No strap or clip. The iPod is free to move about the glove box. The iPod is powered off when the car is turned off. Mine is a little quirky in that sometimes I need to shut off the radio and turn it back on to get the iPod going again after starting the car. I'll mention it to the service advisor on my next visit. Thankfully, I haven't had much need to go to the dealer in the past 12 months of owning our 2004 X3!

Mine randomly turns off in the middle of a song and the stereo does not see the Ipod. I have to unplug and replug the IPod to get the stereo to recognize it again.

(Happens about once a week, Have to take it to the dealer to find out, what's going on)

keep off median said:

No strap or clip. The iPod is free to move about the glove box. The iPod is powered off when the car is turned off. Mine is a little quirky in that sometimes I need to shut off the radio and turn it back on to get the iPod going again after starting the car. I'll mention it to the service advisor on my next visit. Thankfully, I haven't had much need to go to the dealer in the past 12 months of owning our 2004 X3!

Click to expand...

iPod

I have not heard any great things about the iPod cable option and am quite happy using my iPod with the iTrip. This way I just keep the iPod right beside me in the cup holder and can make changes at any time without it being tucked away in the glove box. For long trips I also plug it into the lighter with the charger while using the iTrip.

If others think that the hookup option works better I'd be interested otherwise I'll keep my other hardware and use it anywhere.

I was initially thinking of just doing the aux input too, but then I read that you can actually control the iPod thru the steering wheel, access some playlists, and have song info. showing on the stereo if you go for the full iPod integration. Plus the charging happens through the connector, leaving the cigarette lighter available for a radar detector or cellphone. Those factors made me decide to go for the iPod adapter.

It seems that you also might be able to find (or make) a cable that has the iPod dock connector on one end and a 3.5mm stereo plug on the other. Then you could still plug audio in from any device, and wouldn't have to splice into the iPod cable. I wonder if anyone here has done that..... :eeps:

Tayrum said:

I have not heard any great things about the iPod cable option and am quite happy using my iPod with the iTrip. This way I just keep the iPod right beside me in the cup holder and can make changes at any time without it being tucked away in the glove box. For long trips I also plug it into the lighter with the charger while using the iTrip.

If others think that the hookup option works better I'd be interested otherwise I'll keep my other hardware and use it anywhere.

Click to expand...

I have no regrets about the iPod connector. It works great. You have access to 5 playlists and the total library. You can use the steering wheel controls to change tracks and adjust volume. It charges the IPod automatically. It most certainly an improvement over using the aux connection and the cig lighter to charge which I had previously. The iPod kit does NOT allow you to see song info in the stereo though.

I think the Ipod hook up is certainly better than the aux input and trying to mess with the IPOD songs while you are driving. The best thing about the IPOD hook up is that you can program upto six playlists and also control the songs from your steering controls and it gets charged plus it is out of sight. (Disadvantage: cannot see the name of the songs on the display)

I thing the pros outweigh the cons on this one.

Tayrum said:

I have not heard any great things about the iPod cable option and am quite happy using my iPod with the iTrip. This way I just keep the iPod right beside me in the cup holder and can make changes at any time without it being tucked away in the glove box. For long trips I also plug it into the lighter with the charger while using the iTrip.

If others think that the hookup option works better I'd be interested otherwise I'll keep my other hardware and use it anywhere.

Click to expand...

Ah, thanks for clarification about the display. Bummer that you can't see song info, but still sounds like a decent integration.

Yeah, it is a bummer.
I am happy with the connection in that I have a TON of music available at my fingertips for whatever musical mood I may be in.
I just have to make sure I set up my playlists and "know" what is there as I cannot see the song info while driving.

One thing to watch out for, in the manual for the iPod connector it states that you have to name your playlists BMW, BMW2, BMW3, etc....
BUT, that first one needs to read BMW1 for it to be recognized as a playlist. Now that I made that correction everything works out pretty good.
The manual also shows a picture of the iPod when you supposedly hook it up to the interface and the iPod will read BMW. Not mine. As soon as I hook it up to the interface, the iPod puts the check mark up and the text "ok to disconnect".
Still seems to work just a minor difference.

I was a little worried about having my iPod slide around in the glove box too, but I have yet to hear any noise indicating that it is doing so.

Sound wise, it is pretty good. I think I still need to RTFM completely and figure out the best settings for the iPod and the stereo. All of my mp3's are ripped to 320kbs and sound good, so I just need to fine tune it a bit.

climrgrl said:

Ah, thanks for clarification about the display. Bummer that you can't see song info, but still sounds like a decent integration.

Click to expand...

I was thinking of getting one of those Ipod covers and having a whelcro piece stuck to it so that I can secure it to the glove box.

Laosk said:

I was a little worried about having my iPod slide around in the glove box too, but I have yet to hear any noise indicating that it is doing so.

Click to expand...

So far in the past 6 months I had the ipod adapter I had nothing but great experiences.

Pros:
The sound quality is way better than iTrip. (but similar to playing MP3s from CD)
No need to buy cigarette adaptor because it will be charged during driving.
Can be locked in the glove box all the time
Volume and Skipping songs can be controlled by steering wheel buttons

Cons:
Does not show song titles
Cannot Fast Forward on a song (Fast Forwarding does work when MP3 songs are playing from the CD)
Expensive (I paid $400CAD to have it installed)
Songs to be played have to be in playlists (or play the entire content of the iPod). This means you cannot choose songs by Album,Singers etc.

Thanks for the comments. May just have to rethink this device!
I guess another pro would be that the ipod would not be out in view encouraging theft.

Good comments from all.

climrgrl said:

I was initially thinking of just doing the aux input too, but then I read that you can actually control the iPod thru the steering wheel, access some playlists, and have song info. showing on the stereo if you go for the full iPod integration. Plus the charging happens through the connector, leaving the cigarette lighter available for a radar detector or cellphone. Those factors made me decide to go for the iPod adapter.

It seems that you also might be able to find (or make) a cable that has the iPod dock connector on one end and a 3.5mm stereo plug on the other. Then you could still plug audio in from any device, and wouldn't have to splice into the iPod cable. I wonder if anyone here has done that..... :eeps:

Click to expand...

I had the plain old Aux input in my 2004 X3, then went to the iPod Adaptor (free install; long story about dealer screwing up), and if I'd kept the X3 I would have paid the dealer to re-install the Aux input. I hated the iPod adaptor.

What I hated about it was having to make playlists. With 2000 songs on my iPod, I want to be able to play what I want, when I want it. If Im in the mood to hear a certain cd, I want to be able to play it. With the iPod Adaptor in my 2004 X3, I could not do that. I had to either have the cd in a pre-ordained play list, or manually skip perhaps hundreds of songs to find the first song of the cd I wanted to listen. For me, any solution that does not include "random access" to every cd on the iPod is no good.

In my new car I'm using the Monster Cable brand FM re-broadcaster until an acceptable solution is available from BMW.

Yeah, after doing more research, I decided to buy the Dension ice>link kit instead. I haven't hooked it up yet, but you can either use their interface (with playlists and some other options) or the normal Apple user interface. I'll definitely post after I get it up and running, maybe this weekend. It's supposed to have the same benefits as the BMW iPod cable (charges your iPod, steering wheel controls work) plus has the additional benefits of ID3 tag display on your stereo and choices in user interface & album navigation.

Bart001 said:

I had the plain old Aux input in my 2004 X3, then went to the iPod Adaptor (free install; long story about dealer screwing up), and if I'd kept the X3 I would have paid the dealer to re-install the Aux input. I hated the iPod adaptor.

What I hated about it was having to make playlists. With 2000 songs on my iPod, I want to be able to play what I want, when I want it. If Im in the mood to hear a certain cd, I want to be able to play it. With the iPod Adaptor in my 2004 X3, I could not do that. I had to either have the cd in a pre-ordained play list, or manually skip perhaps hundreds of songs to find the first song of the cd I wanted to listen. For me, any solution that does not include "random access" to every cd on the iPod is no good.

In my new car I'm using the Monster Cable brand FM re-broadcaster until an acceptable solution is available from BMW.

Click to expand...

Since you can't see song info, why not just use the CD player to play .mp3s?

You can still fit over 100 typical sized songs on 1 CD of .mp3s. While that can't match the capacity of the Ipod, at least you don't have to mess with the Ipod install.

climrgrl said:

Ah, thanks for clarification about the display. Bummer that you can't see song info, but still sounds like a decent integration.

Click to expand...

You CAN see song info with the Dension ice>link, which is what I finally opted for. As for mp3 CD's -- they're nice, but I already have an iPod. It would be much more work to burn a whole boatload of mp3 CDs, and also have to figure out what's on which one, than it is to just drag & drop songs onto my iPod and have them all accesible. I have about 60 GB of music, so that's a lot of CD's! Also, I kind of like installing stuff myself.

Caesar said:

Since you can't see song info, why not just use the CD player to play .mp3s?

You can still fit over 100 typical sized songs on 1 CD of .mp3s. While that can't match the capacity of the Ipod, at least you don't have to mess with the Ipod install.

Click to expand...

I just installed my ice>link a few days ago in my 2004 325i and I absolutely love it!!! I updated the ice>link's firmware to allow the stock bmw business radio to display song and artist names and also allows for setup and playlist navigation, all while using the steering controls.

I've been looking into ipod integration for a while now, and it is definetly the way to go.

It also comes with a dock which installed right underneath the radio to the left of the shifter, so that I can also see the song information, pointless, but looks pretty neat. Reason I did this was so that I had the ability to use apples user interface should alternate one prove to be a hassle, which it hasn't.

Probably the best $200 upgrade for this car, given that you already have the ipod.

I installed my Ice Link Plus about a month ago - I love it.
Installed in the arm rest - very easy self install.
If you like you can enable to see Playlists, song titles and artists.
My only issue is I have Navigation, When I enable "text" it overrides Navigation.
Meaning, you cannot really use the Navigation system effectiively while ipod "text" is enabled, (Although in "split screen" you really can do both without maps, just directions)
But you can always disable text and it works just like the "factroy" Ipod integration, steering wheel operation and all.
Icelink plus is supposed to come out with a new version of the software that fixes the Text and navigation issue - when that happens - it will be perfect.
Best $200 I have spent in a long time
good luck