I recently got a new car and soon after an iPhone 4s. Having committed to moving my data to the cloud I have turned on iTunes Match. It is really a great service but does have a couple of kinks.
The new car, a 2012 Chevy Equinox, has a USB port that allows me to connect my iPhone to the car and will charge the phone as well as let me control the music on the phone using the vehicles radio.
Prior to signing up for Match I tried a couple of times to use the iPhone through the USB connection and frankly it’s not all that great. My main complaint is I like to listen to albums. When I listen to an album I want to hear it in the order it was meant to be played, not alphabetically. Once connected to the car there is no way to change this. I have to use the car controls as the iPhones music controls are locked out. I decided to abandon the USB port for listening to music and only use it if the phone needs a charge. I am hoping the Chevy will change this behavior at some point so I can charge my phone and listen to an album in its proper order at the same time.
After turning on iTunes Match I’ve encountered another little problem. I waned to listen to some music and charge my phone in he car. The music was playing fine when I was at home and figured I would just have to connect it when I was in the car. This did not work as planned. I got in the car, turned it on, and connected the iPhone to the USB port and on my screen appeared the message no content. No content? I was listening to music to the very moment I connected the USB port and now I have no content? I unplugged the USB cable and the music was still playing; plug it back in and again I have no content. This is a bit frustrating. Now It seems that I can’t charge my phone and listen to music in the car at the same time if I use iTunes Match.
I suspect there are a couple of glitches in effect here. First off I have played some music from the phone while connected via USB after turning on match, but in order to get the radio to recognize and play those songs I had to first download them otherwise the car would act as if they weren’t there. I would have to disconnect the phone from the car, download the tracks, then reconnect for them to play. If the tracks were not already downloaded when I selected them using the vehicles stereo I would hear nothing until a song that had been previously downloaded was found and then that one would play.
I’m hoping that there is a fix for all of these issues. It would be nice to be able to listen to my albums in order. Of course, now it would be nice if I could listen to anything at all after having turned on iTunes match!