No, not another monthly mag, a question, and an opportunity to come at the Apple v the rest question from another angle.
Wife's new Golf has a "proper" MP3 interface as well as an aux in. There are 2 cables, one ending in a USB socket, presumably for non Apple MP3 players and another specifically for an iPod. So, for, say 8Gb, what do I buy? The options appear to be iPod nano for about £130 or something like a Sandisk Sansa Fuze for less than £50.
Buying an iPod ties me into using iTunes I believe? So what benefit do all of the extra £s give me? I have in mind that it will live in the dark, only coming out to have new music added. I guess I'll have to switch it on when needed, though I notice that the Sandisk has an auto switch off.
Thanks,
John
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A standard USB interface will NOT provide you with full control over the files on the IPOD (or Iphone), only one made for IPOD will allow you to fully manipulate the files. You can only play files in order provided on the Iphone screen, not the radio. And it may not recognise the IPOD coded music files.
However, a usb memory stick loaded with MP3 files will be fully controlled by the radio. If you buy a mini (very small profile) USB stick, say 8gb, that will be perfect. I have one that is only 5mm high.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 3 Nov 10 at 17:26
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Interesting. I have a USB stick (who doesn't). Worth a shot.
Thanks,
John
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See my reply on the other thread of yours. The new nano is soooooooo cute.
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...and another specifically for an iPod...
I take it you mean the flat, multi-pin connector, and not just a round jack plug.
If so, it should enable you to control an iPod from the radio controls, and the remote controls on the steering wheel column.
Depending on the system, it might even bring up some info from an iPod on the radio's screen, and it will charge an iPod as well.
This is all very neat, very desirable, very useful and makes the purchase of an iPod an absolute must.
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"flat, multi-pin connector, and not just a round jack plug." - yup.
It's sounding like Christmas is sorted...
John
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...t's sounding like Christmas is sorted...
You'll not regret it, the installation will be so neat, and as easy as, er, plugging in an iPod.
I've not checked, but I think the iPod connectivity pack is around a £300 extra on some VWs.
Buying an iPod will not tie you to iTunes, but iTunes will work well with your iPod, as you might expect.
The program will even recognise the colour of your iPod - very important.
Some people knock iTunes, but it worked OK for me when I was creating my library by burning all my CDs.
There are cheaper places than iTunes for new music - mp3 downloads - but I don't buy much new stuff, so others are better placed to advise on the best sites.
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>> Buying an iPod will not tie you to iTunes, but iTunes will work well with
>> your iPod, as you might expect.
Afraid it does, Itunes is the only way (for normal people) to update the microcode on your Ipod.
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You need iTunes to sync music but don't need to use the iTunes store. You can rip CDs, use Tesco Digital, Amazon MP3, etc.
Yes you can sync an iPod using other means but not for your average user and what's the point. The (bloated) software works.
I wonder if the comment above was to the iTunes store which you don't have to use.
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I'm sure I've used MediaMonkey to add tracks to Spamette major's iPod. Or you can buy a plug-in for WMP11 IIRC
Maybe I'm outside your definition of 'normal' here ;-)
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BMW want 45 quid for their iPOD to USB giving iPOD controllability via the steering wheel buttons. They haven't yet issued one for use with iPhone4...
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Iphone 3g compatibility is enough. The protocol hasnt changed.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 3 Nov 10 at 18:02
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Thanks Zero - so it will charge as well ?- found one from a BMW dealer on e-bay for a tenner less ?
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All recent iPods and iPhones will charge via a USB attached iPod dock connector. So should be no problem.
iPod 3g and earlier would only charge from Firewire pins on the dock connector.
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>> Depending on the system, it might even bring up some info from an iPod on
>> the radio's screen, and it will charge an iPod as well.
If you place all the track detail in the header of an MP3 file, the radio will read it from a USB stick. Ie tell you Artist, Name, Album, Genre, etc.
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Cracked it! I've just done as suggested (MP3s to USB stick) and it works perfectly. Artist/album/track names all displayed and controllable from the radio buttons. That'll do nicely until Christmas.
Thanks,
John
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iPphone or Touch on your Christmas card list John - delightfully crafted little machines.
Thanks for starting this thread, I suddenly remembered that I had an USB back up from my old iPOD - guess what it works in the X1 complete with track listings and steering wheel toggles. Won't bother with one of them cables now !
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I've pretty much narrowed down a few possibles for my next car. Most have an SD card slot in the stereo. I have an iPod but a large SD card will be what I use. I don't buy new music very often and all I might ever want in a car will fit in 8Gb or less.
Still have until next summer before I order a car. And maybe streaming audio from a smartphone or iPod might be available in built in head units.
I bet I don't convince myself or my wife that the extra cost for an A5 Sportback can be justified. I could have a VW Passat CC and be better off than I am in a Mazda6 for example.
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I feed my iphone into the car radio but don't use it with the ipod bit at all - just Spotify (or Librovox for free audio books). Works very well.
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>>
>> >> Depending on the system, it might even bring up some info from an iPod
>> on
>> >> the radio's screen, and it will charge an iPod as well.
>>
>> If you place all the track detail in the header of an MP3 file, the
>> radio will read it from a USB stick. Ie tell you Artist, Name, Album, Genre,
>> etc.
>>
Can any of these fancy expensive car stereos actually navigate the music tracks using these ID3 tags? My cheapo 60 quid stereo will display album / track / artist but if you want the tracks of a specific album to play back in the right order you have to make sure they're all in the same folder on the USB stick/CD, you can't navigate using the tags like you can on just about any MP3 player.
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>> Can any of these fancy expensive car stereos actually navigate the music tracks using these
>> ID3 tags? My cheapo 60 quid stereo will display album / track / artist but
>> if you want the tracks of a specific album to play back in the right
>> order you have to make sure they're all in the same folder on the USB
>> stick/CD, you can't navigate using the tags like you can on just about any MP3
>> player.
some can yes.
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There's some gotchas with the current VAG head units when using SD cards.
Because the head units come with an SD card slot, i never chose MDI when i was speccing my car, but when using SDs it can take 2-3 mins (yeah no joke) to initialise after turning the ignition on. When you choose MIX (random play) it's the world's weirdest algorithm (plays a few sequentially, jumps to another folder, plays a few sequentially again...).
To get round the issues you can put all of your music 7 folders deep (it only scans down to 6 folders deep when initialising) and put .m3u playlist(s) in the root folder and a 1 second / silent .mp3 (needed to avoid an error message on screen). It pretty much solves all the problems, but what a faff!!
Ultimately i couldn't be stuffed managing the files on the SD card manually (we have computers to avoid that kind of nonsense!) when itunes does it all for you with no button presses or mouse clicks - just plug ipod in, itunes fires up, transfers the latest, then you're done.
If it was me TS, i'd get a 2nd hand hard drive ipod and use that -- noone will see it. I was lucky my old one was in a drawer doing nothing. Bought it as a treat for giving up smoking and it's still going strong.
p.s. over £250 to retrofit MDI + one of the cables (MDI <-> Stereo) can't be bought from VAG, you need to buy the individual wires and connector blocks for each end and assemble it yourself!! Nuts!
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This has annoyed me quite a bit with the bolero unit on my octavia. However I learned recently on the Briskoda forum that there's finally a firmware upgrade for the unit which is supposed to make a huge difference to the initialisation and folder navigation speed - though apparently it doesn't improve mix. Looking forward to getting this when I take it in for its first service.
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Daughter has a Ceed with iPod attachment (cable) and it cunningly puts up the Kia logo on her iPod screen when plugged in. But the management software is absolute crap, IIRC random play always plays in the same "random" order, and you can't readily navigate to find something using the car controls - and the iPod controls are disabled when it's plugged in.
However she doesn't use it anyway, so not a biggy for her.
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Well so far a USB stick is working admirably, doing everything she could want. I've just ordered a 16GB one (100+ albums) and we'll see if we need an iPod/MP3 player. it's looking like "no" at the moment.
Its a lot easier than copying LPs to C90s and trying to fill that gap at the end so you don't have minutes of silence waiting for the tape to reverse!
John
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If you got an iPod then it won't offer you anything more than you're getting via a USB stick to be honest. The iPod effectively becomes a disk drive for the car stereo. I can plug my iPod into my TomTom and the TomTom can see and play all the music on it. It's the TomTom doing the playing.
Although some of the newer stereos may let you access iPod/iPhone playlists? And it will charge the iPod/phone too.
Filling a 16Gb USB stick will take some thinking. I'd personally not put everything on it for the car simply because it would take too long to navigate all the albums to choose some music.
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I can't remember life before the internet, windows, mobile phone or ipod. It doesn't matter to me that I may be 'tied' to itunes -it works perfectly well for burning all my CD's and a few purchases. Whilst the ipod might appear to dominate the mp3 market it looks good and works well (anyone else got a B & W zepellin dock? Fab..) and can be linked to any old stereo with a simple base adaptor. Microsoft dominate the PC operating programme market but most of us have been happy to comply for eons. So what? When there's only one car I'll be miffed! Get an ipod and be done with thinking about trivia!!
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What MP3 player? - Zero
