In my car, I have an auxiliary input to connect an audio device such as an iPod to the car stereo. The auxiliary input is located under the arm rest together with a cigarette lighter. That makes it easy to put the iPod out of sight and still power it while connected to the car stereo.
To power the iPod, I use the Monster iCarCharger for iPod. It also provides a 3,5mm jack to connect the iPod to the car stereo’s auxiliary input. That provides better sound than connecting the iPod to the car stereo using the headphones connection.
Of course, it’s a bit inconvenient to have to open the arm rest to change tracks so I also bought a Griffin AirClick. The AirClick allows you to change tracks, pause, play, and so on. Because it uses RF signals, the iPod can stay neatly under the arm rest.
When the car is turned off, the iPod automatically pauses. When the car is turned on, playback can be resumed by using the AirClick’s play button. Naturally, you have to change playlists on the iPod itself.
It is of course much better to have the iPod integrated with the car stereo so you can change tracks from the radio or steering wheel, change playlists, view track names and so on. I can get that for my car from BMW itself but then I would have to pay something like 400 euros. Other solutions such as Dension’s ice>Link Plus are usually cheaper but there are some problems with the new BMW 3–series E90 model. I decided not to wait until they got that fixed. The solution described here works well, is cheap and above all, the sound quality is good!
