2011 Volkswagen Jetta TDI: iPod Cord

Did I say that? No, I did not. You're reading between the lines here.

The Germans view it like how they used to view cup holders.

It'll take them a little time to adjust - meanwhile the Hyundai/Kia setup is still the best IMO, USB + Bluetooth.

thumbdrive

I too prefer blindly commenting with no regard to the contents of the article.

Could not agree more, Dan, well said. It would be one thing if there were any advantage at all to the proprietary connector, but there is not. It's just another case of German mis-engineering.

Man, I remember the good old days when drivers actually drove their cars and were more concerned about vehicle dynamics rather than how long an iPod leash is.

Goodness gracious.

That wouldn't work well for me. I use my phone's GPS A LOT and while the spoken directions from Mapquest are nice, they're useless if I can't see the map.

Nice to see there are others like me around. Kudos sharpend.

"Man, I remember the good old days when drivers actually drove their cars and were more concerned about vehicle dynamics rather than how long an iPod leash is."

Man, I remember the good old days when people thought that cars should keep improving and not set up false dichotomies based on their own narrow views of the world.

If your music is stored on your phone, you have to deal with this literally every time you get into and out of the car. That means at least four times a day for most people. That's a huge amount of time wasted over the course of owning a vehicle, and that's if you're OK with your phone being in the glove box while you drive at all (and there are plenty of completely valid reasons why someone wouldn't be OK with it).

You shouldn't be using your iPhone for that anyway, considering most of the problems people have had on this blog vis-a-vis iPod connects have been with their iPhones. Just go on ebay and buy a used, scratched up (the screen can even be broken) iPod classic for cheap and you're set.

Agreed, Dan. Not only is VW/Audi making you pay to play with their proprietary connector, but they keep you on a short leash under the guise of "safety". The "Sonic Solution" is starting to look a whole lot more attactive.

"Man, I remember the good old days when drivers actually drove their cars and were more concerned about vehicle dynamics rather than how long an iPod leash is."

Unless engine noise is all the soundtrack you need (remember, we're talking about a Jetta here, and a future of small displacement, four-cylinder, low-pressure turbo engines), it would occur to me that having your favorite soundtrack at hand would only enhance the vehicle dynamics, rather than hinder them.

@esoterica, ever think there might be more than one solution to a problem? If you are moving music in and out of your car all the time, why not put a thumbdrive in there and only take it out to update it. I've been doing this for 3-4 years now, as long as the car has a usb port, I'm good to go.

Proprietary plugs and cords = BOOO!

"If you are moving music in and out of your car all the time, why not put a thumbdrive in there and only take it out to update it."

Is that a rhetorical question or do you really not see why having to sync music to only one device would be superior to syncing with several? Especially when the one device is something that automatically syncs with your computer over Wifi every night so that as long as you use Smart Playlists you can always have your newest music?

"...a big fat pile of fail."

Down, boy.

This is for sure not as good as it could be, but the cord you have there already has a "proprietary" connector on the other end - an iPhone connector. This did not prevent VW from making a cord with that end on it, however, and I suspect it's possible to get a longer cord with the VW connector on one end and the iPhone connector on the other end, also.

Would this be a total solution? No - you still have to have the other iPhone/standard male USB for use with your computer.

I think there is altogether too much of this McGyverism of trying to make the iPhone provide music, be a phone, do nav, run speedometer apps, make toast, give backrubs, etc. at the same time.

Use an SD card or USB memory stick for music. Right now, you probably hook up a cord from your phone to your computer, assemble the music files you want on the phone, and drag them to the phone, seen as mass storage by the computer's OS. So just plug in the memory stick in another USB port at the same time, drag the same bunch of mp3s over to it, too...and you're golden. Done.

This SD or memory stick approach has one additional benefit - whatever you were listening to when you shut the car off starts playing when you turn on the sound system again, like you probably want it to. If you disconnect whatever your music storage is (your iPhone) when you get out of the car, when you get back in, hook it up again and turn the music on, it goes BACK to the first song, alphabetically by artist or song title, depending on the file structure you have, which is probably NOT what you want to listen to since you've now heard it a billion times, and you now have to navigate back to what you were listening to or something else.

THAT is a pile of fail.

"Use an SD card or USB memory stick for music. Right now, you probably hook up a cord from your phone to your computer, assemble the music files you want on the phone, and drag them to the phone, seen as mass storage by the computer's OS."

That's if you use Android. With iOS 5, it syncs all your (smart) playlists over Wifi as soon as you connect the power adapter to charge every night.

Or with iCloud, you don't actually have to sync at all, you just automatically have all your music and playlists available on-demand from the cloud (I personally have 160GB of music "on" my phone).

I compile a playlist and sync it to my phone and drop it onto my thumbdrive the next time I bring it in. No bluetooth, no plugging my phone in that will shorten the battery life with constant charge/discharge, no proprietary cables. Hell I even started putting a spare 320gb 2.5" external with all my music, something my phone will never come close to doing. That and my phone is in flight mode when I drive anyway, I drive when I drive.

"I compile a playlist and sync it to my phone and drop it onto my thumbdrive the next time I bring it in. No bluetooth," "my phone is in flight mode when I drive anyway"

Yes, that's clearly representative of the general population. Your smugness in assuming that because you do something one way that others wouldn't have any valid reasons to do it another way is rather revolting.