This is amazing! An after market high-end car stereo that can interface with your iPhone to control Pandora!

But it costs $1,000 (will be less of course, about $799). It’s great and all, but you know… you can just use an iPhone dock like I do with your iPhone mounted in touch / visual reach to control whatever it is you wanna’ control. I mean that’s great, don’t get me wrong. Instead of this BS of paying extra for internet access to a radio in your car or something, you can instead use your iPhone like you would normally, feeding off the internet of it to your car’s stereo.

How does this work?

But here’s an important question; does this count as tethering? It shouldn’t. I mean, after all, this is just an API for controlling the iPhone’s Pandora. I mean, it would be tethering if Pandora didn’t run on your iPhone and a car stereo simply used the internet access to feed it’s own Pandora function. But apparently it’s not, it’s just using iOS 4 API’s to feed information from Pandora playing on your iPhone.

It’s like this. Pandora plays on your iPhone and the audio output is already feed through the special car dock connector, and the car is also feed the title information, as well as other interface information, such as artwork, genre, rating, navigation, etc. (Just like systems that can access and control your iPod app, that system really isn’t running it’s own iPod system, it’s simply accessing information off of the iPhone running the iPod.)

It’s fascinating technology though. It shows the explosive power of both iPhones and Pandora. But would I use it? Well ****, if I were offered it for free, heck yeah I would! But that’s a lotta’ money.

Stereo Interface VS. Dock Interface

Basically, let’s break it down to what it really does when compared to current setups. It offers you an interface to control your iPhone to have your iPod music collection play or have Pandora play. But using an iPhone dock (or mount even) right near your stereo gives you the same functionality.

VS.

1. In both setups, you have to physically connect your iPhone.
2. In both setups, your iPhone charges.
3. In both setups, you can run GPS navigation with Pandora running.
4. In both setups, you have easy connecting / disconnecting of iPhone.
5. Only in dock setup can you control every aspect of your iPhone.

And that’s it right there. I mean, having an iPhone dock setup, you can control every part of your iPhone. Wanna’ run something other than Pandora or iPod? You can. If a text message comes up or a notification about a item on eBay pops up, you can see it because your keeping your iPhone out front and center as your “interface” into your media (and GPS navigation, as I’m doing currently).

This stereo is an absolutely great idea, but I’d still want my iPhone to be out front and center like it is currently. I mean, controlling **** like Pandora through the interface of your stereo’s amazing, but you still need your iPhone out front and center at times. For instance, what happens if your music stops all of the sudden? Is it because Pandora froze or because you don’t have cell reception? You gotta’ bring your iPhone out and look at it.

So I’d totally love to have a car stereo system interface like this with the Neocell, but the problem is that I’d want it setup the way it currently is and, in fact, I’d want to control everything from my iPhone itself. It’s just that easy. Got the GPS navigation app open and need to pause Pandora? Double click on the home button, swipe right and tap pause. Receive a phone call and simply pick it up from the dock one-handed to take the call (unlike cables that connect into your iPhone) and start talkin’. Once done, redock, double click home button, swipe left and tap “play”.

There is the convent issue that this stereo has bluetooth hands free calling, but you can simply get that with a lot of stereos on the market now for a LOT less than this stereo.

It’s kinda’ frustrating because this seems like such an awesome product for someone like me, but I can easily see myself not using it’s interface and instead using my iPhone because of so many reasons.

Somebody improve the dock experience

Instead of an interface to control your iPhone, I’d like to see an improvement to the Apple dock. I’d love to see a device that functions just like the current dock does, but has the unique ability to rotate into landscape view all while keeping your iPhone firmly in place, providing power and audio ports (not a built-in wire, but ports like the current dock), low profile like the current dock and most important, a simple “dock” method of connecting and not some stupid snap on bull ****.

Conclusion

This stereo will be great for a lotta’ people, but for me, I’m gonna’ continue building systems around my iPhone being the interface of my system and not the other way around.

Peace, JbB