2008 Ford Escape offers "standard" iPod jack

As others have said, its remarkable how TUAW can completely miss the point with about 90% of their articles. A few seconds of thought first would really help... One day they'll listen to us.

This is why TUAW cracks me up. Here I was expecting to see an article about how the term "iPod" has become so pervasive as to literally re-define the generic 3.5mm audio jack.

As usual, TUAW completely misses the point.

2008 model? I just bought a 2007 Ford Escape and can't find any iPod options from anyone to add to this. Guess I should have waited a year.

You can see it on all kinds of products that have standard 3/8 audio in jacks but are marketed specifically as iPod compatible, even though any market mp3 player will work with them. (shrugs) what the public is too lazy to find out themselves will surely hurt them later on.

Here in Brazil "iPod" has already become synonymous with "MP3 player" and you'll hear people say "I just bought this cool iPod from Sony" or refer to their cheap Chinese MP3 players as iPods. I believe it's an irreversible trend here, and an unfortunate one for us owners of real iPods.

Yeah, like #8 already mentioned, it's probably just a standard audio/headphone jack. They just want people to know it's iPod compatible (and to kind of ride off the iPod popularity).

Just like how some standard movie DVDs started getting released with a sticker that said "Playstation 2 Compatible" five/six years ago...

Yes, it has become the standard term for an MP3 player, and writing for The Unofficial APPLE Weblog you should know that much.
However, you can't draw that conclusion from what they wrote - they put "a standard MP3/iPod jack" which indicates that Auto Spectator at least regard the two things as separate. If they think they're the same, it's redundant.
And at the end of the day, all it is is a 3.5mm audio jack, so it's not really an iPod specific thing at all. I'm sure there used to be that kind of thing in radio cassette head units so that you could plug in your portable CD Walkman before the CD payer became the standard fit in a car...

"Is the iPod about to become the next kleenex, jello, or bandaid as a proprietary eponym? Has the iPod reached that level of popularity where it has been absorbed into the buying public's mind as the standard unit of portable media playback?"

A quick story...

I was working in a pub last year, when the landlord bought his son an MP3 player. Not an ipod, just a standard generic MP3 player.

His gran (about 80) came up and started talking to him, and said "What did daddy get you then?" "He got me an MP3 player" "What's that then?" "Plays my music" "OHhh, you mean an iPod?!" "Sorta, yeah"

I think when 80 year old women who have no idea what an MP3 player is know what an iPod is, you've hit saturation...

I agree...

Obviously this isn't at the same level, but at school teachers say, "no iPods allowed in the lobby," or "no iPods during school hours..." rather than saying, "no mp3 players"

its been there for awhile, when a person over 60 sees any mp3 player chances are they will call it a ipod