Yikes! That's not what I wanted to hear. I guess it's off to Plan B. What happens if I connect the iPod through the jack in the front of the stereo? Does the functionality change? I mean, can I use the iPod to select songs that way? Any downsides to that other than having a wire hanging off the dash?

 

Just because it's able to play all the songs doesn't mean you can't filter them out. If you only want to play your playlist you can.

If you plug it into the aux jack you can control the iPod exactly as if you were using headphones. The stereo doesn't do anything.

 

Oh, OK. I misunderstood. So I can choose my playlist and plug into the USB jack in the glove box and it will play that playlist?

Is there any negative to using aux jack in sound quality or such? That seems like a good option since a cable can be had for very little $$$.

Thanks again for your help. I am more encouraged about it now.

 

I don't know about sound quality differences, I just haven't tried it. I use the USB because I have an iPhone and it charges while playing. It's a good way to keep the battery topped up.

 

yep that's what I do...no way I want to try and sift through 3000 songs to listen to an artist who's name starts with w,x,y, or z.

 

If you have an Iphone 3gs you can still use the voice control while it is plugged into the USB port This means you dont ever have to scroll with the radio itself. So if you want to play a specific artist, you just hold down the home button and say 'play artist: Iron Maiden' or 'Play Playlist: Top 25 Most played' Its hella cool and means you only need one cable to charge and listen (not to mention you can laugh at those FORD SYNC commercials because my cheapass iphone can do the exact same thing). Plus the usb cable will play music from aps like Pandora Internet Radio. And you have your GPS access in the same unit (with live traffic updates and damn near infinite poi's that would never be on a garmin. All and All the iPhone is a great accesory with our car and absolutely worth $70 a month (if you work for a company like Allstate you get a corporate discount too ).

 

OK, this is bad. I have an iPod Touch but now I know I'll be getting an iPhone very soon. Will the spending never end????

BTW, can you confirm that the iPhone charges while it's plugged into the USB jack?

 

I've had my Fit for a couple of weeks and I just wanted to report back that the iPod connection is fantastic, IMO. It's just a matter of getting your playlists organized on your iPod and then all is well. You can easily control it through the radio and it sounds stupendous. Having your iPod in the glove box is nice too--no nasty wires all over the car. So anyone hung up on this particular thing about the Fit (as I was before I actually got the car), rest assured, this is the least of your problems in life. Plug in and enjoy!

 

I cant seem to get the hang of the interface. Does it work better with playlists? Right now I dont have any, and am trying to navigate via artist/album, and I usually end up playing ALL the songs in alphabetical order!

 

Can anyone think of a better way (besides playlists) to find Podcasts on an iPod connected via USB? I want to use the stereo to navigate to all Podcasts, and then down from there- but Honda seems to have left them out as a category.. I'd rather not use the line input jack, since I want my iPod to charge while I'm driving. Now that I think about it I wonder what would happen if I plugged my iPod into the USB and line-in jack on my Fit at the same time!? Would something explode

 

Sounds like you understand the interface. Yeah, you can't really "find" a song, artist, album. You have to use the menu to cycle through them.

The playlists are a huge advantage. I have smartlists set up for genre, ratings, most played, etc. I also have "dumb" playlists where I just drag in tunes. It's like the old skool version of mixing a tape. If you don't have any playlists and a big library, it will get tedious.

I think it works wonderfully well for doing it through the radio. I mean, you can't expect them to put an iPod interface into the radio. That would cost money for the hardware and they'd probably have to license the software from Apple. I suppose you can complain that the iPod music app becomes incapacitated and you can't control the music through that but I have no complaints. I really don't want to be playing with my iPod at 65mph anyway. Or maybe I just have lower expectations of this stuff.

 

Holy cow I just realized what a Smart Playlist is- omg that solves pretty much every interface problem with the Fit radio- hurray!!

 

I bet that made your whole day.

 

I wish we could update the car stereo's firmware because there is a bug when navigating through its interface.

For example: I have 10 artists and each of them has 10 albuns. When I just want to change the album I have to press the Push/Select button, select the artist again and select the album. That's so stupid!

The top button (that should work as "back" button) works IF you start from the beginning which is Push>Scroll to whatever you want>Back....

The "back" button stop working as soon as you start listen to a song.