Love the way the first car that came to mind when el reg thought about 2009 in-car tech was a first-gen Ford Focus.

*Geddit? Mines the one with the crowbar and slim jim sticking out the pocket.

...the useful thing here would have been for them to notice the trend that Apple were removing Firewire capabilities from iPods over the past few generations and as such the majority of in car systems, which charge an iPod via Firewire don't work on iPhone 3G's, new Nano's etc etc... something that Apple outlined a couple of years ago.