I am so tired of the AzzHattery from the mobile carriers. I used to be able to start my Spotify app with the steering wheel controls and forward and reverse through songs. Now since this last update I can no longer start the app which means I have to be somewhat unsafe and try to start it while I am driving. Why are the makers of these software updates such azzhats? Is it a requirement for the job?

 

JagGate, I bet if you look, they offer a version that does what you are after, but it will cost you say $5 or $10 to get it. They get you hooked and then they start charging so they can make money.

I guess I get around the music issue as I am "an old timer" and still buy CDs and then I convert them to MP3 and download them onto a USB stick that I keep plugged into the car. I have over 1,000 albums now and I have a lot of stuff to pick from.

I use my home computer for finding new bands on sites like Pandora. But, once I find someone, I tend to get all of their albums. This is where E-bay can be a savior because if you do some looking, you can get a good selection of CDs for cheap (not uncommon to find 30+ CDs for around $15 delivered to your house). Sure, you may not like all of them, but when you are paying 50 cents a disk, that is a price you pay and besides, I will listen to them as I find that about 50% of the time, after a little bit of listening, the music is actually pretty good and it grows on you.

The one thing I will caution you on if you do go this way is to keep the USB stick at 16GB or less. I tried a 32GB stick and it took an extremely long time for the car to start playing music when I start the car. Now I am switching over to carrying four 16GB sticks with me with them broken up into 4 generic genres (Rock, country, other, and Pink Floyd - yes, I have that much Pink Floyd).

 

Thermo, do you convert your music to constant bit rate in order for the system to recognize the music data? That is the only way to get music to play in my 2013 base Meridian system. Variable bit rate is not recognized.

Sorry to take a tangent, JagGate.

John

 

I was referring to the O/S upgrade that T-Mobile pushed for Android - not Spotify btw. I tossed (literally threw away 500 or so CDs) when electronic/streaming music became mainstream.

Tangent away!

 

TNJohn, yes, I have converted everything to CBR. LIke you said, the Jaguar system does not like VBR.

 

JagGate, if you ever toss more CDs, I will give them a good home. I am always looking for new and different music. I use Pandora and I find after about 2-3 hours of playing a station, it starts looping the music and also they don't necessarily play who you are after (ie, they will not play Pink Floyd, they will play artists similar to Pink Floyd, but not Pink Floyd themself).