it sounds like you've gone with a in-car-player optimised for the ipod
There wasn't any other choice that I could find. Dension have stopped building hard-disk players and instead are selling an adapter that connects an iPod into a normal head unit's CD changer port. Alpine sell things that connect to an iPod. Everybody who's in this market at all, as far as I can tell, is selling things that connect to an iPod. It's iPod or nothing :-/
Yeah, Ogg support would certainly be nice, although I also have a hardware MP3 player in my living room so I have to maintain my collection in MP3 format for that as well. If I could have gone completely Ogg, though, I would have.
The iPod, to be fair to it, is significantly less unhelpful when used as an iPod rather than as a back end for a car stereo. I don't think it was really designed for the latter, so I can't blame it for not being well adapted to that environment. Instead I have to blame all the stereo manufacturers who decided it was the Right Thing.
(That's another positive point I didn't list above, of course: the Dension hard disk was just a hard disk cartridge, but the Alpine's iPod can be taken out and used as an iPod. But I don't generally seem to have much use for a walking-around music player, so it didn't strike me as enough of a plus point to bother listing.)
There wasn't any other choice that I could find. Dension have stopped building hard-disk players and instead are selling an adapter that connects an iPod into a normal head unit's CD changer port. Alpine sell things that connect to an iPod. Everybody who's in this market at all, as far as I can tell, is selling things that connect to an iPod. It's iPod or nothing :-/
NB> "The positive points are pretty good though!" was referring to your setup, rather than my mp3 player.
The iPod, to be fair to it, is significantly less unhelpful when used as an iPod rather than as a back end for a car stereo. I don't think it was really designed for the latter, so I can't blame it for not being well adapted to that environment. Instead I have to blame all the stereo manufacturers who decided it was the Right Thing.
(That's another positive point I didn't list above, of course: the Dension hard disk was just a hard disk cartridge, but the Alpine's iPod can be taken out and used as an iPod. But I don't generally seem to have much use for a walking-around music player, so it didn't strike me as enough of a plus point to bother listing.)