PSP gets iTrip, iFM, and a headphone splitter
by Christopher Grant 
{ Mar 17th 2006 at 7:45PM }
Griffin, makers of the super-popular iTrip FM transmitter for Apple's ubiquitous iPods, have cast their attention gamewards, introducing their line of sleek matching PSP peripherals. Fifty big ones will net you their iTrip PSP (pictured) or the iFM PSP radio and remote. Fifteen greenbacks grabs you the SmartShare PSP, basically a headphone splitter with individual volume controls.
The iTrip and iFM peripherals really depend on gamers using the music playback functionality, a difficult expectation. Do any Joystiqers use their PSP as their main portable music player? Anyone else (besides me) find the system great for gaming, but too cumbersome for music?
Pictures of the iFM PSP and the SmartShare PSP after the jump.
[Via PSP Fanboy]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jeff @ Mar 17th 2006 8:01PM
the only thing i'd do with a psp is smash it against a rock.
Jago @ Mar 17th 2006 8:10PM
"Anyone else (besides me) find the system great for gaming, but too cumbersome for music?"
Here here!
Plus the music player controls in general are a tad cumbersome. I'll just stick to my iPod Mini :-)
Monk @ Mar 17th 2006 8:25PM
"Anyone else (besides me) find the system great for gaming, but too cumbersome for music?"
I find my PSP too cumbersome for gaming, as well. Seems like I'm always waiting for something to load. Doesn't matter, though. It's going on ebay soon, so it'll be someone else's problem. I'll stick to my PS2 and DS.
Bascanuwegos @ Mar 17th 2006 8:32PM
The PSP MP3 function is terrible for music mostly because of the size of the PSP. Most women I know can't fit the huge thang' in their pocket!!! Creative Zens and Apple Ipods fit into pockets though. I hate having to pull out my PSP when I'm listening to music. And I only use it as my main player now because my Creative Zen is busted. Soon enough though, I should have me Zen M:Vision. . .
HS Fan @ Mar 17th 2006 9:44PM
I use it as my main MP3 player. I listen to Howard Stern everyday on it and music too. The remote control works awesome and if you put the PSP in standby, you can wake up the PSP by pressing play twice on the remote and it resumes where it left off. But I do keep mine in the Logitech playgear pocket all the time, I never open the case while I am listening to MP3's. The case raises the ruggedness of the unit by 20 fold. I am not scared of anything happening to the PSP while in the case. I put the PSP in a jacket pocket or in my jeans back pocket and just control it with the remote. So if I want to play some games or surf the internets, I can do that too. I also use the Game Elements PSP PowerTune 2 in 1 FM transmitter in the car and just throw the PSP on the car seat.
Marco Cano Jr @ Mar 17th 2006 10:08PM
I use my PSP as my main music player (Shock!; It fits in his pockets?). Reason why is because I never had a mp3 before I got my PSP. Now I wouldn't call the PSP's music function "terrible", its a pretty ample music player in my book, and I have used other mp3 players before so I think I know what I'm talking about. The one annoying thing I can think of is the fact that It can't multitask.
kyosuke21 @ Mar 17th 2006 10:50PM
Anyone else (besides me) find the system great for gaming, but too cumbersome for music?
Honestly, I don't think it's too cumbersome, but it's not practical. Especially when there are much smaller mp3 players out there with much more memory. Plus I also like listening to my music while playing video games on the go, so its inability to do two things at once irks me to no end.
As far as the iTrip for PSP goes, it's not necessarily a great idea to buy it. Unless it leeches off its own power supply it will suck the life from your PSP very quickly. I have one for the iPod and when I use I get maybe four hours battery life but when using headphones I get 8-10 hours.
darryl @ Mar 17th 2006 11:56PM
I had no previous MP3 player prior to the PSP... I carry it with me everyday. I use it for tunes and sometimes video when not playing games. I find it more than adequate for music so far... not sure about that itrip, kinda trippy.
lekko @ Mar 18th 2006 12:58AM
I'd pick it up. Not really for music but for movies. you could play it in your car through your car's full stereo. or games with serious audio on trips (if you're not the one driving).
James Whitehead @ Mar 18th 2006 7:52AM
I'll just stick to my iPod mini thank yous.
See these sort of gadgets are wasted on the PSP. if you've bought a PSP chances are you also own a decent music player. ie. an iPod.
soop @ Mar 18th 2006 12:33PM
I don't think it'll sell as well as they hope. I think the main point is, not just that the PSP is too cumbersome, but even with a 2 gig stick, I've just got better things to do with the space - I'd rather fill it up with videos, retro games, homebrew etc. The space left (if any) would probably leave about 400 Mb for music, but that would probably change every time I swapped content around.
In essence, a dedicated music player is more likely to have permanant content that gets added to, rather than altered - I keep a 1gb SD card of music for my phone. However, not owning an iPod, I can say that the opportunity of using an iTrip stye device as a means around others' shocking taste in music (when you grab a ride from a friend etc) is certainly appealing. And where I've had built in FM radio in devices, it's always been something I've used. however, this time, I think it's a bit too pricey for a "gimmick"
soop @ Mar 18th 2006 12:37PM
come to think of it, you can buy a seperate personal FM radio for less than that anyway - you don't really even need it to plug into your PSP, do you?
probably about the same size too.
Waluigi14 @ Mar 18th 2006 10:53PM
Doesn't anyone notice how similar the background show on the PSP is to the default Mac OS X background? Copyright infringement!?
I don't care about these products at all, because I don't have (or want) a PSP. I can use my DS to play music (MP3, OGG, MIDI, etc.) and watch movies (.DPG) using Flashme to run homebrew code (http://ds.gcdev.com/dsfirmware/),
a GBAMP version 2 as a CF reader (http://www.movieadvance.com/index.htm),
and moonshell to play the media (http://mdxonline.dyndns.org/archives/nds/).
Thundercizzle @ Mar 20th 2006 1:50PM
There are times when I don't want to carry my iPod and my PSP around and I may listen to music on my PSP then. It's not the best for portable music by a long shot, but it's great and only expected that it would be capable of playing music, so I look at it more as a bonus.
Jago @ Mar 20th 2006 3:06PM
@ Waluigi14:
It's a background image...you can't sue for that and besides if that was the case then Apple could basically sue anyone who has ever made a wallpaper similar to theirs.