Normally, I’d love to take a case against Apple, primarily because I’m an asshole and like to bitch, however in this rare instance I think the growing number of people complaining about how iOS4 ‘broke’ their car stereo are full of shit.
I won’t get into how Apple isn’t the one breaking your stereo single handedly… I will say that I think Apple does have a responsibility to ensure new firmware updates on older devices allots for compliance and functionality with firmware of other hardware that claim iPod / iPhone integration. That said, I seriously doubt that Apple would release a firmware update and ‘forget’ to tell Kenwood, JVC, Pioneer, and Alpine that last years model of headunits should get firmware updates because new iOS features would negatively effect them otherwise. So, it’s not a firmware issue between devices.
Moving on…
I too found myself this morning driving to where ever I was driving, staring at my Kenwood. Apparently the song I was listening to was “/”. The problem is that I should have been listening to DJ Krush “Univearth” (because that’s what I picked). Then I sort of unexpectedly panicked.
“Great, because I it’s been too long since I replaced something, right?”, I thought to myself as I continued on.
Pulling into a gas station (because let’s face it…FM radio is about as pleasant as a two year old with those popper things), I ran through a series of practical fixes: unplug the device and plug it back in, turn off the car and reboot the headunit, power down the iPod and turn it back on, and a combination of the three. Nope.
I could run through the menus just fine, so the fact it was half working made this experience even more aggravating - it was like the side boob shot, teasing your mind with something awesome but never giving it to you proper. I could even select albums, artists, songs, genres, etc… and all that would display after I made any selection was “/”.
Then I thought back to a problem I had previously and recently. Prior to the latest version of iTunes it would take my iPod a few minutes to register. I have no idea why, nor did I have an interest in knowing - it just did and I wasn’t going to make wild guesses or waste time investigating something that was a result of something else I would most likely never be able to change; so I let that ride, so to speak. I had also recently had an issue with iBooks not always syncing the books I’ve acquired properly. The cover would display, but the content would never be there (I’d get a message about it). So, I figured - I might as well try to re-sync my device with iTunes. Now that the problem also happened with my audio it wouldn’t hurt to try this as a solution before claiming that either Kenwood failed to stay current with Apple or that Apple failed to consider third party, and since of the two devices of my hardware has seldom if ever been an issue I felt this would likely solve my problem. It did.
The lesson here -
Apple didn’t break a fucking thing in terms of hardware or firmware, iTunes is just being flakey again.
P.S. Yes, since I fixed it I’ve tried another iPod / PC cable to test if the cable was going bad and I’ve used another Kenwood USB / iPod cable in the car to see if there might have been an issue there. There were none and I’ve not gotten the issue recreated… but why would I really want to?
I’m not mad at you Apple… not today anyway.
