my new favorite iPod accessory

[muzikool]

It seems like Griffin is always releasing some innovative accessory for the iPod or Mac. I was just visiting the website and came across this new iPod accessory. My car stereo has both a CD player and cassette deck, and I've been using a Sony cassette adapter for my iPod. Looks like I'm about to make a change.

SmartDeck allows you to control your iPod using the built in controls of your cassette player. Use the cassette deck's forward and rewind buttons to advance to the next or prior songs in the iPod playlist. Pause and stop buttons do what pause and stop buttons are expected to do. Hit the cassette deck's Eject button or switch from Cassette to Radio, and Griffin's SmartPlay technology automatically pauses the iPod.

iPod integration with the car stereo is going to makes some big improvements this year since Apple is teaming up with Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Nissan, Scion, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari for integration kits. Dension will also be producing more integration kits this year for after-market installs. But still, these solutions will be expensive. After going the FM transmitter route, I have to say that the cassette option is the best, if you have a deck in your vehicle. It's still not digital, but it's much better than FM transmission.

 

[the_music_man]

cool stuff. i had a sony cassete to line-in thing but when i hooked it up to my ipod it had a fuzzy background so im not using it anymore

 

[Geffy]

cool

 

[SPeedY_B]

Ooh, that's pretty funky. When I first spotted this I just thought it was another over-priced branded accessory, apparently it's a little bit more functional than that though

 

[Weasel]

Wow... go Griffin! Apple should call in owners of RX-7s to install free iPod integration kits.

 

[Kush]

good one

 

[Scooter]

I wonder what would happen if someone tried to record onto the cassette ....

 

[n0d3]

it doesn't seem that there's even any magnetic tape in the cassette... so i don't think anything could be recorded... although i have no idea how it works exactly and it could very well be that it's just difficult to see the tape in the picture