I bought an iPod touch (6th generation) to use in the car, since I wanted to have my iTunes library and Spotify (with downloaded albums for offline use) available in the car. My car is a 4.2 with the older ACM type interface rather than the newer iPod integration kit from the 5.0 cars. Noticed a couple of odd things, I'm guessing due to the iPod being newer and more modern than the car.

First, if I'm listening to Spotify whilst driving around and I stop and switch off the car, Spotify does not pause playback, it just carries on (silently since the car and stereo system are switched off). I guess this might mean taking this up with Spotify support forums but thought I'd throw it open in here just in case someone else has been there before and found a fix?

Second, I've noticed (i.e. when manually pausing Spotify or listening to iTunes music which does seem to pause when the car shuts down) that if I leave the iPod connected to the cable (with the 30-pin to Lightning adapter) that the iPod battery is often exhausted when I return to the car after work, having been charged fully in the house before leaving. If I take the iPod out of the car then battery usage seems to be much lower so it's something to do with being left attached to the car that's draining the battery. Long shot again but any ideas?

Finally, does anyone know if these issues are also present between iOS devices and cars with the newer iPod integration kit?

 

Does your iPod charge when docked and car running? If not, there is an updated cable that will provide charging. All of my iPhones worked fine with the ACM.

 

I had the same iPod touch and same ACM in my 07. I don't use Spotify to stream or download to offline (assuming you can do that with Spotify).

My iPod charged when plugged in to the ACM with the car running.

It doesn't drain when I shut down my car but I also shut down my iPod unless I'm only gone for an hour or two.

In those cases where I don't shut down, yes the song pauses in iTunes.

It will drain faster if left to sleep with the iTunes app still on, but I don't have anything empirical to make that claim, just an observation. I suspect it's apple programs running in the background. For that matter, BT will still make attempts to connect if you have it on, as will wifi? That will drain the battery. And apple has embedded programs always trying to connect to the mothership.

If you're saying you shut down your iPod when you reach work and it's still draining, I haven't experienced that.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

Yes the iPod does appear to charge when connected - I was half expecting it not to since my late model iPod nano with Lightning connector does not.

"Normal" iPod music playback does seem to pause correctly on car shutdown. I checked a couple of times since the weekend and it seems that the battery drain thing doesn't happen when I've last listened to iPod tracks before shutting down the car. I think it might only be when Spotify has been used last and hasn't paused the playback. So maybe this is just a Spotify problem after all.

@Sean, yes I can make playlists, albums or individual tracks download for offline play with Spotify - the iPod is WiFi only so that's the only way to listen to Spotify stuff while driving about using that device. I was using a bluetooth adapter attached to the ACM cable to stream via Spotify but that got boring switching between that and the iPod nano, plus the nano only held a small fraction of my iTunes, hence the iPod touch seemed like a neat solution.

 

Update - so it appears that the Spotify app can cause massive battery drain on iOS devices, a quick search on Google this morning threw up dozens of forum threads of folks complaining that the app demolishes the battery on their iPhones/iPods/iPads etc. and has been like that for some time. Disappointing as that was half the reason I bought the iPod touch in the first place...

 

Well at least now you know.

 

I have been using Spotify on my iPhone for a couple of years and that isn't something I have experienced. I Bluetooth stream though in the car rather than have it connected to the ACM but do you run Spotify off-line so that it doesn't try and 'phone home'?

 

Is that with just having the app installed on the device not even running? I don't use Spotify but I installed it recently to make a demo, could swear the battery use in my iPhone has gotten worse since...

 

Correct Cambo, even without it running. It affects the iPhone and even shutting off the background refresh doesn't seem to fix it.

 

Well it's an iPod touch so no cell capability, I just set albums or playlists I want to have available for offline use when I'm parked up outside the house in range of the wifi. I have it connected to the iPod cable on the ACM and an official Apple 30-pin to Lightning adapter, I will try and see if it's any different over Bluetooth at the weekend.

I think it's only been when I've last listened to something on Spotify. Generally speaking, if I park up and switch off the car after playing Spotify stuff (i.e. when I arrive at work) then by the time I get back to the car some hours later the iPod battery is almost empty. If I was listening to iTunes stuff then the battery is barely touched.

If you go into the iOS device settings and scroll down to the settings for your apps, under Spotify there's a toggle for "background refresh" or something like that. I read a couple of threads today that suggest disabling that has fixed the problem for a number of people. I'll test it tomorrow and report back.

 

Well this sucks, it's greyed out, can't turn it off.



Looks like I'll be uninstalling then, I only use Spotify for demonstrating the InControl Apps in other cars, not in my own.

 

Uninstalled Spotify and yep battery life greatly improved.

How about that!

 

If you only have the free account then it might work differently, there's a fair bit of stuff you only get with one of the paid accounts. I have premium, got a 3 month free trial when I bought a SONOS speaker for the house and it's sort of evolved to become the platform that all the music playing devices we have is based around. For (just) under £10/month, all the music I can eat and offline play it's hard to justify continuing to buy several new albums each month on iTunes etc.

So yesterday, returned to my car after work having used iTunes on the iPod to listen to music on the way in and I still had 95% battery when I started it up. This morning I specifically listened to something on Spotify (having switched that setting off) so will see what's what in few hours.

 

My Kids all have iPhones and half of them have Spotify. They have the same complaint about the battery drain and turning of the background feature did nothing for them. It seems to only work on a lucky few.

 

If Spotify is the culprit on the iPhone then it should appear in the battery usage list in the settings menu. I have been listening to my exhaust more rather than music recently and Spotify only claims to have used 3% of the battery since the last charge.

Even when I was using Spotify heavily in the car I could still go up to 5 days between charges on my iPhone 6+. The battery isn't so large in my 8+ but I still manage around 4 days.

 

Thanks for that. I've tried checking the battery info in the settings but it just shows a message saying something like battery info will be available when you have used the device for a few minutes. I haven't spent a lot of time on it though, will look at it again this week.