[Horsey]

Originally Posted by knp100

Thanks Horsey - that certainly makes things clearer.

But now I am wondering if it is really worth it as I always envisaged transferring music to the HD and playing from there - and not be limited to always having to plug iPhone in to gain access to music.

Perhaps leaving an iPod plugged in would be a more convenient plan...but then how would that differ from HD stored music...?

Honestly, I think there are people on this forum who are much more expert on the music thing than me, I haven't tried much at the moment.

I am not sure under which circumstances you get control of playlists and cover art an stuff ... But I am assuming the using the Plugin iDrive option and 6NR will be the best.

Bluetooth seems to give you just the currently active playlist. Not sure if it's much better when you plug the iPod in using USB.

The other option I have seen is people plugging in a flash drive, but I assume the car has to re-read the flash drive every time the car starts which is annoying and hence copying it to the HD might be preferable.

Certainly though, I wasn't impressed with either flash or copy to HD on my wife's 3 year old version, I don't know if it's better with track names now.

Reading the forums, the one that caught my eye as are really out of the box thinking, was getting a wifi enabled iPod and leaving it permanently plugged into the car and the updating and managing it over wifi when you car was parked ... If it gets your home wifi network that is ... although I thought wireless iTunes management was only initiated if the iDevice is on power ... which is unlikely if your car is switched off ...

I can't say for sure how comprehensive music management is without 6NR, but I am assuming that the best experience is with an iDevice plugged into the media cradle ... I am not going to bother fiddling till I get my cradle, till then it's Bluetooth. Funnily enough, it's often easier just to use the iPhone itself to choose the tracks and lists and treat the car as a dumb speaker ... But it would be fun to see what the fully integrated option looks like.