iPad Head Unit
 

We’ve talked about the old-school, he-man, simple tactile car stereo head units, that most of us prefer.

But what if you want your big color screen - sometimes - and not all the time?

Seems an iPad mini can be temporarily mounted in the car, cabled or Bluetoothed to the head unit, to provide the navigation, stream music, play audiobooks, make and take calls, etc, etc. Maybe on a groovy gooseneck like the uber-cool Blaupunkt Berlin units BITD. The iPad would get its internet from your iPhone hotspot, or you could get an iPad with cellular.

Anyone doing this?

Yeah. Tesla. :eek:

The cost of a decent head unit with wireless carplay is still going to be a little cheaper than a new ipad, and the integration will be much slicker...

I've got a Pioneer with a 7" touchscreen. Obviously, that only works in a car with a double-din sized hole in the dash.

My concern for having big phones and ipads "mounted" in/on the dash is that if you get into an accident, those things turn into missiles that I suspect could be deadly. It's probably just a step down from hot gluing Ninja throwing stars to the air bags in the car.

There are single-din head units with flip out screens, and single-din head units with screens that "float" in front of the unit. See Alpine Halo 9. They all look non-period-correct, to say the least.

Thus I'm interested in the iPad as a removable way to get the screen and functions. The missile point is a good one.

There are ram mounts to let light aircraft have a laptop, iPad or iPad mini for display. For airplanes it is great for programs like FlightAware or others.

Look into Ram mounts. Not real elegant, but functional.