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Blue&Me Adaptor for iPhone/iPod - video review

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Blue&Me Adaptor for iPhone/iPod - video review

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pixelthing

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Here's a video of the fabled iPhone adapter for blue&me. It only worked for me after I'd updated to 5.4 (see elsewhere for instructions), and is in an Abarth 500 (May 09 delivery), and iPhone 3G and is in glorious HD if you visit the video at YouTube. It also talks about using non iPod applications through the system. The upshot is that it works in exactly the same as an iPod dock that you might plug into a hi-fi, or some standalone iPod docks.

And that's a pretty good thing...

 
Other notes:
  • You can still take and make calls with the Bluetooth. It's done it successfully loads of time, and fades the music back in afterwards, but once it gave me a faint phonecall with even fainter music in the background. Not sure what caused that.
  • Occasionally I'll plug-in the iPhone and it will start charging but it won't play. Sometimes this is fixed by changing the "source" on the steering wheel to "Media Player". Sometimes it takes a restart of the iPhone.
  • Yes, I have the TomTom app, but without a cradle (or a passenger that can read it for you), it's not a lot of use. For some reason, I don't get the TomTom voice - could that feature only work on the 3GS? Does anyone know?
  • Not sure how well it will integrate with the full TomTom kit - it depends on the TomTom cradle having a full USB connection (rather than just the charging pins), and if you can balance the stuff that tomtom controls and blue&me controls.
  • I could slip the iPhone in the "glove box" shelf, but it's a bit out of reach in case I need to grab hold of it.
  • I'm a bit conscious of leaving an iPod white cable in clear view (even if the iPhone's not in there, it's asking for a possible broken window), but can't find a black cable anywhere. I tried a £1.99 aftermarket iPhone cable (a white one from ebay) and the phone/system only recognised each other intermittently.
  • Some people say you should plug it in before you turn the car on, so it doesn't have to recalculate the track listing. For me, that often means the car doesn't recognise the iPhone at all - but yes, occasionally I have had it say that it's reloading the media library - why sometimes and not others I'm not sure.
  • You can't select a particular track in a playlist, you select the playlist and then have to fast forward through them to select a track/podcast. Sucks.
  • In a "chaptered" podcast (eg engadget), fast forwarding will go to the next chapter. That's handy unless you need to get past it to the next in the playlist, in which case it's tiring...
  • The sound quality is good - in effect it's streaming uncompressed (although from a compressed source) audio over a more than adequate USB connection at line-level.
  • Yes, you still get SMS chimes through the stereo. No, it doesn't read the message.
 
What other iPod's does it work with? Only the current gen Ipods like the classic and touch or does it work with a 5th gen iPod video too?
 
thanks very much for this post! i had to order one from the UK, hope for it to be here shortly. aussie dealers have NFI what it is!!
 
I have just updated the Blue & me on my GP to the latest 5.4 version using a USB drive. unfortunately, it no longer plays or reads from my ipod, i used to be able to do this before the update. Is this because i do not use the ipod adapter... and is this adapter available only in the fiat dealerships?
 
You've answered yourself really. Sadly the update to 5.4 (And it says so on the site) should only be done if your experiencing problems OR are using it to add iPod functionality through the adapter.

You may find availability of the adapter on ebay if your nearest dealer cant supply or alternatively Chris@Souls has shipped several devices overseas and if you PM him will be able to give you a price.
 
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