iPod: The Missing Manual, 5th Edition

Chapter 9. iPod Out Loud

Now that you’ve spent all that time getting your iPod fully loaded, you probably want to listen to your playlists, albums, audio books, and podcasts wherever you happen to be—including in the car or on your big booming home stereo system. Who wants to be stuck in traffic listening to low-budget mattress commercials when you can use your car’s audio system for cranking up those iPod tunes?

If you can load it onto your iPod, you can channel it through most any sound system—and it’s not even that expensive, either. This chapter explains the simple procedures for playing your iPod songs through the woofers and tweeters in your life. (If you want to play iPod movies on your TV, flip back to Chapter 6).

Checklist: Taking Your iPod on the Road

Since the glorious days of crackly AM radio, music and driving have gone hand in hand. These days, a stereo system with an AM/FM radio and a cassette deck is the bare minimum for most cars, and late-model vehicles now cruise around with all sorts of high-end equipment, from MP3-compatible CD players to satellite radio. (Whether the music you can play on them has improved over the years is still subject to debate.)

If having your playlists with you is your idea of paradise by the dashboard light, you have several inexpensive ways to integrate your iPod with your car’s stereo system. Whatever method you choose, you have to consider ...