Before I got my first iPhone - a 3GS, I had written off podcasts as something that was niche that geeks listened too. I was soon to discover that the podcast world has many mainstream and niche offerings which I became addicted to listening too and the iPhone made podcasts easily accessible, just subscribe, and they turn up on your iPhone after a sync.
The issue was that I wanted a handsfree car kit that could hold the iPhone in the car, charge it up, allow it to be accessible in horizontal (for mapping) and vertical configurations (for selecting music), that complimented the iPhone design and didn't look completely ugly.
To my great surprise I found that there were very few iPhone holders for cars available. The best one was one from TomTom that could be purchased with or without car navigation software.
I ended up picking one up at the Apple Store in Sydney for AUD180 for my iPhone 3GS. It's expensive, but this is due to it being a "smart" bracket that includes a microphone, loudspeaker, GPS, line out, and charger.
I mounted a suction mount plate from a custom L-bracket underneath my aircon section in my Toyota Hilux.
This solution has worked well for the last few years, and recently I was lucky enough to upgrade to a iPhone 4S.
Unfortunately the iPhone 4 and 4S have a slightly different profile to the 3GS and don't quite fit. The 3GS has a curved back and the iPhone holder follows this curve to the base where the connector slots in. The iPhone holder contains a small area that pivots to make it easier to insert the iPhone.
When the iPhone 4 came out TomTom sent me a plastic adaptor which attaches to the front of the iPhone holder near the base. This piece of plastic pivots the connector at the bottom to enable the connector to engage with the iPhone 4 profile better.
However when I tried to use this with the iPhone 4S, it still does not connect to the connector and this is made worse if you have a case around your iPhone. I checked TomTom's website, and they have now discontinued the car cradle and all support for it.
However there is a way to make this work - I had to cut out an area around the base of the case, and I had to add a small
thickness (in the order of 1mm) to the plastic adaptor. In the photo to the right you can see that I attached a ridge of fluffy thickness with an adhesive on one side. From experimentation, too much thickness makes it difficult to insert the iPhone and too little does not allow the connector to engage. So some tuning is required.
With this, the iPhone 4S now works with the TomTom car cradle.
