# Android as MP3 Player & BMW USB (need Y-cable or AUX cable?)



## Teleskier (Jun 30, 2012)

All this talk of Ipod owners needing to take special Y-cable adapters to Munich with them to be able to play music in their cars has me confused.

The X1 has a USB port, which I assume will charge my phone over its standard USB cable.

How does it work for music? I still connect over USB and somehow my music player connects such that my song gets played over the car stereo, or do I need a RCA cable from my phone's headphone jack into some AUX input on the BMW?


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## thumper_330 (Jan 3, 2009)

Android devices can work in a couple of ways. Probably the best integrated approach is to use USB Mass Storage mode, which basically makes the phone look like a USB stick attached to the car. Works like a champ, but won't work with any Apple files; only MP3 and WMA I believe. So if you have iTunes music synced to your Android device then it won't play.

However, with the latest Android (Jelly Bean, and Ice Cream Sandwich as well) Google have pitched the USB Mass Storage mode in favour of a media mode that doesn't work with iDrive. Really annoying that. On the flip side though, I've gotten to the point I just have my phone (Google Nexus) in a cradle on my dash, but play via Bluetooth... gives me control from the phone screen instead of the iDrive... but since I mostly listen to long podcasts and audiobooks it's not a huge problem for me.


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## Teleskier (Jun 30, 2012)

That sounds fine - Idrive can see my MP3 files on the phone and play them.

Does Idrive let you make playlists?

Edit: I'll answer my own questions in case it helps others.

It seems the Idrive system has 8G of storage, where you can import your music into IDrive itself

You can have playlists there, these are .m3u files, where any "C:/user/song.mp3" dir paths must be stripped (ie, local "song.mp3" only).


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