The Apple iPod has done its bit to shape society over the past ten years, Not only is it a desirable gift or accessory. Its changed the way we listen to and purchase music. The most noticeable improvement the iPod / iPhone deliverers over its predecessors, is the ease and simplicity of use and instant satisfaction it delivers.

Music and applications can be downloaded instantly, negating the need to travel to a store to purchase CD singles or albums. Which except for a few people, was seen as a hindrance. No longer do we need to carry stacks of disc’s and filter through them to find an album for what ever mood were in. Put simply the iPod has revolutionised the music industry and carried it into the future, making music more accessible in our daily routines.

Many other companies have joined the music revolution in a bid to further improve the way we control and listen to our favourite albums. It has become big business, with more and more companies offering improved quality and functions for home audio and visual systems as well as car and mobile audio. One of the market leaders in the car audio field, Dension, have been developing new systems which allow full control of the iPod through the stereo and entertainment system in the vehicle.

For many the iPod symbolises mobile music, and more recently mobile entertainment with the release of the iPod touch and iPhone, and the continuing developments Apple are making in the Video and TV area. Dension have adopted this ethos of entertainment on the move and produced iPod car kits that surpass any other kit on the market in terms of quality and integration.

iPod integration is key for quality and ease of use of the kits, if they don’t match Apples exacting standards for the iPod there is no point in developing them. With this in mind Dension set about improving previous versions of iPod kits they already produced. (Which they were already market leaders) and come up with a kit that ensures great quality audio and simple easy controls. The Gateway Lite was born.

The Gateway Lite is the next step up from the Gateway 100 / Gateway 300 ipod car adapters, The lite offers a much improved navigation system which was not available on the 100 / 300 unless text compatibility was available on your vehicle. By making the system easier the Gateway Lite is much more effective when making a track selection, reducing the browsing time and frustration this may have caused.

Combined with USB input the Gateway lite makes your favourite music truly mobile, allowing you to carry you entire music collection in your vehicle, you no longer need the poor quality and probably illegal FM transmitters. Simply choose the Gateway Lite.

Dension are market leaders in iPod car kit integration. Their iPod car adapters provide better quality audio and track navigation and selection over any other kit on the market. Drive, Control, Charge and Play your iPod with Dension.

The Gateway Lite is the latest in a long line of Dension iPod car Adapters. With each predecessor showing an increase in usability and functionality. Dension Gateway Lites predecessor the Gateway 100 was the most successful iPod kit in history. Offering a more advance track browsing system than any other kit on the market. However the complex nature of the 100 was ultimately its own downfall.

The 100 iPod kit offered track selection from the steering wheel controls / Stereo or the iPod, in which either artist, album or playlist could be selected. However the complexity of the gateway 100 system was not well suited to the majority of vehicles stereos, which cannot provide text support. This meant users would have to remember which combination of functions would enable iPod or stereo mode, and allow selections of tracks depending on browsing type, something that frustrated a lot of users.

The problem isn’t necessarily with the Dension unit, as the system works perfectly with text compatible radios. The problems occur when no text is available, and unfortunately most factory radios are not capable of displaying text rendering the gateway 100 kits difficult to use.

Dension have realised this problem and have improved the browsing system used in the new Gateway Lite. Dension designed the Gateway Lite specifically for none text compatible radios, and by doing so improved the browsing functionality by simplifying the track selection process.

Rather than the complex deep structured system in the Gateway 100, the lite is controlled via the iPod click wheel to browse through the iPod folders. Once the source is selected, tracks can be flicked through using the steering wheel controls for ease of use.

However the improved browsing functionality isn’t the only addition to the gateway lite, Dension have added a USB input into the system as standard. Enabling an additional 8 to 16Gb of music to be browsed through. Browsing through the USB drive is as simple as the iPod, CD button 6 selects the USB and 1-5 select Playlist, albums or artists.

In short Dension have yet again improved upon previous kits. Increasing the usability, simplifying the operations and adding additional source selections, you might think all these benefits come at a cost. You’d be wrong. The gateway lite is actually cheaper that the Gateway 100 and Gateway 300. The only downfall is that it doesn’t provide any text compatibility, however the this will never be available for those vehicles without CAN Bus systems.

There are a lot of different mp3 players on the market today, but Apple are the leaders of the market with the numerous variations of the iPod. Initially the iPod was successful due to its styling and functions, however the current rise of popularity is also down to other factors including additional accessories and add-ons to the ipod to make it more functional and or usable.

The iPod’s primary use is for music play back, Although current iPod and iPhones are capable of so much more. Accessories that increase the functionality of the iPod are now seen as a business in there own right. A perfect example of an iPod accessory is the iPod car adaptor. Its primary function is to allow you to listen to your music while in your car. This has obvious advantages over other forms of entertainment systems in your vehicle, first and foremost you can listen to the music you love rather than what happens to be on the radio at the time, secondly the quality is far superior to the radio as they provide a digital connections into the cars entertainment systems. There are many other advantages depending on which kit you choose to purchase. However these advantages largely depend on your vehicle.

Other iPod car accessories can be found in a lot of local or online stores and include simple charging cables from the cigarette lighter, Ideal for when your iPod loses battery charge, FM transmitters, a more basic version of the Digital iPod car kit. The quality can be poor on Transmitters so its important to choose a good brand and if you live in a built up area its likely you wont receive a good reception. Ipod cases aren’t specific to car accessories however they can and will stop your iPod from being damaged while left in your vehicle.

Ipod car accessories can provide a useful extension to your iPods functions, Its likely that you love to listen to music. Driving is the perfect opportunity to cycle through track’s you haven’t heard for a while. The iPod car adaptor is the perfect means of doing so.

More and more people are getting HD radio installed in their cars. The reception is better, the sound is clearer, and there is a wider variety of shows and stations to listen to. So, if you have already purchased an HD radio for your car – or if you bought a car with a HD radio already installed – why get an iPod car kit?
For one thing, with HD radio, the sound quality is improved over a normal radio but the sound will be poorer than an iPod kit; there are also commercials in between tracks. Sometimes the commercials are as often as every few songs, depending on the station. There is less static with HD radio compared to the standard FM or AM radio, but you can still have problems listening to stations; the station won’t fade out as quickly, but if you are too far from where the station is being broadcast, you won’t be able to hear it. This is especially a problem for people who often make long drives – searching for a new station every hour, because you’ve traveled outside of the previous station’s broadcast radius, can get pretty annoying. Obviously, neither the commercials, nor the geographical location, are a problem for someone who is listening to an iPod.

Even though HD radio has a greater variety of programming than regular radio, it can’t beat the variety of programming that can be found on podcasts, and played through your iPod. With an iPod, you can always choose what you want to hear; if a song comes on that you don’t want to hear, you simply fast-forward. No more flipping through stations hoping to find something you’ll enjoy; you have control over what you want to hear, anytime you listen.

The iPod is now more universal with the iPod Car Kit

There have been a few news reports lately regarding a bad batch of iPods which have been “exploding”. News reports suggest that an 11 year old girl from liverpool had heard hissing noises from her iPod before it popped and she could smell burning. Apple had thrown out reports of a bad batch and suggested it was an “isolated incident”. News quickly got around and before long, quite a number of people were “claiming” that their iPods had gone faulty on forums and around the internet. Apple released a statement saying that these were simple lies and that only a very limited number of Apple iPods had been replaced with these faults, less than 10 infact.

As this has became big news, a few people have jumped on the bandwaggon. All isn’t bad though, some fun and games has arrived from this media hype. A game was developed called “iPop – Make iPods Safe”. Its a nice quick game to cure some boredom. Check it out here.

We were contacted by a customer at the start of this month who was desperate to get his iPod working in his car. He had already been given false information by 4 companies and he saw his only logical route to be through his dealer (who you would expect knew his car and its options inside out & back to front). £1400 and two weeks (without his car) later, the only thing that he had extra to before his vehicle went over to his dealer was an even bigger headache!

The dealer had sold him a kit for nearly triple the price that we charge (we charge £140, the dealer charged £400) and then charged a whopping £1000 for installation which took an entire two weeks! When this was complete it turned out that the iPod car kit didnt even work! He took it back and had it tested, they agreed to swap it over. Still no joy! In the end, 3 kits were tested and none worked. Our customer managed to get his £400 back for the iPod Car Kit but they wouldnt pay up for the installation costs. This has obviously left sour grapes in the mouth of the customer who was understandably very annoyed. This is where iPod Car Kit Direct come in, proving that we are a long way ahead of the game when it comes to getting an In Car iPod.

We had a call around 9:15am asking if we could offer any advice. We obviously knew the vehicle very well having successfully integrated around 5000 iPod Car Kits into thus far. We knew exactly what the issue was and suggested we could sell the Dension Gateway 100 kit at £140 and install it for £50. Our installers went over to our customers place of work two days later and installed the kit within 1 hour. Fully tested and fully working.

Needless to say that our customer was extremely pleased that he could now play his iPod in his car. He is also pursuing the lost £1000 with trading standards and is very close to a happy ending.

This story goes to show that there really is no replacement for expereince. We dont like blowing our own trumpets but we have twice the experience than any of our competitors and have ben the only company to have been dealing with iPod Car Kits since the very first iPod Car Kit was designed.

As iPod integration becomes more and more popular, brands & manufacturers pop up with rival products hoping to take advantage of the growing industry, and usually for quick profit. iPods one of the most purchased items of the last 5 years and that’s trend shows no sign of stopping. The release of the new iPhone 3Gs, and expecting release of the new iPod Touch shows apple’s intentions for the future. Combined with the open source applications that are being developed repeatedly, the device will always remain up to date and continually wanted, or on many occasions needed. This is obviously an incentive for companies to develop products on the back of the ipod which provide a useful service to iPod users.

One of the more useful devices designed to work with the iPod and further extend its functionality is the iPod car kit. There are many brands to choose from however as with most areas of business there are better and worse kits available. The latest ipod car kits from Dension provide the ultimate in iPod integration for vehicles with factory stereos. The Gateway 100 or Gateway 300 from Dension is designed to replace the CD changer in the vehicle and connect directly to the CD changer port on the back of the stereo. Providing a true digital connection and in turn provides audio quality better that CD (Dependant on the quality of the MP3).

Dension has worked hard to improve on the previous kit, which many people see as the best ipod car kit on the market. The new and improved Gateway 100 / 300 CAN kits offer that little bit more than the older Gateway 100/ 300 kits. Dension has finally cracked the software relating to the CAN systems and can now provide an interface that shows text from the iPod on the cluster screen present in CAN vehicles. This update brings the Gateway 100 / 300 kits for Audi, VW & Peugeot into line with the other Dension (vehicle) kits that already offered this as standard.

This improvement is likely to increase the sales of Audi, VW and Peugeot kits, and bring in line with the more popular BMW. People who use the kits see Text Display as an important if not an essential feature when purchasing any iPod car kit, so when you combine this new feature with the older functions that made the Gateway 100 so popular you can only see the Dension reputation increasing over the coming year.

Dension products are available from the number one Online iPod Car Kit Store

The AVR is one of the latest products from the Dension production line. The AVR is the new Video Extender from Dension that allows videos from the iPod to be played on factory screens in the front and back of the vehicle (Where available). Dension modified the previous version of the kit (The AV Extender) to allow a greater user interface and functionality as well as state of the art technology to ensure that users can fully control the Audio / Video system within the vehicle.

The AVR only work’s with vehicles compatible with and has the Dension gateway 500 system installed. Vehicles such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes & Porsche (and a few others) with fibre optic systems can utilise the AVR’s functions to control the media being played in different screens within the vehicle. Allowing you to watch your favourite iPod Video in the front and lets the kids watch their favourite DVD in the back, cutting out all of the boredom, tedium and arguing usually involved in long vehicle journeys. In fact it’s likely that the only squabbling involved will be the choice of videos played.

Unfortunately the AVR isn’t compatible with the Gateway 100 and Gateway 300 systems as it requires the complexity of the Gateway 500 and the speed of the fibre optics to function correctly. However there is a possibility of an AV extender for the 100/300 being released in the horizon. But for now the Gateway 100 and 300 users will have to make do with their music collection for long drives.

Dension products are available from the number one Online iPod Car Kit Store

iPod’s popularity certainly has a major say in the Car audio industry today, not directly from apple but from the millions of iPod users. Due to the massive amounts of people who regularly use iPod’s on a daily if not hourly basis Car Audio Brands and Vehicle Manufacturers have had to redefine how car audio and entertainment works and what is expected from each component within the system.
Vehicle manufacturers are more aware of the demands of the public and use additional add-ons as a selling point in an aid to promote new ranges and vehicles. However the majority of factory iPod car kits are simply an AUX input into the audio system. This allows music to be played through the speaker system, which for some users is enough. However this option does not offer any of the more advanced features that aftermarket kits do.
So the big question is do vehicle manufacturers see a future with iPod car kits or are they waiting for the next big invention?
The investments from Car Audio Brands suggest that the iPod is going to be here for a minimum of several years. The larger brands such as Dension, Alpine & Kenwood have taken iPod integration to the next level, although in separate directions. Alpine & Kenwood have built fully iPod compatible aftermarket stereos, with new features such as imprint technology & HD screens that allow users to configure the components depending music quality and type. Combined with Made for iPod & iPhone you can get the most out of your iPod by finding and playing music and videos much easier than ever before.
Dension however has made larger strides by combining iPod technology with factory fitted equipment. The Dension Gateway range provides an iPod connection into your factory fitted stereo, ensuring that the original look is maintained. The Dension Kits also provide Steering wheel control for the iPod and music, Text display on a lot of vehicles including the new CAN cluster display vehicles within the VW & Audi Group and the retention of your CD Changer via a CD Retention Kit at additional cost.

However it’s the new components that Dension are developing that offer the greater indication of where iPod integration may be heading?
The soon to be released AVR is designed to work with the gateway 500 fibre optic kit allows different sources of entertainment to be played simultaneously, So for example the adults might want to listen to their favourite music in the front of the vehicle while the kids enjoy their favourite DVD in the back. This step is a major advance in the car entertainment world and will open up several avenues for further development in the future.
Another one of Dension’s products nearing completion is the Wi-Drive, this device when complete will allow you to integrate your vehicle into the wireless home network, and this has many advantages at first glance. Such as instant file transfer from computer to vehicle and vice versa. However this device holds many more possibilities than first anticipated. A wireless internet network connection can be made with the use of mobile USB dongle currently available from various mobile networks providing internet access to all of the users in your vehicle.
The possibilities of car audio and entertainment & iPod integration in the future are endless, devices such as the AVR and the Wi-Drive will open up many avenues for the next stage of development. For example;
Security devices could be invented that provide live streaming from the vehicle to your own computer monitoring your vehicles safety combined with “web cams” installed in your vehicle you could see exactly what happening to your car live. Live streaming or the download of music and videos from iTunes could be played on TV screens installed in the vehicle through the use of the Wi-drive and AVR while you’re on your journey, simply select and go through your iPod to choose all the latest Apple iTunes has to offer.
Television channels broadcasting live online could be watch instantly allowing new entertainment channels to be integrated into future vehicles, controllable at various points in the car. Maybe the kids want to watch different TV channels? No Problem now.
One thing is clear, the Car audio and entertainment business is moving on. New and improved technology being created continually and the iPod certainly can be at the centre of it all.

Redesign your iPod with the latest range of iPod covers, The incredibly fashionable skins not only protect your iPod from all the nasty little scratches but add a unique style to the massively popular brand making your iPod individual to you.

The contour iPod cases are made from specially designed materials including shock absorbing rubber and crystal clear polycarbonate plastic’s that are capable of withstanding moderate damage protecting your iPod from all the nasty scratches that everyday life throws your way.

The contour iPod cases are not only designed with protection in mind but offer a fantastic range of styles suitable for all of the new iPods. The latest in designs incorporate women’s fashion much more than any previous designs, the impression Pink case comes in a floral design and the same design in white & pearl blue, red & white making the options for women much more extensive.

Contour offer a range of iPod accessories & cases accessories for all the new iPods including Nano cases, iPhone & iPhone 3g, ipod Touch and the iPod Classic. Each a hard case design protecting your pride and joy from daily ware and tear while keeping the stylish design the iPod is famous for.

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