iPhone or Droid for playing music through Bluetooth in new car

[Don Morris]

Been looking at new cars because my little 4 banger Rav4 just doesn't hack it on the highway going quickly around those big UPS trucks, etc. Other than that it's been a great performer, but after 6 years and 101,000 it's time and I'm ready to upgrade to a new car with hands free Bluetooth technology. I don't have a smartphone so I'm not real savy about them. My grandson uses a Droid because he can transfer music easier he says, than his sister who uses a lot of itunes on her iPhone and has to go through a lot of trouble to move music around. I'm going to make the move to iPhone or Droid and transferring our music to them and playing the music through a new car system easily is what I'm asking? Would there be any difference between the two phones? Anyone with knowledge in that area care to comment please.

[John Shuk]

I have a Droid and have no problems playing music with Google Music app in my car. Uploading my cds and buying music is easy and they are available on any device I can log into. I'm a little turned off to Itunes when I see how difficult it is to access my music wherever I want without paying more money and jumping through hoops.

[Eric DeSilva]

I use iTunes and I'm not sure I understand people's issue with the program. It is a bit large and clunky, but for my purposes, it works fine. I will caveat that by saying that I don't purchase things from the iTunes Music Store--I rip all my own CDs. The ripper in iTunes is pretty accurate, and I've been relatively happy with the auto-tagging and database lookup. I actually find that iTunes is pretty good for tagging and the sort functions work well.

I'm a bit (ahem) of an audiophile, so I distrust bluetooth as a mechanism for music playback--it is great for handsfree, but the fidelity of phone voice is pretty low. I know there are BT profiles that differ markedly for audio, but the only wireless music transmission I've dealt with (a wireless headset) hasn't left me happy with the audio quality. I prefer using the line-out from the iPhone to an AUX input in the car. I use a Pro-Clip USA car mount for my phone with a phone-specific dock, so I slide my phone in a cradle and it charges and connects with the audio system. I still use the iPhone to navigate through what I play, but I usually leave things on shuffle anyway.

[Shawn Pixley]

My wife's car has bluetooth audio. She plays her iPhone through it. I don't think there is a significant difference between bluetooth and a direct connection. My car has only a direct connection. As to iTunes vs Droid I have no personal experience. I use iTunes to sync four devices with 2800+ songs. No issues.

My friend who was a Droid afficianado switched to iPhone because he found the Droid unreliable. YMMV...

[Don Morris]

Thanks for the replies, probably go iPhone as we have a lot of iTunes on iPod and we have Macs. Just wondered because we haven't made the "jump" yet, and need to ASAP. But, can see the advantage of having a smart phone. Too many times I wish I had one after seeing what my sons are able to do with theirs. One has two, including Blackberry. Blackberry only for work, because of it's security features (works Homeland security issues).

[Matt Meiser]

We have iPhones and Ford/Microsoft Sync in both our vehicles. It works well, except that the iPhone seems to get confused moving car to car. I have to turn off Bluetooth on the phone and turn it back on to switch. With Sync and Bluetooth, the phone works with voice commands and you get limited (play/pause) voice commands for music. With the USB connection supplied, the voice command set is much richer, being able to select songs, playlists, artists, etc. I don't know if that's just how Ford/MS implemented the Bluetooth interface or if that's all it supports.

When you choose the car, I highly recommend the ProClip (http://www.proclipusa.com) mounting system. I've get them in both our vehicles and its amazing how much better a good bracket works than sticking the phone in a cup holder, on the dash, etc. They aren't cheap, but over the life of a car...

We switched from Android phones to iPhones from Verizon and couldn't be happier. I liked both but we had hardware issues with our Android phones and we had Sprint who's network is apparently falling apart. I could go either way on the OS, but I also have and iPad and found switching to be a little confusing. The pair works great together, syncing changes, music, etc.

[Myk Rian]

Any phone with music and bluetooth on it will play through the system.
Our Taurus has a USB connection in the arm rest. Just plug a thumb drive in it and start playing music.
The systems are not complicated, and you don't even need a smart phone.

[Jim Becker]

As long as the device and OS supports the proper standards for BlueTooth playback, it should work just fine.

My new Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Summit has the BlueTooth playback and I use it with my iPhone. I love having ditched the cable to the headphone jack that I had to use on my previous vehicle and honestly, the sound quality is excellent. My only gripe is that I have to select the device for playback each time I want to use it. But that may be a limitation of the MyGig audio system. Outside of that...great system.

[Don Morris]

Thanks, will show the proclip system to LOML, I think that makes sense. But will look as others. We test drove the new Santa Fe. Great electronics, but the drive was very harsh. Mazda "A" frame almost touched my wife's head as she has to sit upright because of back problems. New Highlander needs smartphones for Navigation and they put a smaller navigation screen in which isn't much bigger than my Garmin. After all was said and done, we ended up going for broke. And I mean broke. LOML always loved the Aura MDXs. The 2013s just came out so we got a deal on a 2012 which were getting scarce. Not the color we wanted but reasonable price with bluetooth, etc. Now to the Verizon store for a deal on an iPhone 4s. Since the iPhone 5 just came out the 4s should be on sale, hopefully.