Can I connect another mp3 music player to iPod speakers

Factual Questions
1

I am avoiding the Apple iPod in favour or a non-evil brand. But before doing so, I need to confirm whether my non-evil audio player will work with the third-party items designed for iPod.

  1. How does the Apple iPod connect to/sit on those third-party speaker systems? USB?

  2. Can other mp3 music players (such as Sony, Samsung, SanDisk, etc.) also connect to these third-party iPod speakers?

  3. Are there any other considerations, such as software on the speakers that only talk to the iPod?

2

Best bet is to get some speakers with a simple 1/8 inch jack (mini) input that takes the output from the MP3 player (headphones output) and reproduces that without any messing around.
In the sense that you can use any brand headphone with your ipod, you can use any brand MP3 player with any headphone set. Same with speakers.
USB input would be different.

3

I have a clock/radio thingie for my evil ipod and it uses the docking interface on the bottom of the ipod, which I assume is proprietary to the ipod. It almost certainly would not work with another player. Some of them may have a “line in” option that will work with the headphone jack as Uncommon Sense mentions, although any remote control features would not work in that case.