Others say...

"Worst...Adapter...Ever"
Griffin is not lying when they say that this adapter will not work in some cassette decks. They could have been a little more honest and said "most". I can't fault them too much for this though; they at least mention this problem.

My biggest gripe with the product is that, even when it will work, it makes an incredible amount of mechanical noise in the deck. This would be more annoying, if you could hear it over the god awful hum coming from your speakers. Honestly, I never even checked whether the song skipping/seeking worked properly; I couldn't get past the abysmal sound quality. Play/pause did seem to work as advertised, but that's not worth paying double (or more) the cost of adapters with higher sound quality.

This is a fantastic idea that's been horribly implemented. I would probably try a similar product from a company that performs quality control .

"Does not work as advertised."
I bought this ages ago and it has finally stopped working completely. It's okay; I got about nine months of use out of it.

The use, however, was disappointing. It doesn't do the fast forward/skipping business AT ALL. Okay, about one in ten times, which is enough to dissuade me from even bothering.

The ONLY useful thing about this adapter is the automagic pause feature. If I turned off the stereo in my car, it would pause the iPod. Which is useful if you want to just put it on hold and stick in your bag.

If you're willing to pay for that feature, then do it. But if you think you're getting something that will skip tracks, think again.

"Closed Tape Decks"
My Mercedes has a tape deck that requires the door to be shut to function. I was worried when ordering this product that I wouldn't be able to shut the tape deck door, but got it anyway since it was the best solution at the time, allowing me to use my car's steering wheel controls to seek through songs. Although the wire from the cassette to the iPod was too thick to shut, I was able to strip the wire coating way down (and eventualloy all the way off) and shut the tape deck. It still works to this date. Although I would NOT recommend doing this to yours, as it might impair the functionability of the SmartDeck, it did work for me.

Not sure if this'll help anyone, but I was looking for some info like this when buying mine.

-Sam

"Works fine for me, but it's noisy"
This is a fairly ingenious device, with a pretend cassette that acts as an interface to get your iPod's music to your car stereo's speakers. There is an umbilical off the cassette that connects to the iPod. The adapter also allows your rewind and fast-forward buttons to move you forward or back a track. When you eject the cassette, it automatically pauses the iPod.

Unlike several of the reviewers, I've had no trouble getting this adapter to work. (For those who think it's car-specific, I have a Honda.) My one issue with the adapter is that I find it to be pretty noisy. My experience has been that when the outside temperature gets above 65 F or so, there is a LOT of mechanical noise coming from the tape deck as the pretend cassette wheels in the adapter move. If you listen to music that has quiet passages, it will be pretty annoying. The metal parts of the cassette get very hot, and this may be triggering the noise.

The SmartDeck is a lot cheaper than the FM adapters I've seen for the iPod, and if you're on a long trip you don't have to keep changing frequencies to avoid local radio stations. But it's no quieter than FM adapters. And unlike some FM adapters, you can't plug the SmartDeck into your cigarette lighter to save the iPod battery.

(1=poor 2=mediocre 3=pretty good 4=very good 5=phenomenal)

"Doesn't work with a Camry??!"
I would think "doesn't work with all tape decks" means that some very old vehicles don't have newer technology that enables the SmartDeck to function. Clearly I was mistaken. I tried the SmartDeck in two Toyota Camrys. No luck. Maybe I just have a disfunctional one...