By now you have probably dispelled the delusion that iPods® are only carried by “X” and “Y” Generation kids, and the guy who doesn’t seem to grow-up in the next office. Think again. The ubiquitous iPod® interface now becomes mainstream on the Cessna Citation CJ4 bizjet.

While few “X,” “Y” and “ NextGens” have Bizjets, the reverse is not true for iPods® and users business jets. As the trend toward have-it-your-way entertainment infiltrated the road warrior, so did it find in-roads with the Bizjet set. The recent announcement from Cessna clearly sets the bar higher and Rockwell Collins, the big dog in General Aviation IFE, is the winner with their Venue™ system. We have included a picture of the Rockwell Collins Venue™ system; however, this will not be the Cessna final design... we wanted to give our readers, who did not attend the NBAA, a peek.

We note that Cessna is arguably the first of many business jets to incorporate an iPod® interface but we expect to see other airplane manufacturers, IFE providers and even commercial planes sporting this hardware in the not too distant future. As we went to press, we got wind of an Air New Zealand announcement for similar hardware on their Boeing B767’s and Airbus A320’s! If avgas continues to climb, the “bring your own entertainment” trend may be the only entertainment available!

Notes Rockwell Collins’ Andrew Mohr - Director of Product Marketing, “We established a licensing deal with Apple that conforms to the ‘Made for iPod®’ specifications. Local and remote interfaces and docking stations in the cabin all operate seamlessly with carry-aboard iPods®.” Authentication between the portable player and the system is performed via a handshake with firmware on the chip. Just so our readers know, the latest generation of iPods® incorporates an authentication chip in peripheral devices/cables that keeps rogue developers from delivering products that do not successfully work with the new iPods®. No doubt this move dumps even more money into the coffers of Apple but one could make an argument that an improper interface could harm the $300 - $500 devices. Moreover, we hesitate to call the iPod® a ‘carry aboard server’ but in some respects it acts like one. We note that the output remains analog and we suspect that no more than one user can control the device at a time which probably destroys the moniker. The key is that the Rockwell Collins’ system enables passenger preferred Video-On-Demand, albeit in NTSC or Composite formats (coming soon – Component video).

Mike Tiffany, Cabin Products Director, Rockwell Collins told IFExpress, “There are a couple of things really exciting about our iPod® program that will have value for the BizJet operators: Because of our relationship with Apple, our solution will support both audio and video distribution from the current generation of iPods® and iPhones®. Further, we are integrating the Apple menu schemes into Venue™ and our other CMS platforms, so no matter where the iPod® is docked, passengers will be able to interact with it using a remote menu that's nearly identical to their iPod®.” So there you have it, readers, the iPod® is here to stay in IFE, so you had better bring yours on your next flight.