Some 10 days ago I posted a thread griping about not being able to synch' my 4th generation Ipod with the USB Audio port in my brand new LCI E61.
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=39864&hl=ipod
Anyway, thanks to this forum - especially Scandic24 - I managed to find the right cable for the job and below you'll find a photo of the part. Beware you have to hook up both the USB and the Aux in connector.
Navigating all the menus on the Ipod is easy via the iDrive and the sound is perfect.
The Ipod is continually charged too.
The cable works for all Ipods - hardrives and flash.

 

Stormbird,

Thanks for the information.

 

My pleasure - here are some more photos that may help and you can see it works - no sound on the board though

 

NICE! it works!

Bought a new Ipod nano 4gb today!
Wonder if I still need the BMW cable or if I can use the Apple cable? (maybe the BMW cable is for gen.4 and older Ipods?)
Haven?t got my car yet, otherwise it would be easy to try!

 

If you look at the attached documentation you'll see a iPod Nano, so I'll guess you'll need the BMW cable for all iPods..

 

Called my dealer and told him to put the cable in the car when delivery!

 

It's absolutely brilliant. The sound really is perfect - not like the FM trnasmitter I've been using for the last 2 years.
If you like to use your Ipod on shuffle (songs or albums) then you'll need to remember to set the "Shuffle" option to "ON" in the main Menu under Settings of the Ipod itself, as the settings options does not appear via the BMW's iDrive - OK.

 

Nice! The only thing missing is my car!

 

Ah.... one correction... for the moment (can't figure out why) the Ipod is not charging when connected.

 

Further additional and important information to be found on the followinfg thread: http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=40500