
do a Personal Audio Connector Bus Standard for car (and home) stereos?

"That's the nice thing about standards. There are so many to choose from."

While DAAP or Airtunes as a de facto standard would be nice for Apple,
a real IEEE standard would be what the consumers want.

Of course, that would be not-so-nice for Apple, because Joe Consumer
would just pick Product X which is much cheaper than iPod, or Product Y
which has the particular whizzy feature he can't live without.

You would think that second-tier players (i.e., at the moment everyone but Apple)
would be ganging up to define this standard as fast as they could.
But Noooooooooooo.

Also, some of the standards you mention, such as Ethernet, are transport
standards. I'm thinking more of a protocol standard.
I.e., here is how we fetch the tags, this is the standard code for
"fast forward," etc.
As well as a connector standard, etc.

/music

P.S. No grousing about my 2nd Tier comment. I know other companies ship
vast volumes of non-hard-drive players, etc. But Apple has won the mindshare
war. "iPod" is the generic term used by many/most people for any MP3 player.
"I don't like it any more than you do. Some men you just can't reach."

OK. Got it. I didn't read as closely as I should have.

I guess my next cynical observation is that carmakers have little incentive.
The Alpines of the world will eventually settle on a standard or two,
but the car manufacturers will have their own OEM solutions soon enough.
(Which will be fine by me if they run Empeg-team software and have an
upgrade port.)

But they will only pursue this standard if they realize that people refuse to duplicate
their collection in two or more places. People want to sync-up their on-the-go
player, and then plug it into the car, or the rental car, or their boat.

They most emphatically don't want to reload/re-rip the same CDs multiple times
in multiple locations.

(And techies like most of us here, don't want to leave the quality of the
encoding to whatever random ripper/encoder is built into the firmware.
But that is a non-issue for most consumers.)