July 5th, 2007
iPhone Diary Day 7: Argh! accessories
Apple’s been pretty straight with us from the beginning about iPhone accessories. They said that some accessories will work, but others - especially those that send a signal, like FM transmitters, or that receive a signal, like voice recorders - will not.
With those pre-qualifications in mind I was eager to try iPhone with the freshly installed Alpine iDA-X001 head unit in my vehicle. I was optimistic about the iPhone working because I just purchased the Alpine in late May and it’s the latest iPod-compatible model.
The iDA-X001’s has unmatched iPod friendliness. It has controls that act just like your iPod from the front panel of the head unit. Menus are navigable like the iPod, it has search options are like the iPod and you can even view album art as you would on the iPod.
Unfortunately, as you can see from the photos, it isn’t compatible with iPhone, throwing the standard “This accessory is not made to work with iPhone” dialog box. The second photo (below) is from the iDA-X001’s display.
Update: A short table of the iPod accessories that I have tried with iPhone:
| Accessory |
Works? |
Airplane Mode? |
|---|---|---|
| iHome iH36W |
No |
Yes |
| XtremeMac Luna |
No |
Yes |
| XtremeMac Tango |
No |
Yes |
| XtremeMac MicroMemo |
No |
No |
| Specktone Speakers |
No |
No |
| DLO iBoom |
No |
No |
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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