yeah i have alpine 9856 with ipod cable as well, works very well, only downside is that if you have a lot of music on your ipod, it will take forever to scroll through all the songs/artists ect...

suggest making playlists and only having music on playlists on the ipod, or just reduce what you have and keep favorite songs

 

I tried a FM transmitter on my RS (a belkin one)..it sounds like CRAP. I'm currently trying to find a way to wire up my ipod video to speakers without having to run a headunit or transmitter and still look clean (not a hack).