http://www.neowin.net/news/ford-moto...off-cd-players

"The Ford Motor Company has become the first major automobile manufacturer to begin scrapping CD players within their vehicles. The company intends to replace the CD players in their vehicles with USB-based ports allowing a driver to plug in their MP3player instead. The first car in the Ford range to support this change will be the new Focus, opting for a USB socket over the traditional disc reader."

Apple is moving towards it as well- removing cd drives from their computers.

Nothing worse than a scratched CD- say hello to flash drives and ipods or the cloud!

The next mustang you buy might be without one of these

 

about time.. i cant tell you the last time I used a CD in my car.

 

I'm not sure I like this, but I suppose it was inevitable. In my lifetime I've seen the demise of both the LP and the cassette tape (I still have hundreds of both). I have well over a thousand CD's, I still purchase most of my new music on CD, and it will be annoying to not be able to buy new music (on CD) at a store or away on a trip, and listen to it right away.

 

Me either! I don't even own a CD lol

 

I've honestly never used my CD player in my truck except to make sure it worked. But even then, I don't want to not have it for if I make a nice mix CD. I have them, just keep 'em at home in the stereo.

The big problem I have with the USB jack is that it sticks into a 5 item at a time list to scroll through your songs. Anyone will a decently full ipod knows that's a problem. In my truck I just have the ipod going to a AUX input on the head unit and navigate on the ipod, I feel it's MUCH faster, and more intuitive than using the head unit to scroll through it.

Sync, however, is great. When the windows are up at least

 

I know the Shaker is nothing to brag about but...
I do like being able to have Hundreds of MP3 songs loaded up in it with easy access and display of song titles.
It actually can hold over 4GB of music (which is all I need) and changing the song list is as easy as putting in a different mix CD.

 

I won't miss having a CD player in my vehicles. Don't us them in either one now. iPod is so much easier

 

I usually only use the USB in my car, but I like having the option to put a CD in if I want. I prefer to buy the actual CD in the store when it comes out over downloading it, and I like to be able to listen to it in my car before I have the chance to rip it onto my computer and copy it over to the USB.

 

So in the new Ford cd-less systems, will they play a flash drive with MP3s on it or do you have to have an portable mp3 player (ipod, etc) connected?

 

Probably both

 

Hmmm, I guess I could just do what I did back in the early 90's when all I had was a cassette deck in the car, keep a portable CD player in the glovebox and run a cable with 1/8" plugs from the CDP to the aux-in jack when I wanted to listen to CDs

 

Ermm. I mostly use my iPod, but keep a few CDs in the disc changer. I like having the option to use either one, just USB sounds a little restricting, for me at least. But heck, my premium 06 didn't even come with a jack, which is even more annoying!

 

Not sure I like this idea myself. I'm a bit old school when it comes to that, although I do use an IPOD, I have a lot of CD's as well that I use from time to time....

I would prefer to have a CD option myself.....

 

Anything with a USB port should work. Hell, I borrowed a Focus with Sync awhile back and was using it to stream music from my phone via Bluetooth.

 

I'm all for this.
I have a 6 CD Mp3 Shaker500
I only use the CDs because I have to.

I'm all about either USB/Flash/Streaming at home...
-Much faster to update collections
-storage is cheaper. You can pickup GBs for cheap that can be reused over and over again
-No moving parts

 

Sounds like CDs as a storage format are going the way of the floppy disk.

What I'd like is an aftermarket head unit that has micro sd slots and USB ports . Micro sd is so cheap now and they are up to 32GB in capacity now in a little package half the size of a postage stamp....

 

Why can't we get both?

 

Was just web browsing and comparing some aftermarket head units for my Mustang - and there are already a number of them that are like this USB/SD (no CD player). Not sure I care for it. May as well make it a docking station affair. There you go.

 

This. I am not a fan of a completely digital distributed future and like actually owning my CD's. As time has gone on I have began burning music to my Walkman as MP3's so I can cut down on the wear and tear of the discs. I think Ford removing CD players is less a problem then the growing lack of CD's you can find on store shelves, my Best Buy has like 4 racks of CD's anymore.

 

Damit, I like CD's. My wife's 2010 Taurus with navi, and juke box feature is great. You pop in your cd and hit record and wala you have your music. I have a very nice collection of music to select from.