There’s the radio, of course, but many people want to listen to their own music collections. Chrysler started it all with an in-dash record player in its 1956 models, but that did not appear to be a commercial success. Later years saw the introduction of the much-maligned 8-track cassette player, whose short-lived dominance was eclipsed by the regular cassette-tape player.
And then the shiny compact discs entered the picture, and pretty much consigned the tape player to history (though, it must be said, cassette decks were still being offered in many cars in recent years, alongside CD players—audiobook aficionados in particular have preferred cassettes, because one can always pick up where one has left off, which can’t be done with most digital media).
But now, CDs—long-favored because of their ubiquity and the ability to be inserted in 6- and 10-disc changers, allowing for easy music access across many discs while on-the-go—are being supplanted by MP3 players, the most famous of which are Apple’s iPods.
But how do you get your music from the portable player into your car’s stereo system? If you’ve still got a cassette player, then a cassette adapter is a convenient way to do it; or, you can use a small FM transmitter to broadcast on an unused frequency to your car’s radio.
However, many newer stereo systems have an auxiliary-in jack, allowing you to plug in a line from the headphone jack of your player into the stereo itself, resulting in the highest-fidelity possible. This is fine for generic MP3 players, including iPods, but because of Apple’s dominance of that market, more and more manufacturers are including iPod-specific connectors that allow the stereo to display and select tracks or playlists from the iPod directly, rather than making the driver fiddle with such a small device while driving.
TechnoRide reports that a recent study by iSupply Corporation reveals that “more than half of all cars sold in the United States during 2009 will offer some type of iPod connectivity. In 2008, 39 percent of models already sport this feature, but that number is expected to jump to 58 percent next year, which will mark the first time that more than half of cars will have this capability.”
You probably have a cellphone, too, and with the number of jurisdictions enacting laws requiring hands-free devices when making a call, Bluetooth connectivity is being added to more models, as well. The same study quoted above notes that “82 percent of all models available in the U.S. in 2009 will either have it standard or offer it as an option. Newer implementations of Bluetooth include voice recognition and streaming media transfers to the car's stereo system."
In the future, more and more cars will be outfitted with these technologies, as their use increases in the general population. Could the CD changer someday be viewed like an 8-track player is today? We hope not, but you never know.
via Cnet