USB/Serial Cable for iPhone with Centrafuse?

Late last year I finally got around to setting up my carputer to go into my car, and it was my first time that I had actually used Centrafuse properly, so I wasn't aware that it didn't support the iPhone as a media device... So due to the fact that I use my iPhone for carrying my podcasts and music around I was very disappointed that Centrafuse weren't able to support the iPhone... So I didn't proceed any further... I then found out that you can control the iPhone using the Ipod Accessory protocol (which is how my Pioneer headunit controls my iphone as does my speaker dock and all the other accessories on the market)... I also found out that you can make a custom cable that has USB, Serial and RCA for charging, control, and audio out using the iPod accessory protocol...

So what I'm wondering is, does anyone have guide how to make such a cable, and 2nd is there software/plugin for Centrafuse that will work with such a cable?

You might find you are better off using the bluetooth audio streaming, the bluetooth dongle (even a good quality one) is probably going to be cheaper than buying and then hacking the accessory cable, and CF3.5 does support bluetooth audio streaming (I've used it on my iphoney 3gs and it works fine).

As far as I have seen there is no plugin yet for the control over the accessory cable, although a while back someone was looking into making one I think!

Yeah except Centrafuse doesn't control the media playback over bluetooth either... so would have to control it on the iPhone... not really a good or safe option while driving... I would be happy if did support that... maybe iOS5 might help with that?

firstly, don't get confused the cable I'm about to discuss is a USB cable that magic happens when a driver is installed to emulate a com port.... confused yet?

to make an ipod serial cable you will need: line level 3.3v board from spark fun (RS232R breakout), pod breakout version 1.2 to 1.4 from sparkfun. connect pin 18 from podsocket to 3.3v on line level. connect pin 11 from podsocket to GND on line level. connect pin 12 to RX on line level. connect pin 13to TX on line level. Install the FTDI virtual driver for the line level converter (http://www.ftdichip.com/FTDrivers.htm). Download wSDHCom (free) set it up to point to the newly created COM and research Ipod Acessory protocol.

If your writing or editing a .NET app the key is to breakdown the hex to a byte array and send the byte array through serialport class.