Last Christmas, I gifted all of you a very special, very correct take on compact discs, and how they’re the best way to listen to music while driving. That included a story about how I utilized an auxiliary cord input in one of my cars. After a recent journey to Michigan, I have another perspective to add: aux cords inputs should be mandatory on all cars, and all other options to listen to music should be discarded.
Why? It is simple. When you have an auxiliary cord input, you can plug in your device, and control what comes out of your speaker system through said device. That is easy. I like easy.
What I don’t like is basically everything else. On a recent test drive, my girlfriend plugged her phone in through a USB port, and the car’s user interface immediately began scanning it until it found a song (that she didn’t pick) to play. It was a terrible song, and she had no idea it was still even on her phone.
If there was an aux cord input, this wouldn’t have happened.
So, I have a proposal. Do away with everything: Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, any infotainment system that requires you to plug your phone in and find music through that system. Woosh. It’s all gone.
That feels good, yeah? Instead, let’s require auxiliary cord inputs to be the only other option available besides CDs, cassettes, or the radio (satellite options are permissible).
That way, life will be easy. And then, whenever you want to listen to Neil Young, because Neil Young is who you listen to when you drive, you can pull it up on your phone, plug it in to your car’s system by way of an aux cord, and then hit play. And the song you picked will play.