From No iPhone To New iPhone Solving The Car Conundrum

Buying First iPhone: Main question, how to deal with "the car problem"? Secondarily - What is a good Schedule Management app? Finally - Any general iphone advice? Apps, accessories, must haves? Getting the new iPhone 3G S when it comes out. Moving from an old Windows Mobile Phone. This will be my first iPhone and first iPod like device since the original iPod like 6 years ago (I know, I am a Luddite). So point is... don't assume I know anything about normal iPod/iPhone usage or lingo have any idea of the normal gear or apps or anything. Answers: 1. Solutions to the "car problem" - everything I have found about this is more than a year old. Has an elegant and inexpensive phone+charger+music via radio solution come up in that time? If not what are the best components to get (I am more interested in the charger+music via radio side, I am not a big car phone talker). 2. Calendar / Schedule management - One of the main things I used my old phone for was calendar, task, reminder purposes. Used and enjoyed PocketBreeze for an "integrated today screen". I suspect that the iPhone is designed better out of the box then my WinMobile phone, so maybe embedded calendar apps will suffice, but if not what do you suggest? 3. Anything else I gotta get? Advice, tips, favorite apps. Bonus Points for #3: I really want to make use of the GPS capabilities (car navigation? geocaching apps?) and cool games. These are icing, not essential. 1) I did a sweet little DIY setup in my car that ended up being pretty inexpensive. The iphone usually comes with this little white dock that serves as a charge/line-out. I rigged up something that fit in my cup holder (no more tipping/falling over!), took an AC adapter and a cassette adapter and hooked it all up. It's a bit permanent, but now I can just get in my car, plug in my phone, and I'm set for charging and music. I found the cassette adapter was a bit more useful than an FM transmitter, less interference/clearer sound. 2. Not too much experience with this one. I usually just did a combination of the default calendar and Remember The Milk. 3. Top Useful Apps: Remote, allows for controlling what iTunes is playing over WiFi; Cydia/BossPrefs/Winterboard and Themes (only if you feel like jailbreaking) Top Games: Field Runners, awesome little tower defense/strategy game that sucks up a bunch of time; Scramble, a word puzzle game; and the New York Times crossword App. posted by pyrom at 7:21 PM on June 13, 2009 Must have apps: Google Voice Search - Pretty decent voice recognition search Bank of America - If you are a B of A customer, they make a nice little online banking interface Lose It! - Great free calorie counter (I've lost 10 pounds) Shazam - Ever wonder what song you are listening to? Shazam will tell you. Kindle/Stanza - The screen is on the small side, but the iPhone makes a very nice ebook reader Remote - Control iTunes on your computer with your phone (iTunes must be already running, and you must be on the same WiFi network) Sol Free - Solitaire! I'm kind of addicted Urbanspoon - Let your phone tell you where to eat tonight And a couple that are only really useful to house hunters, but they are REALLY useful: Trulia - Find houses for sale in your immediate area Zillow - Find property values anywhere Loan-U-Later - Decent free monthly payment calculator For listening in the car, the easiest thing is to use a cassette adapter. I have this one and use it all the time, but have to agree with the negative reviews; the sound quality is terrible (I don't care, but you might) and you often have to stick it in a few times to get the tape deck to accept it. This one from Sony gets better reviews, so I'll recommend that! posted by escabeche at 7:23 PM on June 13, 2009 Depending on your car you might have the potential to have a really nice iPod/iPhone setup. What car and stereo unit do you have? For my ancient 98 Jetta with factory head unit, I was able to buy a little magic box that connects to the CD changer port on the back of the unit and makes it think my iPod is a CD changer. It's not perfect, but I have a dock connector cable in my glove box that charges the phone and I music I play comes out wonderfully through my speaker. The 1-9 buttons on my head unit let me choose through my first through ninth playlists.