FM transmitters that let you play the audio from your digital music player in the car are nothing new. I have been using one for years. You hook your music player to the transmitter and plug it into the cigarette lighter in your car. (You younger folks may call call the cigarette lighter, the 12 volt accessory outlet.) Then you tune the transmitter and the car radio to the same frequency and voila! You hear the digital music through your car speakers.

Up until now, you the FM transmitters were device specific. So you had to use one made for an iPod with an iPod, or made for a Sansa with a Sansa. If you and your husband had different players, you needed two different transmitters. If you decided to move from an iPod to a Zune, you had to purchase a new transmitter.

This new device by Griffin, has made everything much easier. It is called the iTrip Universal because you can use it with just about any MP3, CD, or cassette player. This magic is made possible because instead of using the proprietary charging port on the device, the iTrip hooks up to the headphone jack. On most devices the headphone jack is a standard 1/8″ , so the iTrip can be used with many different audio devices.

I use both an iPod and a Zune. When I travel i usually listed to the podcasts on my iPod, but occasionally I like to listen to the music on my Zune. So this little device is a godsend for me…. allowing me to use the same FM transmitter for both devices.

This little iTrip device also has what they call SmartScan. You simply press a button and the iTrip will find an open FM frequency to use. Then you tune your car radio to that frequency to hear the audio from you handheld music device.  It works like a charm. I used it recently on a 12 hour car trip. When I lost one frequency, I simply pressed the SmartScan button and then set the car radio to the frequency that it found and displayed on the screen. i was able to do this while driving without much distraction at all.

The iTrip has one other nice feature. There is a built-in USB port that you can use to charge your device while it is attached to the iTrip. Again, this worked seamlessly with both my devices. The only drawback is that you have two wires running between the car outlet and the device…one for the iTrip and the other, the charging cable that came with your device. This looks a little messy, but it allowed me to play my music and podcasts for the entire trip.

One of the best things about this iTrip is that if you or someone in your family gets a different type of MP3 player in the future, it will most probably still work with your iTrip. At $49.99, it is competatively prices, and more useful than most transmitters of this type.

Griffin Technology. Solutions & essentials for iPod, iPhone, and much more.