Anyone using an mCar adapter

[BiKenG]

The mobdridge and dension appear exactly the same, and i wonder whether the iPod actually even sends the albums across the datalink when you select an artist, or whether it actually just sends a complete list of the tracks.

Cheers

Richard

When you select an Artist on the iPod, you get a list of that artist's albums and if you select one of those you then get a list of tracks on that album. This is THE standard method for drilling down through music data, apart from any playlists, or direct searches etc.

I've not been able to confirm whether the Dension shows an artist's albums, but the mObridge does and that looks very similar to the Dension. The mObridge also utilises the digital output - apparently although I've not been able to test either claims for myself.

The Parrot systems that have their own displays also use the traditional Artist-Album-Track drill down procedure. But they require AUX in which of course MB in their infinite wisdom decided to drop.

 

[richard]

Ken, yes that is how the iPod User Interface works - but that does not mean that is how Apple present the data over the USB interface! I do strongly agree that given Apple design the interface like that, applications that use iPod should try and implement the same interface given how successful that interface is!!!

And for instance, I use Twonky music server to feed music into my home sound system, and have told it to generate a Artists/Album list so I can select like that at home.

I looked at the Dension manual, (http://www.dension.com/sites/default/files/gateway-500/en/user-guide/gw100300500userguide.pdf) which says you select the artist and you can chose to play all songs by the artist, and does not mention albums.

I also looked at the mobridge manual ( http://www.mobridge-ipod.co.uk/docs/mObridge_user_manual.pdf ) which suggests it works in the same way - i.e "For example, to select Artists from the CD list scroll using the head unit controls to highlight the option. Press the disc control button from the head unit to select. The first song from within the Artists first folder will begin playing automatically and the screen will display as per figure 05."

- and that does seem that it does allow you to then select a folder, which one hopes is the album

I will, of course, ask the mCar manafacturer when/if they will support similar

Cheers

Richard

 

[BiKenG]

I found that the user guides/manuals for all these products are woefully lacking in their explanation of this functionality. Strikes me it's just about the most important aspect, yet they simply gloss over it. However, I've just received a response from Dension to confirm that yes, when you select a single artist you get a list of that artist's albums from which you can pick one to play and/or view the tracks etc.

I also had a long discussion yesterday with the mObridge distributors in the UK (who are as you know, close to both of us) and he was unequivocal in his confirmation that selecting an artist reveals a list of their albums.

To be honest Richard, the mCAR is the ONLY device I've ever come across that has seen fit to cut this out and think it's only necessary to go from selecting an artist to displaying all their tracks. I'm being polite by re-iterating simply that I am baffled that anyone would think it acceptable to do this. My desire to represent music this way is not just a personal quirk. You yourself admit to preferring it this way and I spent many years dealing with music data and database systems and the industry fully understood that was THE way to do it. It was so implicit that it was never even discussed. That was many years before the iPod was even a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye.

Personally, you could eliminate ALL other forms of access to the music. Playlists have some limited usefulness, but nothing else is of any value except the Artist/Album/Track structure. Forget Genre, Genius, Random play (God forbid!) and all the other total trivia. Not necessary, in fact just clutter. Oh, Compilations is essential in order to keep all those artists out of the main list. So top level should just be Artists, Compilations and Playlists. Get rid of everything else.

The reason why iTunes is so good is that its flexibility allows almost everyone to configure it how they like. I use the Sort Album ID3 tag to ensure that an artist's albums are sorted chronologically, i.e. in the order in which they were released. This is the only way that makes sense and is how we used to store our vinyl albums (or is everyone here so young they don't remember vinyl ) But anyone else can choose to not do that and just have them displayed alphabetically if they want. As I said, it's this flexibility that makes it so useful. Sadly, Apple continue to **** it up with their different music products and many behave differently in this respect, but, they ALL allow Artist/Album/Track.

Of course the biggest criticism has to be directed at the car manufacturers who have been so completely slothful in their acceptance of this new technology. Cars are still being made with cassette players!!! My car is almost 2008 and MB should be cringing with embarrassment that even then, they were flogging crap like I have in my car with NO way to add DAB and/or iPod. Not even an AUX input. It's a disgrace, it really is.

Meanwhile, I'm still looking.

 

[richard]

It must be said, I agree completely. I have asked mCar people to implement.

R