Alpine iPod adapter

Got the iPod adapter for my car on Saturday with a new CD/MP3 deck. It works okay........ A pretty big learning curve because the Alpine deck interface has nowhere near the classy design of the iPod itself.

Ergo Car Audio in Edinboro was very helpful to me and did an excellent installation job.

Likes:

• Charges the iPod while connected (eliminating an extra power cord)
• Hides the iPod in the glove box (eliminating a visible audio cord)
• Reads playlists, artists, albums from the iPod (no reorganization of files *required* - see dislikes)
  
• Much better sound quality than a cassette adapter. (MUCH)
  
• Updates the iTunes play count (Whoo-hoo! That was a big ? for me, and for those of you who know how anal I get with these things - that could have been a deal breaker...)
  

Dislikes:

• No variable scroll speed. (Scroll wheel on the deck goes one... entry... at.... a... time...) This, frankly, sucks.
  
• Interface is NOT intuitive. (Press 1 for playlists, 2 for artists, 3 for albums), find your selection, then press another button to drill down to the next level, repeat. If you're on a song and you want to switch to another artist's song, you have to hit "Display" and then 2 for Artists, scroll to find their name, hit the select button to drill down to albums, scroll through the albums, hit select. I don't know a better way to do this on a regular CD deck, so it doesn't bother me as much as the scroll speed.
  
• Some overall limitations on number of entries on any given display. (Only affects me on my very large playlists when I shuffle - not all that common.)

My music is very tightly organized, so the album/artist search was no big deal really. I did have to tighten up my playlists - I think I'm going to use them to find my more popular music, because I can just have about 20 playlists, and go that way, rather than wading through hundreds of single-song artists to find Moby or U2.

If your iPod is not really cleanly organized, this unit could be either the catalyst you need to organize, or maybe just such a big hassle you end up burning mp3 CD's instead.