I've been pretty good about figuring this stuff out, but . . .

1. is the radio unit ever actually "off?" I know the knob/button mutes the sound, but is the radio/cd technically off?

2. what are the "Xs" that show up on the Nav screen (typically blue.)? Thanks

Wondered the same thing about the radio; but its kind of a moot point isn't it? Mute = "off" in this case.

The blue XX symbols are the locations of whatever the last type of location you were searching through. For instance, if you are looking through "fast food" restaurants in the navigation information menu and then go to your map, it shows the locations of all of the fast food places in blue...

Stu - thanks about the XX, should have known. Re the mute and off, mute would still be drawing power (albeit an insignificant amount.) Still drawing from the old d ays when you were told to turn off everthing when starting up. Thanks. :)

To elaborate on the XX's, the blue symbols that show up on the map are not always XX's.

For example, if you last looked at restaurants, you'll see little blue knives and forks (or something like that). If you last looked for ATM's, I believe dollar signs show up in blue, etc.

To elaborate on the radio/cd 'off' question...

The radio is still on when you push the button on the dash to silence it. The evidence for this is that the radio station you're tuned to shows up on the status line on the iDrive display, with a line through the speaker symbol. That's why I'm thinking it's still officially 'on'. If you're playing a cd and hit the 'off' button on the dash, it appears that the cd is still playing, in my car, at least. There have been conflicting reports as to whether that dash button pauses the cd or just mutes it. The jury's still out and the results could easily change with the next release of software. However, the cd appears to definitely either pause or turn off (how would one know?) if you change to radio while the cd is playing. This appears to be close to a guaranteed 'pause' whereas just pushing the button does not guarantee a 'pause'. I'm not sure if there's an effective difference between pause and 'off' other than the power draw and losing your place when you want to listen again. Hopefully, this makes a smattering of sense, but I'm not really sure!

Sam

me neither :)

I think that the CD keeps playing while off/muted only happens in cars that have the professional nav system.

As for getting the CD to pause, I read somewhere that if you turn the volume whole the way down while playing a CD, it would pause it. I haven't tried this yet but I would be really surprised if it worked like that cause it wouldn't make any sense!

The CD still playing when 'turned off' is a known software fault, supposedly fixed in version 12. This version 12 must the most awaited version of software I know.

You're right. It seems we all expect v12 to be a cure all. I'm an eternal optimist but I seriously doubt v12 will be the last highly anticipated software release.

We'll most likely be here in late summer/early fall discussing when the next version after 12 will be released!

I fly a very powerful add-on aircraft to MS Flightsim '04. The company that makes it runs a support forum and actually gets on and posts about updates that 'it's getting close'...'any day now'...'you're going to be amazed'...etc. This thing has a huge following and people go completely nuts. Our hotly aniticpated v12 isn't quite to that stage. For me, I am completely and totally ecstatic with whatever version of car I have. For the aircraft, I was also completely satisfied and watched the furor from the bleacher seats. However, when the update did come out, I found myself up in the middle of the night trying to get on their server, constantly hitting F5 for hours till I got in. Hmmmm....

Sam