There seems to be a lot of you who want to connect ipods and other music devices to old radios, and some have done it quite successfully and without damaging the integrity of the radio or cockpit. The ever important quest of having "our tunes" with us!
On Friday I took delivery of my new daily driver, a Ford Taurus X. Quite unbeknownst to me--or my wife who works for Ford and ordered it, it came with this new Microsoft Sync system. You had to know the Microsoft logo was going to appear on wheels sooner or later.
Anyway, the documentation is useless so I'm having to figure out things on my own. One thing I've discovered so far, is that you can load up a USB flash drive with all the MP3 music you want, plug it into the USB port hidden in the console, and lo and behold, "Sync" will index and categorize everything on the drive by artist/album/track/genre, and not only play it (like an ipod but darn those flash drives are a lot cheaper!!!)but respond to voice commands as well. You can also connect all manner of ipods and similar media players, too.
Another thing it will do is command a bluetooth phone by your voice. Since I don't have one of those, it might be on my "to get" list. I won't be caught dead with a bluetooth ear-pod, but hands-free and voice-command phone in the car sounds worthwhile.
A USB port in a car: this has a high wow factor for me. Just like the adaptive cruise control on the new MB's I experienced, where the car used various sensors to adapt your set speed to immediate condtions around you.
Isn't technology wonderful.
Michael Salemi
1969 280SL
Signal Red 568G w/Black Leather (Restored)
President, International Stars Section
Mercedes-Benz Club of America
