I have been using the iPhone 3G for a few weeks now and have finally gotten around to using it for my car. Today, with the setup I have in my car, I realized how much I can really do with my iphone without having to do much of anything at all. Below are the steps I followed to create a mobile command center with my iPhone in my car.

Power:

First things first, you’ve got to have power. I suppose if you are only going to be using the iPhone in your car occasionally you won’t need this step, but if you plan to use it for more than a quick drive in town then you will want to plan on a power adapter. At the moment there is only one car power adapter made for the iPhone 3G, The Griffin PowerJolt. The problem with this device is ALL it does is supply power. No music connection. So if you want to play your music in your car as well, you will have to plug in a separate headphone jack into the top of the iPhone, and at this point it become cumbersome.

The device I chose does provide power and a line out to giving me one connection to do all the heavy lifting. It technically isn’t made for the iPhone 3G, but it does provide power and audio out without a problem. Because it isn’t blessed by Apple for this it displays that pesky message about interference, which is non-existent. So I just click on it saying I want to use the phone even though it may cause interference.

There are also a few things the AutoPilot does that other charging options for iPods and iPhones alike don’t do: music control. This is one of the features I like best about the AutoPilot. Once the music is on, you can do other things on the iPhone. Unfortunately, when you are on other screens you have to click out of them to go back to the iPod control in order to pause or skip tracks. This device solves this problem, and allows control of playback on the iPhone without having to stop what you are doing in order to go back to the iPod screen.

Another nice feature of the AutoPilot is its charging feedback. The center circle on the AutoPilot is actually a multi-colored LED. It fades on and off red while it is charging your iPhone, and then changes to a constant green when it is fully charged. You don’t have to wonder how much charge you have on your iPhone when leaving the car if the green circle is on. The lights for the charging indicator aren’t too bright to cause distraction while driving, simply there to provide information in an easy to use format.

The auxiliary out for the AutoPilot can be used for an AUX in on a stereo headunit, but also for other things like tape adapters. It provides a Hi-Lo switch next to the port to control the volume of the line. Once set, you never have to worry about the volume you had the iPhone with headsets as it will always play at a constant volume through the line out and the volume control is then passed to the headunit in your car.

Docking:

I needed a place for my iPhone to sit in my car so that I could glance down and see it on the fly, and also so it wouldn’t move when hitting hard bumps or turning fast. This solution was easy in the past. I used a Belkin Tune Dock. It fits in a cup holder, holds the ipod upright, and has a dock connector pass-through on the bottom with a cable management system to reduce the clutter. The problem this time was I wanted to be able to use my iPhone with its cover still on. Yeah and Santa wants next Christmas off too, but that isn’t going to happen right?

Well, it just so happens, Santa may not get next Christmas off, but he will have some help. I couldn’t find a real solution to this problem, so I did the next best thing. I modified my old Belkin Tune Dock to fit with my iPhone 3G with the cover.

Because the TuneDock is made out of plastic, it was easy to modify. I simply took a pair of pliers, held the sides of the unit, and applied heat to the rounded edges of the dock. Applying just a small amount of pressure to the plastic while it heated allowed me to move the side walls out just enough to fit my iPhone in with the cover while still maintaining the integrity of the unit.

The suction cup still works with the cover I have on my iPhone, keep it secure in the dock, and the side walls are still there to keep it upright. The dock connector hasn’t really changed so of course it fits right where belkin intended it to, with no problem.

The other nice thing about this setup is it isn’t expensive. I have seen the TuneDock on ebay for as low as $8. It certainly isn’t hard to modify, and it just works. It is a simple solution. As you can see with the image, it comes with three different sized cup holder bottoms, so it will most likely fit in your car.

I know what you are thinking: “Mr. Mac, all you have done is put your iPhone in a dock, and plugged it into your car, how is this a command center?” I know, I am amazing at reading minds, you probably even said that sentence word for word. Ha, sure you did, you just read it didn’t you! Ok, enough with jokes. Here is where the fun comes in. You have the basics, the building blocks with these two items. The rest of the work comes right from your iPhone.

Navigation:

With GPS in the iPhone 3G, navigation is now possible, and is also damn accurate. Simply hit the location button in Maps and suddenly your iPhone shows your current location. Big deal right? Start moving. It will adjust the map as you start moving. This is half of navigation. The other half is it giving direction, which still isn’t as good as turn by turn, but if you already have an iPhone, you won’t need to also buy a Tom Tom.

Music:

Of course you have music on your iPhone right? You should. It is simply the best iPod ever released and it happens to make phone calls. While you are in your car, you can play music, switch to navigation while the music is playing. So your iPhone is doing two things at once, flawlessly. Go ahead, crank up the volume, jam out, know where you are, and don’t miss a phone call. While your music is playing, the fading still works while plugged into the car. You will never miss another call because you had your music up too loud.

Grab a bluetooth headset and round out the command center. Leave it on your console or some other convenient place in your car. When you get a call, as I said, your music will fade out and pause. Put your headset on, and accept the call without the caller ever knowing you were jamming out to some loud music.

When you finish the call, hit the button on your headset and put it down as the music picks back up from where it stopped and fades back to the volume it was at originally. You are now doing phone calls, emails, music, navigation, and really anything else you want to do with just one device.

Of course, the iPhone offers one feature that most other car units that do similar things don’t. Security. When you get to your destination, you aren’t going to leave it in the car, you are going to take it with you. Avoiding potential theft. This certainly is nice.