iPod Classic compatibility

I can't think of any current model cars that still include the (licensed) hardware & software required to work with a classic iPod.

None of them wanted to spend the money for that license vs. the declining number of iPods still in use.

I switched over to a Sony Walkman player. A mixed bag; it has a few nice features no iPod ever did, but there are some basic things it doesn't do as well as my old iPod.

 

In my gen 1, I had the opposite problem: the car was too old to have heard of an iPod Classic.

I bought a thingy from Dice Electronics that plugged into the iPod and into the car's headunit, and made the iPod appear to be a minidisc player (which was a legit gen 1 Prius option in Japan, so the headunit was happy, and even displayed the track names). There were some other vendors with similar products.

Maybe somebody now makes an iPod to USB adapter that will make the iPod appear to be a read-only flash drive or something that the car recognizes.

 

Somebody is making a gadget that plugs into the 30-pin port on the iPod and turns it into a bluetooth device, but it isn't at all clear whether it is audio-only or if it allows transport control, title data etc.

I vaguely recall that you can put that vintage of iPod into storage mode so that it directly presents itself as a USB mass storage device, but you lose all features- it is literally just a storage device in that mode.

 

Does that manual specifically list a classic Apple iPod, or is it written in the context of more generic USB devices including phones?

It's important because while they are all "USB" the method used by a classic iPod to communicate with a car stereo is not at all the same as what happens when you plug an iPhone, other phone or USB storage device into the same USB port.

Regarding the Sony, it's not as slick as the old iTunes sync deal. I have a smart playlist set to a slightly smaller size than the capacity of the walkman, so when it is time to refresh, I delete everything from the walkman, then select-all and drag from the Music.app window directly into the walkman storage. That triggers a copy, and I get a fresh load of music to go.

This works great for me because 1) the walkman is compatible with the mix of formats I've got including mp3, AAC and Apple Lossless and 2) I've never bothered to make specific playlists in iTunes/Music.app, so it doesn't matter that they don't transfer.

 

Mine says

"Refer to “iPhone/iPod information” for the iPod/iPhone that can be used by the multimedia system. (->P.266)"

Following that reference you get a list covering iPhone 6s to 12 Pro Max with the only iPod being "iPod touch (7th generation)".

 

That is a significant finding- the iPod touch (7th generation) uses the same communication method as the iPhone, rather than the older method used by classic iPods.