Griffin AutoPilot for iPod

I bought this to use with my 1st gen iPhone and Pioneer stereo with AUX input, with one of my goals being to get better audio than my 1st gen iPod Shuffle produces. I looked and looked for accessories built for the iPhone, but none of the options looked particularly good. The Autopilot offered just what I wanted: SIMPLE control interface, line-out audio from the Dock connector, AUX output. As of this review I've only used it for a day but it's been a good experience so far. As you may know this device is NOT certified for iPhone use and thus produces the compatibility error message. But here's the good part... you can completely ignore it. It's not necessary to dismiss the message at all. Just press play and it will resume from where you left off (and if you want to open up the iPod app to pick a playlist, etc., the action of unlocking the phone dismisses the error message too). I'd previously tried the iPhone with just an AUX cable attached to the headphone port and not only was the sound no better than my old iPod Shuffle, but there was the horrible "GSM buzz" that you typically get with cell phones. No so with the Autopilot -- there's zero interference, even with it sitting in the pocket directly below the stereo unit. Sound quality is definitely improved. Before, music always sounded flat/dull compared to played from a MP3 CD or the radio, now it's on par. The leap is not enormous for me because I'l merely using the factory car speakers and they're at their limits. I think if you've invested in good aftermarket speakers, the different would be more noticeable. The actual unit fits snugly into my cars 12V plug and the buttons are easy to press. Red ring pulses while the iPhone is charging. The cables are flexible enough that they don't get in the way as much as I anticipated and with a little effort can be tucked mostly out of the way. This isn't the fanciest solution. You end up with a few wires strung about the console (depending on where your 12V plug is located). But it's affordable, practical, and WORKS. As much as I'd like one of the steering wheel remote solutions, the products out there today all seem much too flimsy. For now, the Griffin Autopilot will handle my car audio needs.

The Griffin works with the IPod Nano 5G. I bought this a month ago & really like it. If you want a fairly compact charger and audio out solution while charging this is a really good car charger for your Nano. I do not have an AUX input on my car radio so I plug the cassette adapter into the Griffin to hear the songs, audiobooks, etc while charging my IPod. It charges the IPod quickly. I only use the Griffin charger when my Nano need charging but you could use it all the time. Basic controls (Play/Pause, Forward, Back) are within easy reach on my car, no need to fiddle with the ipod while I'm driving! - Lighted controls are easy to find at night at a glance. - 5 Volt charger. Fits in my car's power/aux output. - No need to crank the volume on the IPod Nano. Lets you control the volume with the car stereo with the IPod Nano on only half volume instead of full output. - Has Hi/Low output switch (Hi = line level, low = headphone level). The low output works best for me with audio books. - Price at Amazon is better than at retail stores. - Light changes so you will know the exact status of your IPod at a quick glance. - red - no IPod attached, pulsing amber - charging, green - charged. The adaptor has a round pause/play button in the middle, surrounded by a glowing ring, and skip/scan back and forward controls. The entire left side of the outer ring is back and entire right side of the outer ring is forward. Press and release to skip. Hold to scan. The controls work great although only the power ring around the pause/play button is lit. However that works fine once you know that inside the ring is pause/play and outside of the ring is skip/scan back and forward. When you shut off your car it pauses your iPod. I always take my IPod with me so I don't use this feature but it would save you manually pausing your IPod if you leave yours in your car. Griffin AutoPilot for iPod

This thing is great. I have an iPhone 3GS and am able to charge as expected. Music plays through the dock connector and allows me to channel into an AUX jack right off the charger. The ability to not only switch tracks from the adapter, but also fast forward and rewind is a nice benefit. One of the best things about this is the ability to use a wired headset adapter. You can have a wired headset plugged in and the audio will still play through the dock connector into your car stereo. When a phone call comes in, the music fades out and the iPhone switches to use the headset for the call. Then seamlessly back to the dock connector once the call is finished. Spectacular. No more bluetooth headsets! Update: After about a year of use, the strain reliefs on each end of the wire break. You end up with exposed wires hanging out of the lighter connector and the dock connector jack. Still works great, but not as resilient as I had hoped. Drop some hot glue on the junction of the wire and the connector and you are good to go.

I love this product. I started with an iPod/iPhone adapter that I had to rip apart my Trailblazer and Grand Am just to install. And even at best that thing still had issues. When I bought my Avalanche and saw that it had an AUX port I was quick after something else that didn't require 1-2 hours to hook up followed by a call to customer service to find out why it wouldn't work. This device is straight up plug and play. It works great I haven't had any issues with it. I have since bought a second one after selling my Grand Am and buying a Honda Accord. What I love about this the most is that as long as you have an AUX port in your car and a cigarette port you are good to go. These often go with us whenever we travel with someone else. Back in December 2012 my wife got an iPhone 5 for her birthday and we just bought a $40 adapter that plugs right on to the old Apple connector and we haven't had to replace these yet. Great product I certainly couldn't make the long trips on vacation or to larger cities without this device. My wife can't hardly make a 10 minute trip across town without it. So if you are like my family then I would pay just about any price for this device...you will get you monies worth out of it in use.

Bought two of these, one for each car. One works great, the other one not so much. The one that works performs beautifully, functions as described. The other is more or less hit or miss. Some days it works fine, other days it seems as though I have to plug and unplug it to get it to work. I am suspecting something may be loose on the function button. For the price I paid, it is not worth the bother to return the poor performing device.

As others have mentioned, this is NOT the FM transmitter version but rather the auxilliary input model shown in the photo (which I wanted). The main body of the device plugs into the lighter socket for power. On the "face" of the plug are three buttons - skip back, skip forward and play/pause. There is also a tri-color LED indicator which displays the status of the charge. On the side of the plug you insert the included 3.5mm plug and then plug the other end into your car's aux input. I really like that this both charges and gets the line-level audio output from my iPhone 3G. It's really nice not to have to fiddle with the volume of the iPhone's output like when I was using the headphone jack. The Griffin charges the iPhone 3G just fine despite the changed pinout on the dock connector. It does, however, cause the iPhone 3G to display "this device was not made for use with the iPhone 3G". You just hit "no" which leaves the phone enabled and everything continues to work as expected. When you insert the plug into the lighter socket, you want to be careful to not put undue pressure on the buttons. I leave my Griffin in the plug all the time, so I have not had any issues with the buttons. The buttons on the front control the play/pause of the music/podcase and also let you navigate previous/next in your tracks. I mainly listen to podcasts, so I have to take care when un-pausing playback because if I hit the REW/FF buttons, I'll lose my place in the podcast, but it's a minor complaint. The LEDs show red when no device is connected, yellow when charging, and green when fully charged. The LEDs are not bright enough to be distracting in any way for me -- certainly less bright than everything else that's lit in the car. Overall, I'm quite pleased with this product and it would probably get 5 stars if I didn't get the warning when using it with the iPhone 3G. However, despite the warning, it does work just fine with the 3G.

The item is a great idea, but it broke after 1 weeks of use. It cause my car to start popping fuses.

Functionally, it's perfect...connects to Dock connector, powered by cig lighter, play/pause button, next/prev buttons. Everything I wanted. Unfortunately, I'm getting a lot of interference with it, a low-level buzz that really takes away from enjoyment of my music. I previously had a similar device by another brand, used with the same vehicle, cig lighter port, iPhone that sounded perfect (no interference/noise), so it's clearly a problem with this one. EDIT: Since someone asked, the other one I had was made by Monster. The design was similar, and it worked perfectly, but like all things Monster, they're horribly overpriced (I got mine at a decent price at Costco, but they no longer have them).