Is there some sort of mp3 player with a screen that can be mounted on your car steering wheel or dash? Plugged in the aux and powered by the car power outlet?
It’s tough to mount something to your steering wheel, just because the wheel needs to be able to spin 1.5 times each way, which means you would need long-assed wires that would get everywhere and catch and tangle and shit.
That’s why the airbag, and on more modern cars, the horn, and any steering wheel mounted cruise controls or radio controls have to go through a special connection in order to maintain contact at any steering position.
Anyhow, to answer your original question, an iPod would work fine, I think. There are a million accessories for them to hook them up to your car.
In fact my girlfriend uses an cigarette lighter adapter to power her iPod, which then outputs to a short range FM transmitter. But if you have a stereo with a input ports on the front, you can get a cable that adapts the “headphone” jack output of the MP3 player to the inputs.
I use the FM transmitter for my ipod too, and it works great. It plugs into the car’s cigarette lighter, so it charges the ipod’s battery as well, which is a nice plus. You usually get a few frequencies to choose from in case one overlaps an existing broadcaster’s frequency (though this shouldn’t be a problem in Rupert.)
Why bother with an MP3 player?
For the same price of a MP3 player (~200$) you can buy a good deck. The Sony deck I bought just a few months ago plays CD’s, MP3 CD’s, has an Aux input jack, and takes USB flash drives (awesome, just wicked). It also came with a remote and has a ton of features and awesome sound.
… one word : sirius
Good point. Never really got into satellite radio myself.
Satellite radio: The limitations of radio are now available to you anywhere in North America! And you get the added benefit of having to pay for the limitations of radio.
The problem with radio is that someone else is picking what you listen to. If you’re ok with that, then satellite radio is for you. If you want to choose your own music, then an iPod kicks the crap out of radio.
Satellite radio is in the same camp as APS Film, Super VHS, 2.8MB Floppies, AM Stereo, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, etc. A slight improvement over an existing standard, too late to really catch on, since there’s something much better already.
Apprently CBC radio has more podcast listeners than Sirius listeners, for example. Even the one place where (non-free) Satellite radio would have a slight edge over normal (free) radio, it fails. It turns out it doesn’t work so well in remote northern areas of the continent.
Go to the source or some other similarly inclined store, ask about the various Belkin products out there, we have a cheapie little 40 dollar version, no screen, that just plays the tunes.
Works fairly well, though it chews through doube A’s if you don’t get the version that hooks into your dashboard lighter/adaptor…
No shortage of versions of the same out there though.
My disagreement with that is missing the news.
It’s comparing recording a TV “show” and watching it at your leisure vs. live TV.
Besides, without the NRC time signal at 10:00am, I wouldn’t know when to take a coffee break.
Billy since you specifically mention the MP3 player having a screen, and having it mounted to the steering wheel, please tell me you’re not planning to WATCH something while you’re driving?
No… no… you couldn’t have meant that because that would be totally moronic and could lead to someone’s death. Forget I mentioned it.
This is the guy who never wears his seatbelt, remember, because what are the chances of having an accident in town?
Yeah, for sure. There’s no replacement for the hourly news or whatever.
But when there’s a new media, it doesn’t make the previous one obsolete.
Video didn’t kill the radio star, it just made radio find its niche. TV didn’t kill books, VCRs didn’t kill the movie theatres.
I guess my point is that I-Max didn’t kill the movie theatres either, nor will Satellite radio ever really be successful, because the alternatives (terrestrial radio and podcasts and other mp3 players) are just much more convenient.
Like a TiVo for radio.
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Besides, without the NRC time signal at 10:00am, I wouldn’t know when to take a coffee break[/quote]
Anybody else OCD like me and set their car clocks so they’re exactly in sync with the NRC time?
I have to wear my seatbelt now. My new car annoys the heck out of me unless im wearing my seatbelt