Last year, I bought a Honda Goldwing (read-on, it relates to Apple).  It’s the ultimate touring motorcycle: 6 cylinder, ABS, GPS, heated seats AND grip and 80 watts per channel 6 speakers sound system…. NICE.  However, Honda, in their infinite wisdom, is offering a 6 discs CD changer that you plug into the wiring harness and control from the handle bar; for the modest sum of $700 dollars mind you! For their flagship bike they really have leading edge tech!!  I guess it’s better than Yamaha that has a really nice TAPE DECK on their top-of-the-line cruiser.

I wanted something a little cheaper with more music.  I recently heard of that new technology – MP3 players have you heard of it? – that I could plug into the bike’s sound system (may be someone should send the memo to Honda).  I have a 3.5 mm plug routed to one of the glove compartment (in the front) that works well enough but in the summer the heat from the engine seemed to be unbearable for my player and it would quit working. Furthermore, I could not control it without pulling over – how uncivilized!

I discovered a company that make an adapter that would plug into the wiring harness (where the CD changer would go) and let me run the player from the factory installed handle bar controls.  HOWEVER, it ONLY works with Apple products!!  The nice thing about it, though, is that it also charges the player.

I really did not want to buy a new one because I was planning on using it primarily on the bike.  I bought a really nice 80GB unit on E-Bay for a very reasonable price.  I’ve never had an Apple product.  The closest I came to buying one was the Newton.  Now it’s a collector’s item available on E-Bay – you can find ANYTHING on E-Bay!

A couple of years ago I bought an 8GB Zune for my wife to use while she goes ice skating.  When I set it up for her I remember liking it and being generally impressed.  But, I think I like the iPod more.  When I first installed iTunes, it took overnight to go through all my music (15,517 songs)!  Once this was over and loaded on the iPod I was ready to venture into the world according to Steve.

This is, by no means, a technical review, but I think (compared to the “old” Zune) the Apple is more elegant in execution – nothing dramatic, just nice touches here and there: the way you can blend the ending and beginning of songs, playlists to get you started, quick and easy search to name a few .

I did not expect to like it but for a 5th generation iPod, but my overall impression is very positive. Now, if only we could change the battery ourselves…

For anyone wondering, the whole hook-up, including the iPod, cost me less than half of the cost of the “antiquated” CD changer (before install cost) with about 215 times the capacity.

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