Incorporating an iPhone Into Your Vehicle

I can attest to driving and having to use my cellphone at the same time. I feel embarrassed for my actions, even knowing that nothing tragic has come out of it. For the safety of other drivers and ourselves, it would be great if cellphone users could have a nearly hands-free phone experience while driving. With user safety in mind, this guide will show you how to strategically mount your phone, hook up the dock connector for constant charging, and how to connect the audio cable for both audio playback and phone conversations. Please note that laws regarding cell phone usage while operating a motor vehicle vary by state.

My personal phone is an Apple iPhone 3GS which I am using in this article. However, if you have a cellphone (smartphone or otherwise) that has an audio output jack and a power connector jack, you can use these same principles in this article for your vehicle and cellphone. If your cellphone has an audio output jack but does not have a separate jack for power; you should still be able to speak and listen to phone calls, but the battery power will be draining as long as your phone is not off or is in sleep mode.

Before grabbing the tools and items, you'll have to do a bit of planning. You can put in as little or as much thought into this, but when you set everything up, the extra planning will help you in the long run. Anybody can purchase and install the proper cables to their cellphone or iPhone. But from a driving perspective, would you prefer having your phone laying in or on your console and having to momentarily look away from the road when answering a call or changing iTunes tracks, or would you prefer to have the phone mounted in a place where you could stay focused on the road with your peripheral vision checking the cellphone? Do you have the budget that allows you to install a $60 part (and the extra cost of installation) to your existing car stereo which allows you to connect your iPhone, or are you the kind of person that tends to enjoy working with the physical limitations of hardware and budgeting around that? I'll cover more on this options throughout the guide.

PART I - COMPONENTS

Here's a list of the items you will need, (but not the items in order for purchase):
 You don't need a mount for this to work, but it keeps the driver safer with his or her eyes more on the road than looking down at their cellphone. You may not need a charger either, but if you aren't using the cigarette lighter socket for something else and you have a few bucks, it's worth purchasing. If you are in fact using the socket, you can purchase an adaptor which can give you two or more sockets instead.

PART II - INSTALLATION

The fashion in which my iPhone is incorporated is such: I have the mount on my left vent. The audio cable comes out of the 1/8" jack from the dashboard, is wrapped by a tie due to excessive length, goes to the mount, then is tied to the mount on the right side, and dangles in the back left side. The reason for this is so the cord doesn't fall elsewhere and simply stays in the same place. When I want to connect the audio cable, I know where it is. The power connector comes out of the cigarette socket, tilts at a 45° angle, goes over and behind the steering column, then gets draped behind and to the left of the mount. It's not tied down because getting the connector to the dock involves tilting the iPhone on it's back, and with the power connector not tied down I have an easier time connecting it when I get in my car. Previously I had the car sitting on top of the center console when the roll-up lid was covering the cupholders and the power connector was connected to the center console. Still, this meant that I had to look down and to the right whenever I was checking my location on the GPS, seeing who was calling me, or looking down the list for the directions I had given myself in Notes. Not safe at all...

Before clamping or screwing anything down, I looked at ergonomics. If I put the iPhone in the left center vent, it would be closer to the rest of the controls, but it would block other controls of the stereo system. If I put my iPhone on the left vent, it would be less distracting in my line-of-sight, but would the cables reach? These are some things you'll need to put into perspective before securing anything. It's nice to have things clean and out of the way, but the priority is safety and accessibility. Just as the iPhone is designed for simplicity, you want your iPhone or cellphone within easy reach of it's controls without blocking or obstructing access to those of your car's dashboard. Here's a shot of my dashboard:



If I placed it in the middle left vent, the iPhone would be partially obstructed by the steering wheel, and placing it in the right vent is simply too far away to be convenient. In the photo below, the cigarette outlet and the audio output are next to each other:



Next, I have both of the wires sitting on and behind the steering column:



I have the bracket placed on the left vent facing me. Wioth this Bracketron model, there's a tightening screw behind the removable plate, so I was able to adjust it in position first, tighten it, then slide the plate on:



Once it's connected, I can turn on the power and see the home screen:



After that I can hit the phone app and change the screen to the keypad:



In normal usage, here's how the view looks when I'm looking straight ahead from the driver's seat:



There's no visual obstructions from the upper left hand side where it was previously mounted before the windshield cracked, no visual obstructions in the center where I occasionally see some GPS devices mounted, and I can still make and receive calls without the aid of a BlueTooth earpiece. Now all that's left is to clean it up with a bit of wire wrapping.

PART III - USAGE



When I start my car, I can slide the button on the iPhone screen to awake it from sleep. From here I can start Line2 or the iPhone's own Phone app. From the steering wheel using the MODE button, I can choose the input for my audio. This cycles from FM1 (six preset stations), FM2 (six more preset stations), AM, CD, and AUX. Most of the time I'll have an MP3 CD playing in the car's CD player, but if I wanted to I could switch it to AUX, then launch the music app on the iPhone to play any of the song files from my iPhone into the car's stereo system.

Here's where the fun begins: With the input set to AUX, I could make a phone call and speak out loud and hear the person clearly on the other end. If I couldn't hear them loud enough I would turn up the volume dial on my Civic's car stereo. When making the call, I didn't have to press anything on my iPhone to activate the speakerphone function! In addition, there was never and feedback or howling on the caller's end or my end during a phone call. (Howling is the audio effect you get when you're recording something an place the microphone closer to the speaker that creates a feedback loop. That's also a great way to annoy babysitters, as I found out at a young age). If I ever had to take a phone call on the road, speaking was only a few button presses away; maybe one button press on the iPhone to accept the call, and a couple button presses on the input selector on the steering wheel to switch from whatever input I was using to AUX. I could still concentrate on the road while speaking on the phone, but the best way, hands down, is to simply pull over to a safe spot and them resume the conversation.

While going on interview, I now had the ability to use the GPS functions from the Maps app or similar apps to show where I was an where I was going. With Maps, if you plot a course you have to press the upper right arrow button whenever you move from one minor direction to the next, so there are still some limitations. I would overcome this by either memorizing my route ahead of time, or simply pulling over to a parking lot or waiting until I got to a stoplight before hitting that button. However, you can also type in your destination and hit "Route" without hitting "Start", and the overall route will appear on the map.

The primary phone app I use is Line2 (formerly toktumi -- www.line2.com). This app allows iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android users to make phone calls from a WiFi point for $10 a month, and they give you a phone number so that others can call you. When I'm in the house it just latches on to my wireless router and I can make and receive phone calls. When I'm driving, any incoming phone calls go through Line2's gateway and I can receive them with the app. If I get a call from the line that AT&T gave me, It comes up as an alert and I simply click "Answer" to get that call through the iPhones normal phone app.

In addition to the map and phone apps, I have an entire page on my iPhone dedicated to road applications:
Now I've got a full list of applications to aid me wherever I'm going, and I can still call home safely!

Here's a website list of the vendors mentioned:

Bracketron - www.bracketron.com
Monoprice - www.monoprice.com
Scosche Industries- www.scosche.com
Line2 - www.line2.com