iPod-ready car stereo

[ACuriae]

I have an older Alpine with the iPod link. It doesn't scroll quickly and it's difficult to navigate through menus (for example, you can't navigate back, so if you select "Playlists" but really wanted to select "Songs" you pretty much just have to wait until the unit resets itself so you can start over again, instead of just selecting "Menu" or "Back" to go back to where you can select "Songs").

I've seen some of the newer Alpines that are made to work specifically with the iPod that give you fast-scrolling and 360 degree fast navigation. Unfortunately, they don't have inputs for many other things.

There are some iPod-ready car stereos from other manufacturers (like Pioneer) that have other bells and whistles, like video in, DVD player controls, CD changer controls, auxiliary input, USB capability, etc. Some of them even claim that they have quicksearch, fast-scroll, and intuitive menu-navigation ability. The drawback is that I don't perceive the quality between many of these manufacturers and Alpine as being close to the same, but maybe at these prices it is (I don't know).

My question is, have any of you used any iPod-ready car stereos and what would you recommend? I'm close to just going with the Alpine IDA-X100, but I'd like to know if there are some differing opinions.

 

[ACuriae]

No one?

 

[bevo_daddy]

I have a Clarion MAX385VD in my ride. I can hook my iphone up to it but I wish it did things differently.

For one, it puts everything in alphabetical order, songs included, so once you click an artist it doesnt go to albums it just puts every song in order. Some songs I only know by the number it is on the album not the actual name.

two. once you click a song you can't backtrack to where you before, meaning if I select a song by say an artist that starts with an 'N', i cant go back to the Ns I have to start from the As.

All in all i do like it as a charger for my iphone and able to listen to all the songs when satellite radio gets boring, which hardly ever happens.

I really wish Apple would make a touchscreen in-dash car receiver. I think it could be really sweet to use the touchscreen like an ipod and also have gps and satellite radio. I think its a really good idea and it could even have a built in hard drive as well. You listening apple?