alantan

That's right, even in Canada 6FL came without the iPod cable.
Hi Jonathan, do you still have that "extra" iPod connector cable or do you know anyone has one. My SA here in Canada does not have one even if I want to pay the extra.


For using normal USB cable with iPod -- the iPod can "work" with some limitations:
1) you iPod has to be synced to a Windows iTunes, Mac formated iPod won't work;
2) it actually is used by the Bimmer's MP3 player as an external USB storage -- the music is decoded by the Bimmer radio (the one that plays MP3 on CDs), not your iPod,
3) the Bimmer radio is capable of analyzing ID3 tags of MP3 files and display artist/gene/album/playlist, looks very similar to iPod but not exactly the same,
4) the Bimmer radio won't be able to display the correct song name if ID3 tag is empty (as iPod use cryptical file names),
5) I noticed the sound quality is worse than native iPod played through Aux In port (this is personal preferances though, I feel the sounds is more saturated and better reconstructed when it is played by iPod via Aux in)
6) the Bimmer radio needs to build play list(analyze ID3 tag for all MP3 files) this takes a while if your collection is big,
7) Bimmer radio won't be able to play AAC files those you purchased from iTunes.

So I would still consider the iPod integration valuable. Too bad Bimmer decided not to provide that as standard for 6FL out of US.

BTW,
a) if you use standard USB cable it seems the Radio Professional (my 328xi does not have iDrive) does not even show "iPod" as an Audio source in the list. (I only see Tune, CD, Aux, USB -- 4 options, I do not see iPod in the list at all, so the iPod can only work like a USB harddrive)
b) the Kenwood KCA-ip200 cable which does the same job for Kenwood will NOT work with 6FL, apparently the little black box in the middle of the 6FL iPod cable does something make the radio think there is an iPod. Normal USB/Aux split cables (like the KCA-ip200 and pocketdock) are not sufficiant for the 6FL to recognize iPod as anything other than a USB drive.

mikkoworld

I just got my '08 E60 with UBS option. I've a new iPod Classic. I didn't know first the existence of BMW genuine iPod cable so I connected the iPod via Apple usb cable. First everything worked well untill I downloaded all my music on it, about 20G. Then started problems, it took ages to load song names, it multiplied most of the albums and songs, songs were not in alphabetical order etc.

Then I read manual more closely and found out about special BMW cable. Finally I got bored with the problems and spent 50? (80$) for genuine BMW cable. I think that is a rip of price but no can do... After all I'm very satisfied with my purchase and the way iPod can be used via iDrive.

Funny thing was though that a 10G music file copied from a friend on my iPod worked fine via Apple usb without no delays in loading albums or songs, of course you had to search songs under each album file but still...

I can recommend investing into BMW cable, worth of every penny.