I use my iPhone in my car. A lot. If I’m not using Maps or making a hands-free call, I’m at least listening to music almost all the time. And while I don’t always need to charge when driving, it helps to have the option. My fixation about this goes back to my 2003 Altima where I cut out a hole in the front spare change compartment to install a custom made iPod cradle, complete with an a Dock and lineout running to the stereo auxiliary input. The door would close, and the iPod would be out of sight, out of mind, but still keep charging and playing. In the age of the iPod, it was ideal.

In the age of the iPhone, I’ve tried a few new things. The first was just a 3.5mm mini-jack plug from the iPhone’s stereo jack to the car’s aux input on the front of the stereo deck for audio. For power, one of the common coiled cigarette-lighter-to-30-pin cables. But man, those coils suck. They tangle with themselves and other cables, they increase the bulk without letting you neatly wrap them up, and are ugly. So I tried mounts.

First the Belkin Tunebase.

The Good:

The gooseneck allows a fairly wide range of movement with rotation.

It mounts from the lighter socket. I absolutely hate those cupholder/air vent/suction cup mounts.

The Bad:

The socket connection isn’t very tight, and sometimes the whole mount tips sideways.

It doesn’t use line-out through the dock connector, so you either plug a cable from the iPhone’s stereo jack into the aux input, or to the bottom of the TuneBase, then back up to the car aux input. This is crazy.

The iPhone doesn’t simply drop into a cradle. It sits on one single point around the connector, and then an adjustable clip could slides down over the top. And even though the top had a piece of rubber to keep it from scuffing the iPhone, the rubber piece keeps falling off and the mount still feels like it squeezes. It never feels like a safe grip.

These 2 minor inconveniences made all the difference in me actually using the thing for what I intended. Getting the iPhone in and out was a pain. And having to plug in a separate audio cable for music sucked. And when not in use, the whole getup looked terrible in my otherwise uncluttered car, dongles dangling about.

My ideal car mount would have 3 qualities:

Power and audio through the Dock connector. Audio through line out. No mini-jack cables plugged into the top of the iPhone.

Mount on the lighter socket. No suction cups, vent clips, or cup holder mounts.

Cradle style. No gripping the iPhone tightly. Just drop the iPhone in and pull it out when I’m ready to go. I don’t want to spend more than 1 second fiddling with it.

The Griffin Tuneflex meets all 3 criteria, but not the one Griffin currently sells, which cannot do line out (why?). But the older one that comes with the useless remote does, and the included “iPod photo” adapter fits the iPhone 4 almost exactly.

I wanted to love it. But after months of trying it just didn’t do it for me.

It doesn’t have a good connection to my lighter socket. I don’t know if this is a problem with the device or just my car, but I had to push extra hard to get it to receive power, and then would frequently come loose.

The gooseneck is strong, but maybe too strong. It doesn’t flex enough to get totally out of the way of the gear shifter. Every time I shifted into park, it would bump it and knock the charging contacts out in the socket. Every time. It could be adjusted, but moving out of park position would bump it out again. Every time. Again, could just be my car.

The iPod photo adapter didn’t perfectly fit the iPhone 4. In fact, the slightest nudge from a sharp turn, a bump from the gear shifter, or occasionally just tapping the screen to use the device, would shake it loose. So now I’m fighting to get both the Dock connector seated correctly and also get the lighter socket plug stable again. And while I could forgive losing power from time to time, the audio is line out, so either of these coming loose also stops any music.

Overall a maddening experience.

This weekend I decided: no more mounts. They all suck. I hate the way those mounts look when not in use anyway. Now I’m using the Incase Mini Car Charger. I chose this one over cheaper ones for its build quality. It’s quite compact, covered in a rubber coating so there are no seams to split, and it has a subtle status LED that doesn’t get too bright. And with Incase, I have no worries about my iPhone being damaged by shoddy components.

Audio is back to a plain 3.5mm cable, and the iPhone is usually in the passenger seat. Charging is done as needed, and when it’s not, I can remove store the 30-pin cable and close the cover door, completely concealing the USB adapter without removing it. I will never use that socket as a lighter, and it’s like my car has a built in USB port now. I’m aware there are adapters with audio and USB combined, and then you use the iPhone’s line out and run your aux cable from the adapter to the car. But I really like being able to close that little hatch door when not in use, and for speed and wear-and-tear, the mini-jack is way better than the 30-pin Dock connector.