Apple iPad in Disco

[DiscoNomad]

This might be interesting to some of you:

If you ever tried to use an iOS device to push audio via a bluetooth stereo you might know a little annoying issue that you can't adjust volume from the device it self. Now I am not talking about a bluetooth headset for phone calls...that you can. For some reason because of conflicts in early A2DP standards, Apple decided not to include the ability to change volume from the iPhone. In most cases this isn't an issue because the headphones or stereo have there own volume. But in applications where you only have a line level out to an amp with no volume knob there was no way to adjust volume. What kind of environment would that exist in you ask? Well my Disco for one. When I pulled out the head unit, I just relied on the line level out of my Mac Mini and now my iPad to adjust the volume. I didn't like the look of wires plugged into the top of the iPad as it took away from the slickness of the mount. Bluetooth was the obvious answer but without a sort of pre amp in between to control the volume it was useless. JL had the solution with this. Only issue was I would have to drill the dash to install a volume knob...again not ideal. Well today I discovered the solution. A little side note about me, I am a registered Apple developer and have access to unreleased versions of iOS for testing apps. Well as it turns out iOS 4.2, which is about to come out for iPhone and iPad in about two weeks, now fully supports volume adjustment over A2DP. So I ripped everything out and mounted this inside the 1 DIN box I created for my mount. Using my carnetix power supply that I had left over from the MacMini days I had it output a nice clean 5.2 volt output and ran a wire up to the 1 DIN space which now powers the Belkin bluetooth receiver. The audio is then directly plugged into that and any iPhone or iPad in the car can seamlessly connect to it and push audio from music or video right into the car stereo system. Sound is actually noticeably better then the headphone jack method used previously because I am no longer using the iPad's built in DAC which isn't optimized for anything other then headphones. Finally its clean...no wires.

Cheers.

 

[Bender]

Great install and write up on your blog. Thanks for posting all the detailed screenshots, too.

******

Back to the tangent going on in this thread -
Stop debating paper vs electronic maps and GPS. Everyone should know how to properly use both.

I'm biased towards paper maps as well but they have their limitations. For example, some electronic maps get published with updates quicker than their paper counterparts. I was exploring north of Yuma once with two different paper maps plus the Garmin maps. There were times when all three were in disagreement over a trail. Sometimes one of the paper maps was right, sometimes the 'tron version. My bias towards the paper maps actually caused me to waste an hour or two of backtracking one night until I finally accepted that I needed to trust the GPS through a particular section.

 

[ptschram]

That's weird... on both the 3G and the 4, we go out of service on a regular basis. In fact, one of the main reasons I got my Ham license is so I can get someone on the line during the times when I go camping and fishing and off-roading. My Blackberry wasn't any better on ATT. Verizon was always better, even when out in one of N. America's least populated areas (as calculated by population per square mile) I was able to call home on my old Verizon phone.

Last week I drove to Central Oregon. No service for about 1/4 of the 150 miles. When I go from Bend -- the 3rd largest city in Oregon -- south just 30 minutes, I'm out of service again. I routinely drive the back roads in flat or hilly terrain and have absolutely no service.

About the iPad mount:

What app are you running for the maps? So you can use the iPad GPS, without 3G, without Data, and still have the maps up? ...me... ...want...

Actually, I think I'm still leaning to get a netbook when it comes to getting a carputer.

Ben:
You live in "the most wired city in the world" but still can't maintain cell contact while driving through the city.

It drove me nuts when I lived out there that everybody (and I mean EVERYBODY) would say things like you don't need a phone book, there's the inernet-when their internet was down most of the time. You don't need a wired phone, use your cell, just remember that the only place to get a good signal is across the street on the sidewalk.

It's not the phone, it's the city's infrastructure.