Basically, this peripheral is an expensive ($90) dongle that plugs into the power port in your car and connects to your phone (and other phones) via bluetooth. You can then either plug the dongle directly into your stereo via audio cable (short ~1 foot cable included) or it can also act as an FM transmitter. As far as I can tell, if you only want to stream via cable it doesn't matter if you have an iOS device or any other bluetooth enabled music device. I think you should be able to connect and stream music, though you will be lacking on a lot of the features of the device. I also haven't tried this yet so don't buy it with that specifically in mind as it is labeled as for iphone and ipod touch.The dongle itself has just 2 jacks in the front of it, one for the audio cable and one for a USB cable. It says that it provides enough power to be able to charge the iphone / ipod as well as an iPad, if that's what you're hoping for. There are no buttons on the dongle to initiate a connection. This causes problems if you are listening to something while your car engine isn't on and then you turn it on. The connection will die and won't try to re-connect so the only thing you'll be able to do is either pull out your phone and tell it to reconnect or pull the adapter out of the port and plug it back in.
The device is controlled via your phone using an app from the app store. The app provides you the ability to find good radio frequencies that should best work with the FM transmitter and set the station the dongle will broadcast at. You can also use it to manage the currently playing song or handle the music that is currently playing. You can name your specific Tunelink device, set a default location (to help with FM frequency help) and set up options to automatically connect, automatically start playing, and even automatically load the TuneLink application when it connects.
An additional feature of this is the capability to have multiple people in the car connect to the adapter and share playback of the music through the Tunelink application. There are different modes that you can set it to to change how this works (automatically queuing, requesting to play something, etc). I have not tried this so I can't speak to how well it works.
Finally, the important bit of sound quality though I might not be the best judge. I have only used mine with a direct connection but it sounds as if my phone were directly connected to my stereo. I haven't tried out the FM transmitter portion yet, but one of the reviews on Amazon indicated it sounds "Very Very Decent" and other reviews I've read have said that it sounds really good, though suffers from the same problems as all FM transmitters.
Overall I'm VERY happy with my purchase. The convenience of just getting in my car and having my music start up as if I've got a CD in the player is great. Having the charge port on there makes it great for normal usage even if you're low on battery and it comes with a cable so no need to get another one or carry one with you. Sorry for the wall of text, but hope this helps.
Pros:
Easy connect
No hassle
FM Transmitter / Direct Audio link
Sharing?
Cons:
No control from the device (need to use a headset and voice commands or take your phone out to control things)
Can't force a reconnect on the device
Cost
So I'm keeping it no questions; and it offers sharing the connection with other people in my car kids love that.
so, to be short, I am done with my car audio upgrades. Tunelink is not cheap but it's MUCH cheaper than to buy and install aftermarket ipod-enabled or bluetooth stereo; besides, it's portable. Oh yes, it charges the phone too, and even the cable is included.
Negatives? hmmm... well, it requires having an iPhone or touch.. though I've heard they have Droid version now.This thing was fabulous while it worked. It dropped signal a couple of times but nothing that unplugging/replugging in didn't fix. Unfortunately, the return window (through Amazon)expired today and it just so happens that as I was leaving for a road trip it quit working entirely. It's not communicating with the radio OR the application. It still has a pretty blue light but yeah not what I bought it for.
Update #1 New Potato has a one year warranty on their products so once I am home from my road trip I will contact them and exchange the defective equipment.
Update #2 Contacting the company was quick and painless as was getting a replacement once I sent them the defective unit. The last unit worked for month so I can't really judge the new one until that time has passed but so far so good. At the very least, New Potato is great.
Update #3 (November 2012) In the last month I've no longer needed this but it still works all this time later.I bought one through amazon and after a few months it would no longer aut connect. That quickly degenerated into no longer being able to connect more than once without deleting the pairing. The next time I would start the car it wouldn't pair again.
New Potato did replace it under warranty but after a few months the replacement is doing the same thing.
When it works, it's a fantastic device. But when it doesn't, it's amazingly frustrating.
For what this costs, it should be a lot more reliable. I suspect it suffers from heat issues and that doesn't make for long life in a device that is in a car.Setup, (if you even want to call it that), totally consists of plugging the Tunelink device into a powered outlet, plugging the AUX cable into the Tunelink and into car AUX port, pairing the Tunelink with your iphone and that's it. Done deal. Sounds quality is better than my factory installed XM radio. Tunelink is rock solid and I highly recommend it.
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