The Ultimate iPod Info Thread

Originally Posted by Kindzcar

I should be getting my car this week and I have spent the past couple weeks updating my Ipod for the car.

I really do not want to spend the extra $$$ to have BMW install the Ipod kit in my car and I am not nearly handy enough to install the kit which has been mentioned in this thread.

Is there a big difference between the Aux input when listening to the Ipod that I can just easily do without any work to the factory installed or the kits which have been customized by other posters?

Thank you for any input.

I have not tried the AUX jack, but I don't think that sound is the major difference between using the AUX jack and the iPod interface. In my opinion, the main differences are:

*The ability to view/select the songs on the Nav screen instead of squinting to see them on the iPod screen (sometimes in the dark going 80mph)
*Glove compartment location - looks neater due to lack of cords coming from the cig. lighter and the AUX jack. This is also safer since you don't have to move the iPod constantly to avoid having it in the car in plain sight when you're not in it.

Disadvantages (as previously mentioned by myself and others):

*VERY difficult to get to the bottom of long lists (i.e. - Artist, Album, Song lists)...don't think I've made it past the D's or E's.... And I my iPod is not fully loaded (maybe about 7-8GB have been used). The iDrive controller is sloooow and there is no alphabetic search feature.
*File limits - not really sure about this one though. #1, I would probably injure my wrist trying to get up to #200+ and have never tried. #2, I've read somewhere on here that this is only an issue if you don't have Nav. and I have Nav.

I never play the iPod on random--guess I'm too much of a control freak. My workaround has definitely been the playlists. I have them for about 8-9 favorite artists and then there are maybe 10 more for my favorite genres or the newest music I've just downloaded. While this has worked very well (90% of what I want to listen to is on the list...the other 10% will have to wait!), it does obviously require advance planning and semi-regular maintenance. But, when you download new songs, just place them where they need to go on the playlists and you should be set. You could also unplug it and create an "On the Go" playlist in a pinch.

At the end of the day, you've got to decide what's best for you. I'm a huge gadget freak and I am the only person I know who can control my iPod through the car like I can--sweet! Everyone who sees it is in awe. I honestly can't say what I'd do if I already had a car and was looking at the price tag for adding it in though. But, as it stands, I had them slap it on to the price and included it in the big check that I gave the dealer, so I guess it looked small in comparison.

If you're not interested in the added functionality and you simply want to be able to play your iPod in the car, skip it. If you do decide to get it, I don't think you'll regret it and I know that you'll figure out a way to work around the issues with the current system.

Good luck with your decision and enjoy your new BMW!!

Originally Posted by riisor

Since I dont yet have the iPod idrive interface but am about to have the work done in the next week or so can you please clarify the 255 barrier. Are you implying that the interface will only support 255 songs or is it 255 playlists or any combination.

I have somewhere around 1000 songs on mine (around 100 cds) and I *think* they all play. I have scrolled well past 200 I'm sure, but have never had the time or energy to crank that iDrive knob down that far into it to know if I can really see them all.

So if there were a limit, it might actually be practical given the current lacking control interface, but I have seen no indication that there is one.

Thanks Goheels98.

My car is at the prep center before my dealership and I think for now at least I am going to just use the simple AUX hook up and spend a couple extra bucks on putting that small piece of wood on the lever inlay.

The wait for this car has been too long IMO. My car got into the dock last weekend and b/c of the holiday and then tuesday the dock was closed, I am still waiting. If I didnt get my wife a new car this past Tuesday for me to be driving around this weekend I would have really lost my sh*t.

Thanks again

According to this poster (he works in a BMW dealership) starting in March there will be a "iPod/USB Adapter." If the USB part is real, that would be interesting.

http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=87816

Originally Posted by stream

According to this poster (he works in a BMW dealership) starting in March there will be a "iPod/USB Adapter." If the USB part is real, that would be interesting.

http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=87816

What would USB for iPod do for us? Or is that iPod, plus USB for something else - then what?

iPods don't play audio over USB - only charge and transfer music as best I can tell.


BTW, for those using the AUX adapter, this looks interesting to avoid the headphone jack:
http://www.mac-pro.com/s.nl/it.A/id....2&category=495

Originally Posted by stevepow

What would USB for iPod do for us? Or is that iPod, plus USB for something else - then what?

iPods don't play audio over USB - only charge and transfer music as best I can tell.


BTW, for those using the AUX adapter, this looks interesting to avoid the headphone jack:
http://www.mac-pro.com/s.nl/it.A/id....2&category=495

I'm assuming it's an iPod adapter, and a USB connector--similar to the long-anticipated Dension unit http://www.dension.com/icelinkgateway500.php. You could use the USB connector to attach any number of storage devices or MP3 players, and then access your music through iDrive (like you can now with a CD or DVD burned with MP3 files).

My car is an October 2007 build 530xit with Navigaton, Premium Pkg, Cold Weather Pkg, Sport Pkg, Comfort Access, Park Distance Control, and (*No* CD changer, *No* XM radio, *No* Sirius radio, *no* HD Radio).

The aftersales guy at the dealership thought that it would *not* t take the iPod integration since it has Navigation installed. I politely differed with him but would like to get further confirmation. IT seems that a number of people have have BMW iPod integration kit installed alongside Navigation. Before I start pushing can someone tell me definitively whether the iPod can be integrated with this combination of equipment?

thx

riisor

Originally Posted by riisor

My car is an October 2007 build 530xit with Navigaton, Premium Pkg, Cold Weather Pkg, Sport Pkg, Comfort Access, Park Distance Control, and (*No* CD changer, *No* XM radio, *No* Sirius radio, *no* HD Radio).

The aftersales guy at the dealership thought that it would *not* t take the iPod integration since it has Navigation installed. I politely differed with him but would like to get further confirmation. IT seems that a number of people have have BMW iPod integration kit installed alongside Navigation. Before I start pushing can someone tell me definitively whether the iPod can be integrated with this combination of equipment?

thx

riisor

Seems crazy - should work fine.

Originally Posted by riisor

My car is an October 2007 build 530xit with Navigaton, Premium Pkg, Cold Weather Pkg, Sport Pkg, Comfort Access, Park Distance Control, and (*No* CD changer, *No* XM radio, *No* Sirius radio, *no* HD Radio).

The aftersales guy at the dealership thought that it would *not* t take the iPod integration since it has Navigation installed. I politely differed with him but would like to get further confirmation. IT seems that a number of people have have BMW iPod integration kit installed alongside Navigation. Before I start pushing can someone tell me definitively whether the iPod can be integrated with this combination of equipment?

thx

riisor

It's not a problem. I have nav as well as Sirius (no CD changer or HD) and installed the kit myself a couple weeks ago. Because I didn't get the CD changer I needed the software update, and that was done yesterday. Works fine.

Finding a dealer who understood how this thing works and what software update was needed was amazingly complicated. You'd think by now most of the service guys would understand their own product. In the end it cost me an hour and a quarter of labor to do the software update. I was there for almost 4, but they had agreed to charge me for an hour.

Good luck

Ditto. I have a December built 530xi with Nav, Sirius, no HD because I wanted RTTI and I just had the iPod kit installed and it all works great.

Bellevue BMW in Washington is quoting $850 for the installation. Are dealerships installing the same iPod adapter or different ones. $850 is almost twice as expensive as some of the dealer installations mentioned above.

Originally Posted by riisor

My car is an October 2007 build 530xit with Navigaton, Premium Pkg, Cold Weather Pkg, Sport Pkg, Comfort Access, Park Distance Control, and (*No* CD changer, *No* XM radio, *No* Sirius radio, *no* HD Radio).

The aftersales guy at the dealership thought that it would *not* t take the iPod integration since it has Navigation installed. I politely differed with him but would like to get further confirmation. IT seems that a number of people have have BMW iPod integration kit installed alongside Navigation. Before I start pushing can someone tell me definitively whether the iPod can be integrated with this combination of equipment?

thx

riisor

I believe that was the case with the "original" iPOD integration - the one for the 3-series and I think X5. The new one works fine with NAV - he should know this (BTW, I have NAV and the IPod Integration) - PM me and I'll give you my # and he can call me. Or maybe you should look to a new dealer.

Originally Posted by boblong

It's not a problem. I have nav as well as Sirius (no CD changer or HD) and installed the kit myself a couple weeks ago. Because I didn't get the CD changer I needed the software update, and that was done yesterday. Works fine.

Finding a dealer who understood how this thing works and what software update was needed was amazingly complicated. You'd think by now most of the service guys would understand their own product. In the end it cost me an hour and a quarter of labor to do the software update. I was there for almost 4, but they had agreed to charge me for an hour.

Good luck

Boblong,

How easy was it to install, any complicatons or otherwise any landmines to watch out for? Also, I read somewhere else here (maybe it was in the instruction materials provided with the iPod kit) that that the programming was covered by BMW under warranty. Is this not the case?

Originally Posted by riisor

Boblong,

How easy was it to install, any complicatons or otherwise any landmines to watch out for? Also, I read somewhere else here (maybe it was in the instruction materials provided with the iPod kit) that that the programming was covered by BMW under warranty. Is this not the case?

It's really not too tough. The directions aren't much help, but there are a couple good posts in this thread with pictures and step by step instructions that will give you everything you need. You just have to remove the glove box (don't even HAVE to do that, but it makes it much easier - I also searched the forum for glove box removal instructions) and then connect the optical wires. The thing that probably took me the longest was FINDING the optical wires. The key is removing the tape that holds the big bundle of wires together and then you'll see them. If you already have the CD changer installed then it's even easier since those wires are already used for the CD changer. As I'm sure you've already read here, in that case you don't even need the software update - it's just plug and play. It probably took me a couple hours, but I was being slow and careful since I wasn't entirely sure I knew what I was doing.

As for the programming, I got an agreement up front that they would only charge me for 1 hour of labor. They had my car for about 4 hours, but much of it was simply doing the software update. The way is was ultimately explained to me was that they actually needed to disconnect the install I had already done to do some kind of update, then reconnect the adapter, and then do the programming which WAS covered under warranty. They ultimately ended up charging me 1.25 hours because of some of the "extra" work disconnecting and reconnecting.

Hope that helps.

Flow BMW in Greensboro, NC quote for yet undelivered car was $395 installed. I was very grateful for not getting fleeced.

At that price I will do it.

I double checked with him that it included the part and install with programing.

I hope this stands as the true quote!

Originally Posted by bargamon

Flow BMW in Greensboro, NC quote for yet undelivered car was $395 installed. I was very grateful for not getting fleeced.

At that price I will do it.

I double checked with him that it included the part and install with programing.

I hope this stands as the true quote!

It is suppoed to be a 3/4 of an hour for the install (per BMW and the software upgrade is to be done under warranty). So at $300 for the part and $95 for the install, it sounds like a very fair deal.

At the risk of being redundant with this info..... I just took delivery of my 525 with Navi and Sirius (no HD, no CD changer). I had my dealership install the ipod integration kit. It cost $400, and I haven't run across any limit in terms of artists, albums, etc. I purposely scrolled it past 250 items just to see.

The two things I have noticed are: (1) it takes quite a while (maybe 20+ seconds) to generate the artist or album or genre list, and (2) I can't get the system to randomly play songs within a genre or playlist or even album. I know the mini-menu comes up when you click on a song, but when I select "random directory" it only goes to a random song within the directory, then just plays the rest of the songs in order from that point.

Agree with the earlier poster about delivery taking too long. The boat carrying my car landed on January 5th in SC. My car didn't reach the dealership in Michigan until the afternoon of January 17th (and I couldn't get it until yesterday). 13 days from port to delivery is longer than everything else I've read. I hope the delay wasn't caused by the need for body work or something.

Originally Posted by Fielding Yost

At the risk of being redundant with this info..... I just took delivery of my 525 with Navi and Sirius (no HD, no CD changer). I had my dealership install the ipod integration kit. It cost $400, and I haven't run across any limit in terms of artists, albums, etc. I purposely scrolled it past 250 items just to see.

The iPod interface users manual says that only 255 folders per directory can be displayed. Just out of curiosity, how many artists and albums can you see? Perhaps they've updated the interface to increase (or eliminate) the limit.

Here are some examples:

I had the mp3s categorized by genre in the interface (CD3?). One of my genres has 483 songs, and I was able to pull songs right from the bottom of the list. In the interface for songs only (CD6?), I was able to scroll past 255. When I asked for a random song, it pulled up #1250 or something. So the bottom corner of the idrive menu showed "CD6-1250." IIRC, the same scenario was true for the interface section that sorted by album. If I'm understanding the thread correctly, none of that would've been accessible with the 255 limit. Am I getting that right?

As mentioned by a number of posters earlier, getting there is an entirely different story. It really does take forever just to scroll to anything other than the "top" of your list. There's just no way that I can see manually scrolling to something in the last part of the alphabet.

Two things
1. When I'm in CD6 and I'm on random, if I scroll down to a different song, press the I-Drive and then select Play - it goes right back to the song I was playing. However if I repeat this procedure a second time it works fine. Anyone else have this?

2. I've been paying close attention to the songs that are being played - since I'm in CD6 and it is in theory showing all songs, it has been interesting that in random mode, it started with the As, then Bs, then Cs, then Ds, now Es. So it is random, but it is doing a song or two from each starting letter. Note these letters are the Artists name not the song name.

Originally Posted by Fielding Yost

Here are some examples:

I had the mp3s categorized by genre in the interface (CD3?). One of my genres has 483 songs, and I was able to pull songs right from the bottom of the list. In the interface for songs only (CD6?), I was able to scroll past 255. When I asked for a random song, it pulled up #1250 or something. So the bottom corner of the idrive menu showed "CD6-1250." IIRC, the same scenario was true for the interface section that sorted by album. If I'm understanding the thread correctly, none of that would've been accessible with the 255 limit. Am I getting that right?

As mentioned by a number of posters earlier, getting there is an entirely different story. It really does take forever just to scroll to anything other than the "top" of your list. There's just no way that I can see manually scrolling to something in the last part of the alphabet.

I believe the 255 limitation applies to playlists, artists, albums and genres, since they are considered folders, and the users manual says that only 255 folders per directory can be displayed (doesn't your users manual say this in the Q&A section in the back?). CD1 - CD6 are the directories. Some have folders (playlists, artists, albums, genres) and others don't (podcasts, tracks). In your example of genres, that's considered a folder, so you can't display more than 255 genres, but it doesn't say there's a limit on tracks per folder. In the tracks directory, there are no folders so the limit doesn't apply.

Many have indicated that they can see past artist or album 255--can you?

Of course, getting up to 255 of anything in the interface is apparently not a walk in the park.

GolferEngineer,

I leave my iPod in the car overnight, and I live in Michigan. It's been averaging -5 degC up here lately... and my iPod has been fine. I am an engineer as well, and we both know there are tolerances built into the published operating temperature values.

The best solution is to buy the warranty from BestBuy (or wherever you buy your iPod). If mine breaks from being in the car, well I'll just take it back and get a brand new one!

Originally Posted by stream

I believe the 255 limitation applies to playlists, artists, albums and genres, since they are considered folders, and the users manual says that only 255 folders per directory can be displayed (doesn't your users manual say this in the Q&A section in the back?). CD1 - CD6 are the directories. Some have folders (playlists, artists, albums, genres) and others don't (podcasts, tracks). In your example of genres, that's considered a folder, so you can't display more than 255 genres, but it doesn't say there's a limit on tracks per folder. In the tracks directory, there are no folders so the limit doesn't apply.

Ahh, I understand it a little better now. I thought the 255 limit related not only to the folders but to the songs within the folders. I'll have to double check, but I doubt that I have 255 folders in any of those directories. Although I might be close for artists and/or albums. I'll let you know. However, as mentioned, without a shortcut to the last half of the alphabet, none of this matters much.

Users' Manual. Ummm, yeah, you got one of those? Haven't seen one.

Hi. Tom:

Thank you for your quick delivery. I am preparing the installation, but have two questions:

1. I am planning to install through the right side door trim as your said, is that a good chance to get the whine based on your experience?

2. Do I need to remove the right side door trim? and how to do it? Looks like the the trim is attached to the car very firm. Thank you!

Originally Posted by truelies

Hi. Tom:

Thank you for your quick delivery. I am preparing the installation, but have two questions:

1. I am planning to install through the right side door trim as your said, is that a good chance to get the whine based on your experience?

2. Do I need to remove the right side door trim? and how to do it? Looks like the the trim is attached to the car very firm. Thank you!

I think you may have posted in the incorrect thread if this question was directed towards me (judging from the 528i in your details). Feel free to email me directly for answers your questions.