With 10 million owners of Apple iPod portable music players in the United States it is clear that consumers love their iPod music. And they want to go cruising to their iPod tunes. Top mobile audio suppliers have been listening, and brands such as Alpine, Clarion, Pioneer and Kenwood have come up with easy-to-use interfaces that allow a user to listen to his or her iPod music collection through their latest audio headunits.

Here’s a few for instance:

A new adaptor from Pioneer works with the brand’s IP-Bus system and is backwards-compatible with more than 3 million Pioneer car stereos sold during the past several years. Users operate their iPods by means of the stereo’s front panel controls. While an iPod is docked to the Pioneer headunit, the adapter will charge the internal battery of the player so that the iPod will have plenty of juice in the battery when arriving at the final destination.

Alpine’s interface adapter can be added to any Alpine Ai-NET headunit. The connection is designed to be simple: just one plug from the interface to the headunit and iPod. The adapter supports the brand’s MediaXpander technology that attempts to add back in the harmonics lost in MP3 compression, making ordinary-sounding compressed audio music sound much closer to its CD-quality source.

Clarion’s interpretation of an iPod-capable, in-dash DVD unit features a user interface with a similar onscreen design as Apple’s music player. The headunit includes other options for front-seat passengers such as the ability to switch on Sirius Satellite Radio or listen to a CD or the radio. Rear-seat passengers can watch a DVD or VHS movie and listen via wireless headphones.

Domestic Factory ­Installed Autosound Factory Sales
	Unit Sales (Millions)
2000	2,700
2001	2,850
2002	2,950
2003	3,245
2004	3,569
2005p	3,855

 

Source: CEA Market Research, 1/05

To celebrate its 25th Anniversary, Kenwood has introduced Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) capability on a new flagship CD receiver. AAC is the codec used by iTunes, the Apple website. Music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 300 million songs from the iTunes Music Store, and that number should climb to an estimated one-half billion songs by the end of this year. An iPod connection module enables Kenwood's device to reproduce music stored on the iPod, control the iPod via a remote control module and display texts stored on the iPod on its screen.

iPod compatibility is a small piece of a very big battle: after-market suppliers vs. automotive OEMs for dominance of the multi-billion market for in-car entertainment and information. In the area of iPod compatibility, the aftermarket brands have plenty of company as Apple has teamed up with Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Nissan, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari to deliver iPod integration with their OEM car stereo systems. Last year BMW and MINI Cooper became the first car brands providing integrated iPod solutions.

General Motors is taking iPod for a ride, too. The Detroit automaker’s new radios include an auxiliary channel and front-mounted auxiliary input jack so that an iPod or other audio source can be easily plugged in and played through the vehicle’s audio system. iPod compatibility will be standard equipment on 2006 models of the new Chevy HHR SUV as well as on Chevy’s Impala and Monte Carlo. Other GM models boasting iPod connectivity include Saturn’s VUE and ION, the Pontiac Solstice, Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS.

As autosound suppliers and car makers circle each other, the aftermarket industry is bracing itself for another key change scheduled to occur during this year. Chevrolet plans to introduce a hard-drive-based entertainment system option on its new Uplander sport van. The 40 GB hard drive is mounted into the van’s overhead rail system and is easily removable. It also can be connected to a PC, allowing you to download, store and play back up to 40 movies or 10,000 songs or a collection of video games. The driver controls the audio output on the vehicle speakers through a voice-browsing interface. The system is made by Los Angeles-based PhatNoise.

Aftermarket companies are not waiting for these systems to enter the autosound mainstream before throwing their hat into the HDD ring. At the 2005 International CES, Estone Digital introduced an in-dash MP3/CD receiver that can directly rip an audio CD in less than 7 minutes (at 16x speed) onto a 30 GB hard drive, no PC needed. Estone's "Ripper” also can record directly from its AM/FM radio with a touch of a button. The MP3 player and recorder fits into the car's dashboard, and its hard drive is removable so it can be connected to a PC’s USB port to download other audio files.

Another new-generation HDD-based headunit was introduced at the 2005 International CES by Eclipse. The combination navigation and audio unit incorporates a 30 GB hard disk drive that designates 10 GB for its navigation database and the remaining 20 GB for storage of as many as 3,000 music tracks. Music files are created automatically from CDs by the "Music Juke" function as they are inserted into the headunit. The product incorporates Circle Surround II technology so you can enjoy surround sound from any program source, whether DVD-Videos, CDs or MP3 files, with just four speakers without requiring a center channel and subwoofer.

	MP3 Compatible Car Stereos
		Aftermarket Unit shipments
		(Millions)
2001		0.2
2002		0.8
2003		1.9
2004		3.5

 

Source: CEA Market Research, 1/05