If playlists don't navigate as easily as they do on the empeg then it's all over. Of course what the iPod does have is soup-type views. I'm still eagerly awaiting this to be built into a new player version.

The strikes for me are iTunes (which can be gotten around), the Alpine head unit (not attractive and can't do anything about its appearance, including the layout of the display) and the fact that mounting the ipod isn't necessarily a very slick proposition.

The new icelink looks like a MUCH better docking solution. However, the ultimate would be a fold-down face on a head unit that just allowed you to slip the iPod into it. I'll state it again. This is THE killer product for car audio that is not yet widely available (Dension have something along these lines to be fair - but the iPod just happens to be the defacto portable standard).

Additional concerns about the Alpine are centered around its display of track ID info as well as its navigation interface.

Bruno