On the first day of ABC Kids, Rock Star Baby, the stroller company fronted by Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres, and backed by German stroller giant Hauck, had a tantalizing tip: an officially licensed iPod stroller, complete with a dock, speakers, and controls, and decked out in iPod logos and concert-ready white leather.
And so it was that the stroller media was stalking the boys from Jersey all day Monday, waiting for the red carpet scrum.
What arrived was simultaneously more and less than promised, a gap attributed to some garbled Google-translated German emails between RSBHQ and the Mutterfaktorie.
There was an all-black i'Coo stroller [also made by Hauck] with two prototype canopies--one indeed in white leather--with form-fitting, CD player-sized docking stations with an integrated jack and volume control buttons mounted on top. Inside were two speakers. iPod and iPod logos were not included, so one of the assembled media hordes--Steve from Coochicoos--went to grab an iPod from the car while Robert from Coochicoos and I snapped away [that's Robert's videotaping hand in the shot, btw.]
Then we all marvelled at the sight we presented to the world--three grown men, plus an equal number of incredulous onlookers, huddled around a stroller with a non-working iPod jack, photographing the hell out of it--while crying a little bit on the inside.
Rock Star's folks say the canopy will probably be available as an option on a new model expected to launch early in 2007. Which is stroller industry talk for "someday."
Rock Star Baby's iPod I'Coo stroller canopy [flickr]
Rock Star Baby strollers on DT
The I'Coo Pico 4, as seen in 2004
Buy a 60Gb Video iPod for $299 at Amazon, or just send me money, it's 5% of one, $15 of another to me. [amazon]
[Update: Terry's comment below about speaker&jack-equipped Jeep strollers reminded me that Kolcraft came out with a $50 mp3-ready umbrella last winter called the iBaby, too. Nothing new under the sun canopy, it seems.]
Stick your Ipod in your pocket. Your kid probably hates your music. My 13 year only likes Jazz(good), classical(good), and show tunes. Show tunes as in the Wiz. Our children don't want to hear our music. Next they will be sticking those tacky spinny rims on strollers, if they haven't already.
[don't get ahead of me, please, I'm posting as fast as I can. -ed.]
I bought a cheap $20 set of folding speakers from Radio Shack. I use the canopy on our BOB Revolution Stroller to secure the speakers, and pop my iPod into the handlebar console. Now we can take our afternoon walks with tunes, and we didn't have to shell out the big bucks to do it.
My kid loves ALL my music. From Gnarls Barkley, The Gispy Kings, The Ventures, to Madonna, The Gorrillaz, the Beatles, and Jack Johnson. He's not even two, and he rocks out. We love our ghetto iPod set-up. :)
If I had known then what I now, we would have been listening to Barney all the time. Better that than the Disney factory pop. They remind me of a 1930s movie studio.
I heard they were having a problem with the iPod popping out of the dock atop the stroller. If only someone would invent a disembodied hand to hold it in place while the stroller was being pushed.
[actually, the bracket itself popped off a couple of times. Definitely a prototype. Did you guys get this on tape? Meanwhile, that disembodied hand idea is brilliant. I'm surprised no one's thought of it before! You should run with that. -ed.]
The older model JEEP (almost) all terrain stroller had built in speakers with the stereo jack right in an enclosed storage area. The area is big enough to hold a personal CD player (and was probably the initial thought) but this can play any iPod, iRiver or conventional device that has a 3.5mm stereo plug.
You don't get the chance to show everyone that you've paid (probably) too much to play MP3 files. Now what kid wants to hear 1,000 songs? I get the request for the 25 songs of Here Comes the ABC as soon as it's done cycling through.