Brand new Alpine CDA-9886 car deck not working with iPod/iTunes!
Ugh. I'm caught in the middle on this one. I bought an Alpine CDA-9886 car deck specifically to play an iPod in the car. The sales dude at Car Toys showed how it worked seamlessly with an iPod, and I asked what would happen when the car was shut off - the iPod stops, and picks up when you restart the car was his answer!
So here are a couple of things that don't quite work as advertised: first, when you use the search button to browse the playlist, it takes you to the top of the playlists every time, not to the location of the playlist that is currently selected. This is annoying, but not the end of the world. The slow scrolling is helped by the station buttons also serving as jump keys that take you instantly into spots within the playlist.
But the real frustration is that this unit does not shut down the iPod when you turn the car off. So when you get back in, your iPod will have been playing since you left the car, and if that's overnight, you'll also have a dead battery in your iPod, since it only charges through the iPod cable when the car is on. Apparently, this was not a problem with the previous generation of Alpine stereos.
So I called Alpine, got some surfer dude on the other end, and he was, like, "um, yeah, it's supposed to shut off." I asked if Alpine issued firmware updates, and the answer was "no". So that leaves me wondering if Apple attempts to address these bugs in iTunes or firmware updates..?
The frustrating part is that I'm basically having to just hope that Apple will come through with a fix, or return the stereo before they won't take it back. Lots of shrugging of shoulders instead of real help from Alpine and Car Toys. My Apple extended support has lapsed, so I'm down to this board for the answer on whether an Apple fix is in the cards.
For anyone with similar frustrations, a workaround (albeit annoying) is to pause the iPod before shutting down the car. That seems to work, though I've only tested this once. The sad part is that the stereo unit is very nice, so it's very disappointing not to have the Apple/Alpine integration worked out.
Anyone have any advice on this? Does Apple routinely address bugs in connectivity with Alpine or other third-party vendors?
So here are a couple of things that don't quite work as advertised: first, when you use the search button to browse the playlist, it takes you to the top of the playlists every time, not to the location of the playlist that is currently selected. This is annoying, but not the end of the world. The slow scrolling is helped by the station buttons also serving as jump keys that take you instantly into spots within the playlist.
But the real frustration is that this unit does not shut down the iPod when you turn the car off. So when you get back in, your iPod will have been playing since you left the car, and if that's overnight, you'll also have a dead battery in your iPod, since it only charges through the iPod cable when the car is on. Apparently, this was not a problem with the previous generation of Alpine stereos.
So I called Alpine, got some surfer dude on the other end, and he was, like, "um, yeah, it's supposed to shut off." I asked if Alpine issued firmware updates, and the answer was "no". So that leaves me wondering if Apple attempts to address these bugs in iTunes or firmware updates..?
The frustrating part is that I'm basically having to just hope that Apple will come through with a fix, or return the stereo before they won't take it back. Lots of shrugging of shoulders instead of real help from Alpine and Car Toys. My Apple extended support has lapsed, so I'm down to this board for the answer on whether an Apple fix is in the cards.
For anyone with similar frustrations, a workaround (albeit annoying) is to pause the iPod before shutting down the car. That seems to work, though I've only tested this once. The sad part is that the stereo unit is very nice, so it's very disappointing not to have the Apple/Alpine integration worked out.
Anyone have any advice on this? Does Apple routinely address bugs in connectivity with Alpine or other third-party vendors?
G4 Powerbook | G4 iBook | G4 eMac, Mac OS X (10.4.6)
