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      06-03-2014, 10:20 PM   #1
Can_Car
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can anyone explain why there's 2 different USB ports?

I have an iPod Classic (80GB) that I used on my previous car to store and play all of my music.

In my X1 I can attach the iPod to the USB port in front of the shifter and everything works fine. Playlists and album art are recognized, all good.

Unfortunately I'd like to keep the iPod connected all the time but leaving it out in the open connected to that port is just asking for a break in. An ideal solution would be to keep it connected to the 2nd USB port in the glovebox but unforunately that port doesn't act in the same way (only seems to be usable to import music).

So my question is if anyone can come up with a reason why the USB ports act differently? This would be pretty much unheard of on pretty much any computer system where all USB ports generally work universally.
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      06-03-2014, 11:05 PM   #2
danielj
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You answered your own question. Front facing is to play music. The glove box is to download music, update the Nav software. I too would like to leave an iPod in the glove box but it's not possible.
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      06-04-2014, 03:48 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by danielj View Post
You answered your own question. Front facing is to play music. The glove box is to download music, update the Nav software. I too would like to leave an iPod in the glove box but it's not possible.
Bingo. Different ports for different jobs.

It really sucks that there's no port in the center console, unless you buy the DATA snap-in and an iPod touch or old iPhone to use as a music box.
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      06-04-2014, 08:09 PM   #4
Can_Car
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My question is really about why BMW chose to make two different USB ports? Why not have both ports allow a connection to a media device for playing music or importing data?
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      06-04-2014, 11:04 PM   #5
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A typical USB interface communicates with the mother board bus. When an action takes place the CPU directs it to happen via a particular protocol. The iDrive while a computer is kinda of dumb. So each USB port is specialized. The USB in the front and in the center console communicates directly with the iDrive. Which has the needed interface to pull the full iPod/iPhone data. Whereas the glove box USB communicates directly and only with the storage device with an interface that can pull particular files for disk storage (i.e. music, maps, etc.). These are specialized interfaces that are not compatible.

Such specialized port are not uncommon with peripheral devices. For instance, some printers can take a flash disk directly. You can put any type of data on the flash disk but the printer will only pull particular files (i.e. jpeg) to print. But at the same time you can plug a USB stick in to your computer and pull documents and images and send them to the printer. The storage device in the iDrive is similar to the printer.

Hopefully that makes some sense.
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