How come car radios are only starting to get 3.5mm "ipod" jacks now?

rubadub

There was some car ad recently, cant remember the car, but the main feature it seemed to be shouting about was the fact it had a 3.5mm jack for your mp3 player. This is the standard "earphone" socket where you can feed a line in, i.e. you have a wire with the same metal plug you find on the end of earphones on both ends.

Now some cars will brag of the fuel efficient engine, airbags, alloys, leather seats etc. But this was bragging about the 3.5mm jack which would probably cost around 10cent extra to have on a car radio.

In the early 80's my spectrum used the "ear to ear, mic to mic", 3.5mm lead to connect the spectrum to a portable cassette player, not like this is some new technological breakthrough. The cassette player could work on batteries and was from the 70's. Walkmen were huge in the 80's yet still all they only had were those crappy tape yokes with a 3.5mm plug to go into your walkman or cassette player. The tape yokes cost a lot more and sound is limited to your tape ability. But nowadays most are CD so there is even more need for them. People have their FM transmitters, again costing maybe 100 times the price of what the lead set up would, and limited to crappy FM reception.

It is crazy that cars 30 years on have still not got this feature as standard, and that advertisers brag about it and this 10cent feature probably does sway some people when thinking of buying a €50,000 car.

Is there any reason I am missing why more cars/car radios do not come with them?

aidan_walsh

Up until recently there was little reason to have them. Cars would have their own cassette/CD players with their own speakers, so there was no need to carry in your own cassette player/vinyl deck to sit in the passenger seat and play your music on.

Now that everyone is practically walking around with a radio station's worth of music in their pocket, it makes more sense to start allowing them to connect them to their car by standard.

Blisterman

I've often wondered that myself.
Also, why so many car CD Players don't have a pause button.

arseagon

My '97 reg car with only the standard radio has one of them so it's not really a braggable thing for car manufacturers when there were some doing it 10 years ago.

ojewriej

I have 01 VW Passat and there is no CD player even, just tapes.

Don't mind at the moment, got a stash of my old tapes sent over from home. It's great to see what i was listening to 10 - 15 years ago.

Mantel

rubadub wrote: »

Now some cars will brag of the fuel efficient engine, airbags, alloys, leather seats etc. But this was bragging about the 3.5mm jack which would probably cost around 10cent extra to have on a car radio.

It's going to cost more than 10 cent to add that, you'll need another button to select the source (add a bit on to the radio software swtich for that) maybe a small amp to pump the music through to the speakers, etc.

rubadub wrote: »

In the early 80's my spectrum used the "ear to ear, mic to mic", 3.5mm lead to connect the spectrum to a portable cassette player, not like this is some new technological breakthrough. The cassette player could work on batteries and was from the 70's. Walkmen were huge in the 80's yet still all they only had were those crappy tape yokes with a 3.5mm plug to go into your walkman or cassette player. The tape yokes cost a lot more and sound is limited to your tape ability. But nowadays most are CD so there is even more need for them. People have their FM transmitters, again costing maybe 100 times the price of what the lead set up would, and limited to crappy FM reception.

In the 80's or 70's there where no mp3 players so what was the need for an input jack in a car, people where going to record themselves? In the 90's cd players came around, portable ones, so there's another notch on "Why does the car radio not have a 3.5mm input?" Well what about the poor car manufactures! They wouldn't be able to charge extra for a cd player! Or those cd changers for the boot. Didn't it take quite sometime for CD players to come "as standard" in most cars? Are they even standard now?

Mp3 players, well they're fairly recent. The iPod was a 2001 gadget, it took awhile to get popular, add a few months for it to become insanely popular and your in to 2002. Other MP3 players came before it but no where near as wide spread until after 2002. Soooo the last five years have seen the demand for in-car entertainment via mp3 players skyrocket from the 70's.

rubadub wrote: »

It is crazy that cars 5 years on have still not got this feature as standard, and that advertisers brag about it and this 10cent feature probably does sway some people when thinking of buying a €50,000 car.

I fixed that last bit for you.

Blisterman

Well I remember, in the mid to late 90's, cassette player adaptors, for CD players were all the rage. They were rubbish.

Wertz

I pulled a 2 yr old headunit out of my car last xmas; a goodmans (!) that had a 3.5mm line-in.
I think the car rubadub is thinking of is either a VW or Toyota, one of their hatchbacks...but is he sure it isn't an actual iPod dock rather than just a jack socket?

rubadub

Mantel wrote: »

It's going to cost more than 10 cent to add that, you'll need another button to select the source (add a bit on to the radio software swtich for that) maybe a small amp to pump the music through to the speakers, etc.

I reckon it would be €1 at most. I am involved in design of PCBs, one button can have a few functions, like most mp3 players and other devices do. If the player is capable of playing any music it will already have a suitable amp. It wouldnt require a button at all, you could make it detect power going in and switch automatically, the best way to do it IMO.

I would prefer a car that only had a input socket and perhaps a radio, I dont like to think my money is being wasted on a cdplayer or cassette player that will never be used.

Mantel wrote: »

In the 80's or 70's there where no mp3 players so what was the need for an input jack in a car

There were walkmen and portable cd players, the equivalent albeit more bulky devices. Many people had "high end" walkmen/cdplayers that would have been far higher quality than the cars standard ones, so would perfer to use them. I would like to see the sales figures for those cassette adaptor things people did end up getting. Brutal quality yet it was/is all some people can do. And also look at the sales of itrips/fm transmitters, must be millions sold and they are even worse quality than the tape yokes! people have them as a last resort since cd players are more standard.

Well what about the poor car manufactures! They wouldn't be able to charge extra for a cd player! Or those cd changers for the boot

Thats the most reasonable reason I have yet to hear.

but is he sure it isn't an actual iPod dock rather than just a jack socket?

You could be right there, even still a system with a dock is little extra these days, very little extra money in comparison to the cost of other features. I would not like to get one with an ipod dock either, again I would feel my money was wasted on stuff I will never use, i.e. I do not have an ipod and just want to plug it in a 3.5mm jack. Most ipod dockable systems will have a 3.5mm jack too, but the main cost will be in compatibility with the ipod.

This thread is a few weeks old, only thought of it again since my father went out and got a stereo for the kitchen. Just your standard sony cd/tape/radio player. He only got it since it had a big MP3 on the front, he has a mp3 player he wanted to connect, and thought this was what it meant.

But when I checked the box it was really saying it would play mp3s from the cd you put in. I thought "wasted money on that technology but he can still put in the mp3 player", -then I was very surprised to then find there was no 3.5mm jack on it! or "AUX" phono connections. It even had a earphone jack on it. We went back and returned it no problems, out of about 10 similar systems there only 1 had a input feature! I know loads of people with old "ghetto blaster" type systems like these, many from the 80's or early 90's and back then far more had 3.5mm/phono jacks than now. Seems very strange.

WhiteWashMan

Pretty much all new models have it now, or at least, appear to have. Ive been looking at a new car over the last 2 weeks,a nd I see nothing but this as a 'feature'.
I wouldnt mind but I only got a new stereo for my other car a month ago which had it on as well. Was either that or a memory stick USB plug, but that would have been an extra 50 quid. COuldnt be arsed to pay for that.

cornbb

Blisterman wrote: »

Well I remember, in the mid to late 90's, cassette player adaptors, for CD players were all the rage. They were rubbish.

I'm still using one of those!

cance

i thought they were pretty standard for the last 5 years or so. worst comes to worst and your car doesnt have one, just drop into halfords and buy one for 80 yoyo's.

the 3.5 jack in is nice and all, but you have little control over the playlist while driving without actually picking up your mp3 player and fiddling and i find the cable coming out of your radio an inch and a half and drooping onto your gearstick pretty unpleasing, hence why i still use cd's.

testicle

Blisterman wrote: »

I've often wondered that myself.
Also, why so many car CD Players don't have a pause button.

Turning the radio off pauses mine.

WhiteWashMan

I want to know why my car stereo came with a remote control?

Like I want some muppet in the back playing with the controls!

Or maybe I will strap it to the steering wheel and pretend I have steering wheel audio controls

Wertz

My point about it being an iPod specific dock was that it's as much if not more about a lifestyle statement as one of pure functionality; ie that the two hatchbacks I referred to are typically aimed at young, female drivers to whom having your little player on aesthetically pleasing display is perhaps just as important as the musical output.
Motor manafacturers selling new cars have to try and stand out from the crowd, and features like this sound good in the ads (just like a tape player or a boot changer did years ago) and may be the extra that influences someone to choose that car....nevermind the fact that a few years down the line the tech is outdated or downright obsolete.
iPods are always going to be catered for more than other mp3 players as they are the generic and most commonly owned models.

rubadub

WhiteWashMan wrote: »

I want to know why my car stereo came with a remote control?

Like I want some muppet in the back playing with the controls!

I would find that handy. I hate trying to fiddle with stuff when driving, and was in my parents car the other day and had to reach in from the back seat to put on music for them.

My point about it being an iPod specific dock was that it's as much if not more about a lifestyle statement....

Good points. It is also likely that the people who would be impressed by a car having an ipod docking station, are likely to be people who own/bought ipods in the first place. The likes of my sister asking me to recommend a phone to her the other day, I asked what stuff she wanted it to do, her reply, "It has to be pink" :rolleyes:

seamus

What would make far more sense would be a small detachable flash drive (say 8GB) and a decent screen to navigate the music. Means that you don't have to continually keep your mp3 player charged or have to fork out €300 when some ****er breaks your window to steal it.

Maybe car manufacturers still treat the radio as an incidental item, but plenty of people (such as me) see it as a fairly essential piece of the vehicle so putting a stereo that can do the above in as standard could entice a lot of customers.

humanji

testicle wrote: »

Turning the radio off pauses mine.

What if you want to pause the cd to listen to the radio?

seamus

humanji wrote: »

What if you want to pause the cd to listen to the radio?

Mine does that. Just switch to radio. When you go back to the CD it plays from where you left off. It also has a pause button. The number 1. Maybe if ye people actually read the manuals?

cance

seamus wrote: »

Mine does that. Just switch to radio. When you go back to the CD it plays from where you left off. It also has a pause button. The number 1. Maybe if ye people actually read the manuals?

and to summarize:

RTFM.

humanji

seamus wrote: »

Mine does that. Just switch to radio. When you go back to the CD it plays from where you left off. It also has a pause button. The number 1. Maybe if ye people actually read the manuals?

In these fast living times, who has time to stop and read a manual. Jabbing random buttons and shouting is all you need.