I was thinking the other day and talking to my friend about this and I'm pretty sure this would work. If this has been posted before, sorry I was thinking, most of you have the Shaker 500/1000 and have the auxillary jack in your glove box or something if I'm not mistaken. Well, instead of using an iPod, what about buying that same cable to connect the iPod to the car, but use your laptop? Just plug the wire into the headphone jack of the computer, plug the other end into the car, and bam, you have ALL of your music in your car. This would be a great idea for those of you who don't have an iPod, or have an iPod that doesn't carry all of your songs. If you're worried about your battery life, buy one of those cig lighter transformers that gives you a wall outlet and just plug your laptop in full time. You can set the computer either on the floor (if you're worried about sudden stops and flying into the dash) or on the passenger seat. You could probably even "buckle in" your laptop or come up with some other ingenious way I'm too lazy to think of right now to keep it in place. Just a suggestion, didn't see if it was already posted but I think it's a great alternative to the iPod/mp3 player thing and you have ALL of your music with you now
It is a little bit harder to use than a iPod or MP3 player, but if you just made your playlists like you do on ur iPod it would work the same way. If you're at a stoplight or something and you want to change the song or playlist it wouldn't be that hard. Just a few clicks and it's done. Seems like it would be the cheapest way for anybody who didn't have an iPod that did have a laptop
To me the, the difference in physical size alone would not be worth the hassle. With the Shakers you can record mp3 discs. With 6 disc capacity X 100+ songs per disc, along with a cd case to hold all your cds. The downside would be the shuffle play not being as quick as a dedicated iPod or mp3 player, but hey. Howm much are blank cd-rs????? I'll stick with my mp3 discs for awhile.
My ipod will hold close to 20,000 songs and it hides in the console. My aftermarket headunit controls it, charges it, etc. I can see my playlists, name of songs, artists, albums, etc. all on the display. That's the only way to go, in my opinion. My aftermarket head unit complete with satellite radio and the ipod cost less than Ford's list for the Shaker 500. And it certainly sounds better.
