3G iTrip Pushed Back (Yet Again)

doofy10

Registered
I just got off the phone with a guy at Griffin and he said to expect them to ship sometime in "early September." He said the units are sitting in a warehouse waiting to be shipped, but are being halted for "political reasons." He did not get into any details. :mad:
-Doofy
 
Well, there's the legal reasons in the UK, though I think that's he only place the FM transmitter-types now are considered illegal to sell.
Shame, because it is a good device. And there was a free app you can download now with more than 200 cities (US only, though maybe some Canadian cities as well) and frequencies that work well without other stations bleeding into it.
I hope this doesn't mean more delays from Griffin's iFM, though knowing that company and it's history or delays, it could be Gen4 before those see the light of the day, political reasons or not.
 
The UK restrictions come as very little surprise, but I doubt this has anything to do with the political issues cited by <b>Doofy10</b> in his example. The radio spectrum in the UK has always been very heavily regulated, much more so than the US or central Europe, and I can't see that changing anytime soon. As far as I understand it, as a heavily poulated place with a great many radio operators, all wanting to broadcast on the FM radio frequency. In my opinion, it's the iTrip's ability to broadcast at almost any point on the FM frequency that causes the problem.

They could probably get a licence if the UK unit were limited to a specific frequency, but because of the density of broadcasting on the island, it would almost certainly interfere with licensed broadcasting somewhere in the country.
 
Originally posted by RepomanUK
The UK restrictions come as very little surprise, but I doubt this has anything to do with the political issues cited by <b>Doofy10</b> in his example. The radio spectrum in the UK has always been very heavily regulated, much more so than the US or central Europe, and I can't see that changing anytime soon. As far as I understand it, as a heavily poulated place with a great many radio operators, all wanting to broadcast on the FM radio frequency. In my opinion, it's the iTrip's ability to broadcast at almost any point on the FM frequency that causes the problem.

They could probably get a licence if the UK unit were limited to a specific frequency, but because of the density of broadcasting on the island, it would almost certainly interfere with licensed broadcasting somewhere in the country.

If the "political" reasons why they can't release the new iTrip are due to UK regulations, why are they halting shipping to US customers?? In addition, why would they continue to ship and sell iTrips for the old iPods?? I would think that they would only ship to customers in the US, and not the UK. This fact alone leads me to believe that their are other reasons for the hold up. After further research on FM modulators, I've learned that the US FCC mandates that only a certain amount of power can be used to power the devices, to limit to distance of the signal transmitted. Perhaps the new iTrips put out more power than the previous version, and they are merely awaiting clearance from the FCC?? It is pure speculation on my part, but it seems feasable.
-Doofy
 
Probably means "office politics"

as in "the director of marketing wants the logo to be bigger so we have to either reprint all the boxes or convince him it's a bad idea"
 
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