I would value this option more than the several hundred dollar CD changer in my trunk. I have bought a radio transmitter for my iPod and it only scores a B+ for effectiveness.

Most new audio units in cars do have an AUX-In/Line-In feature when they support CD/Tape changers etc.. You can purchase a new cd-player at a local electronics store that has a plug in the front of the unit (they do exist) as well. FM radio + Cassette adaptors offer sub-standard audio quality.

I bought a deck with a 3.5mm "aux-in" stereo mini-jack a couple years ago so I could use it with my Rio 500 mp3 player.

The real issue is that consumers need to demand that new cars come with their choice of audio systems -- not just a few different models from the same vendor, but actually allow any vendor of car stereos to compete at the dealership, selling them new with the car. Let the customer choose!

This will be a competitive advantage for the first car maker to realize this and make it happen for their customers.

Search no longer !

This is a nimbler solution, and who said it had to be limited to Apple's products? Possibly illegal in some places.

I know that with the Sony MiniDisc player, you can buy a connector that inserts into the casette player (I think) and have the playback via the car stereo system. Not what you are asking but ... :)

This is a good idea. My Panasonic after-market cd player has an aux-in jack, and it has allowed me to use cassette and mp3 players over the years.

Good idea! However, look at how long it took to get a MUTE button.

Perhaps instead of just Audio in, lets have a USB-audio in as well.

The FM transmitter options that are available (like the one from Apple that was mentioned) don't sound very good.

A standard 3.5mm audio jack would do the trick. I would guess that these will be built into more and more car audio systems.

It's being done. The standard connector on a car radio has a line input pin, and the model I work on is getting a 3.5mm jack socket as an option in the glovebox. No names, 'cos I'm not representing the company here...

I was quite suprised to see this feature on a car audio system (extra ex works) on a european Ford Mondeo. It has a aux-plug-in in the glovebox where you can hook up your mp3 player etc.

MP3 is huge for let's say the last 3 or 4 years, but it took until now to get mp3-support with the radio systems the car manufactures put in (and they still overcharge you compared with the after-market radios). I noticed Volswagen and Ford comming up with that option on their new cars, while the others still point you to their cd-changers, as if that would be a alternative (why use mp3, if you have to burn all of your favorite songs on cds anyway?)

In general, the manufactures try to prevent their customers from installing after-sales car stereos. The size of the radio itself differs, the wiring is made extra complicated (VW is using different wiring on their connector, so that you wreck your after-market replacement when you plug it in w/o an adaptor.), and sometimes you cannot use the buttons on your steering wheel, and it just looks ugly compared with the well designed OEM-part. The riddle is that there was a common standard with car audio equipment...

I noticed some after-market radios out there with slots for multimedia-cards (the ones MP3-Players frequently use) and you can even record music on them. The suggested usb jack would be perfect for all of these usb-sticks people carry around.

I guess it takes another 3-4 years until the car audio systems combine all of the "new" technology and come standard with it.

This product is currently available. Off-hand I don't remember who offers it.

the stereos on Honda Elements come standard with an audio-in; Pontiac Vibes come standard with 2-prong outlets that don't require a converter. I'm sure these things are also available on many other cars and will soon be even more common.

While I have bought aftermarket players because they have an AUX in jack on the front, it would be great if the car manufacturer would include it on stock players. I wouldn't have to replace them if they had this simple jack.

yikes! USB input! Count me out!

This is also a problem for aftermarket addition of satellite radio, which could require a special head unit, once again with no input.

This would partner very well with a hands-free cell phone setup. You could plug your phone into the line-in jacks and listen to the other end on your radio. (I don't know a lot about car-cell phone setups, so maybe people already do that.)

Someone had a comment against USB - I missed why this would be an issue.

With the propogation of USB Drives, it would seem like a slam dunk to provide a USB plug on the front side of the player to allow me to plug a 256, 512 or Gig USB drive in to play MP3's. Fast, simple, small and convenient. Why not?

My car stereo has an audio in as well. From what I hear, new cars are going to come equipped with wifi, but we don't have a audio out wifi connector yet (I couldn't find one anyway), so maybe that's a possibility.

Just connect a dumb wifi to your ipod (or cd player) and have it broadcast to your in car wifi.

I don't like having the cable from my audio in run to my ipod that sits in my car holder, but the quality is MUCH better than going through the radio broadcasters.

Actually, the 2004 Chrysler Pacifica with DVD player option has front mounted RCA jacks for Audio in L/R and Video In. You can hook up an iPod or a camcorder and play them back through the stereo or the onboard flat panel display for the rear occupants.

The Honda Element, previously mentioned, also has the Audio In jack as a stereo mini plug right on the dash in front of the passenger seat.

There are some solutions for providing a permanent dongle to plug into the existing car radio, but these typically require professional installation. See http://www.enfig.com for a number of different vehicle options.

Personally, I have found my iRock has excellent fidelity in a vehicle with a good antenna system like the VW Touareg. Conversely, I have found the iTrip from Griffin a major disappointment, although in principle a good idea. I have a 1G iPod which has worked almost flawlessly.

Frankly, I do not understand why anyone would use any other computer by choice other than a Mac... life is too short! If you have a dedicated Unix box for a biz app, which I do, that's fine, but to own a Windows based computer for personal use, why, why, Why?

'nuff said

What's really needed is a hi-fi layer for bluetooth. In the future just about everything will come with an RF network adaptor of some kind. What's more, there are new RF adapters coming out that can work on virtually any standard, even ones that havent been developed yet. They are programmable. No doubt all new cars will be equiped with one of these soon. Imagine the possibilities! For one,your phone could go hands-free without an adaptor.

Apple's iPod can now be plugged into some BMW cars and controlled via the regular controls in the car. One plug inside the glove compartment transfer the control information, music data as well as power.

What we need is a standard for such a plug and protocol.

iPodYourBMW is a lie! I got both but the price of installation is ridiculous! My idea of a perfect marriage of a car and MP3 player is to have a in-dash MP3 dock port. What does everyone else think?

I've also asked this for some time now. And what I've learned is that it is a matter of profit. Car makers and car radio makers do not get much revenue from putting in an audio-in jack. They know they cannot charge hundreds of dollars for a 5 cent part. Meanwhile the profit on CD changers and other connectivity option is much higher (even though the profit margin is not as high). They know there is a fix number of units sold per year. Making a profit of a buck or two from a 10 cent cable is not worthwhile to manufacturers, especially if other manufacturers can easily produce that part. Someone mentioned, having a USB port... well, you might actually see that before a simple audio-in jack. Then there's Bluetooth. With the advent of this technology in PDA's, and MP3 players, car radio manufactures might even put this in before you see audio-in jacks being common. All these other connectivity options can give a greater profit than a simple audio-in jack. Same applies for an audio-out jack. We have them in our home-theatre AV receivers, why not in car radios. The other market force is of course demand. If consumers demand car radios with audio-in/out jacks over those that do not, and would not purchase those without it, manufacturers will listen. Some profit is better than no profit.

Any device with an audio amplifier should have audio-in and audio-out connections.

There is currently a car audio product available with a USB and MMC port:

here andhere.

I sure don't want an audio-in jack in my car. Computer hardware becomes obsolete far quicker than vehicles. What happens when that audio jack is no longer adequate? Also, various equipment uses different sized audio jacks. Some don't even use the standard round-style jacks.

I'd rather see audio-in as an option on your car-stereo itself. Simple enough to replace as needed. Not exactly a car issue, per-se. In fact, any of these "in-dash" console items should be simple plug-in/pull-out modules. The stereo, GPS, audio jacks, USB, laptops, cigerette lighters/power adapters... All of it. Then some company can sell an "all-in-one console" that pops in simply enough.

Well, I know for a fact that the 2004 Nissan Sentra has a 3.5mm "AUX IN" jack that comes standard in its radios; all you need to do is hit a button twice and connect it to the MP3 player. Now if there was such technology where you'd be able to control it via the controls on the radio... I have an MP3 player that's kinda hard to control without looking at it. Unfortunately, the specific car that I had was legally considered a lemon so now I got a BMW...

I agree. I've been saying this for years also. I'd love to have all of my cd collection available to me at once without having to switch CD's all the time. I could pick what I want to play before I leave and let it play. This would make for safer driving too since people wouldn't have to search through their CD library while driving.

I don't get the most recent comments regarding obsolete inputs and pre-setting CDs for playback while driving. The input AUX on my car stereo (80$ from Best Buy, + 8$ for the dual-ended male aux cord) is the same size as the headphone jack used for over 2 decades (second generation standardization from the Sony Walkman).

iGo is supposed to replace all of the external adaptors for players/phones/laptops/etc. for car/intl. travel; I looked into it, and their customer service is useless, plus they spam you afterwards. Great idea, terrible follow-up.

I have an old car (88 VW Cabriolet) and have had to replace the stereo 4x over the past 8 years due to theft--most people don't even keep their cars that long, so I don't consider technology obsoletion a real issue (unless you're truly trying to keep up with the Joneses).

As for demjr, unless you really want to re-record a bunch of tapes with your favourite music to give to your sweetheart, and re-live high school--get an MP3 player and create playlists, or hit random play.

This is a brilliant idea with the only negative part being the wire/cords. I do some work for the auto industry and I must say I absolutely love this idea. It must be refined though. You don't want cords near the gear stick or making contact with the driver.

Currently there are some cars with soft speakers in the drivers headrest. I actually planned to mod one to work for a mobile phone as a hands free kit.

Audio jacks would be great but a data in would be better, say USB that would give controlability to the in car system much safer then trying to drive and control a player. Also USB would allow for recharging without another jack or adapter. Making it standard would be an easy trasition point for in car computers so you would only need to plug in a flash stick or hard-drive for data transfer and access to the car's diagnostic functions. I could go on and on with this.

Something like this?

You are absolutely right. And more and more, car maker are listening. However, just the way that movie theaters make more on the concessions than they do on the tickets, car makers make a lot of profit on optional accessories. If they can sell you a $1200 CD/MP3 player, they'd rather do that than let you plug in your own $150 unit.

My car has such a line in jack, but it was an optional extra that had to be installed by the dealer. I can tell you I paid through the nose for that, though it could only have cost pennies to include it as original equipment.

You are absolutely right. And more and more, car maker are listening. However, just the way that movie theaters make more on the concessions than they do on the tickets, car makers make a lot of profit on optional accessories. If they can sell you a $1200 CD/MP3 player, they'd rather do that than let you plug in your own $150 unit.

My car has such a line in jack, but it was an optional extra that had to be installed by the dealer. I can tell you I paid through the nose for that, though it could only have cost pennies to include it as original equipment.

You are absolutely right. And more and more, car maker are listening. However, just the way that movie theaters make more on the concessions than they do on the tickets, car makers make a lot of profit on optional accessories. If they can sell you a $1200 CD/MP3 player, they'd rather do that than let you plug in your own $150 unit.

My car has such a line in jack, but it was an optional extra that had to be installed by the dealer. I can tell you I paid through the nose for that, though it could only have cost pennies to include it as original equipment.

MINI offers this as a dealer installed option in the US for $40 (last I checked, in 2004). Note that this is not the same as the iPod integration kit. Several car manufacturers also now offer standard AC plugs in their cars.

It has taken from June 2004 (my first comments on this topic) till now, but I purchased the Chrysler Pacifica with DVD option for my family car and now have the pleasure of the RCA plugs for audio input. Add a top quality cable and a little dongle called a Sik din, which connects to the dock connector of the iPod and provides a line out mini-plug and a fire wire plug. The fidelity is superb!

Costs: $10 for the audio cable, RCA to miniplug, on sale too (AudioQuest mini-1) and $20 for the Sik din dongle. Now this is as opposed to the $200 I spent in my Touareg to buy a Dension iceLink plus to connect to the CDX input in place of a CD changer, which I would now not need to use.

These solutions both achieve essentially the same facility in different vehicles at markedly different prices.

I was recentley thinking about this a lot and I belive it is one of the best ideas in the world-I was looking at my computer speakers and thinking Well i can plug my cd player in here why not into a car.

My biggest reason is because I have an atrac 3 compatable cd player and a cd player so the two cant work together!

Great idea. Also, there should be an option to plug in the thumb (USB) drive.

I would like to add that in addition to audio-in jacks, there should be a driver microphone and associated jack made available for hands-free cell phone use.

My wife has On-Star in her car and the microphone and audio-out is far superior to that of cell phones and cell phone hands-free accessories. If holding a cell phone to your ear while driving is being made illegal in more and more states, it seems logical to create an almost transparent interface for a person to use when entering their car.

A cell phone cradle that automatically interfaces the car with the cell phone. The same cradle could have audio-in, audio-out, and any other jacks that could be expanded upon as technology grows.

To answer your question about why all carmakers don't do that is because of simple legal reasons. Why can't I burn a CD that I paid for or back up certain files on my computer? These seem like just as reasonable suggestions as yours, however, current legislative issues and court cases (i.e. the recent Grokster case) are all slowly and ineffeciently creating legislature for what should and should not be permissible in the realm of intellectual property rights. The fact of the matter is that MP3s are so recent of an innovation that there is a huge gray area as to what should and should not be deemed lawful. Because of the whole illegal downloading issue, it will take decades before our own electronic files will be readily accessible in our own homes and cars. If you are as angry about this as me, check out foundations like Electronic Frontiers Foundation and fight for more file-sharing freedom for consumers like yourself.

Already been done.
Ford introduces Audio Jacks

I agree. Car makers and car stereo makers are slow at this probably because it reduces their profit margins - as someone here already said. This is where sellers interests collide with consumer interests.

I think most of the car manufactuers are starting to go that route (at least GM). I bought a 2006 Saturn ION-2 and the factory head unit has a stereo input. Almost all aftermarket head unit manufacturers are including them too, so you can get one that plays CDs and even MP3-CDs with a jack for like $70, and if you've got 20 minutes to install it, you're set.

Good idea.

Why not? Simple, mini stereo jacks are infamous for breaking down - loose or noisy connectors. Dealers do not want to have to deal with the warranties. I figure we will see in the near future some form of short range wireless connectivity.

Asked same question. Thumb drive plug-in, great idea, too.

As I reacted negatively to the brake light idea and commented about it here: http://www.whynot.net/ideas/30#comment-13793

I will say positively, all new cars should have not only an auxiliary audio in, but also a USB power outlet.. heck if you are going to have the USB power outlet, you might as well have it actually communicate back to the car for unlimited numbers of things!

Already available.. if it's not available in your car, you can install a custom stereo.

A lot of the "Japanese" car models have this in their stereos already. The "american" automakers won't do it because they want us to pay for all of their BS options. So, when in doubt don't buy "american." BTW, I put them in quotes because "American cars are built in so many countries other than the US now, they no longer are truly "American." Meanwhile so many of the "Japanese" cars are built here in the states they are now more ameican car companies then the american car companies are.

With all the devices that exist now, they should have HDMI audio in or Optical audio in. Some of the stereo systems that cars have these days are quite good and it would be a shame for the input to not take advantage of it.

Both ideas already exist in a bunch of car models. If it's important to you, only buy a car that has it. Of course, especially with the AC adaptor, that mostly shows up in more expensive models, so you might be paying a lot more just to get a little extra feature.