I took my car early this morning to my dealer for my sqeaking brake problem. On my way out i met with the service manager, who asked me if i wanted Acura I-POD integration in my glove compartment. Acura wants to see if the I-POD would work in a 05 RL, and they found that my car would be the best to test on, so they'll work on it today. Of course its at no charge.
From my experience with the rear view camera, i don't think it'll work, but i'm not paying for anything, and if they break it, they'll fix it

 

It works fine on the 05. They told me Acura would only guarantee it would work on the 06 and that if it did not work it would be my problem. I went ahead and had them install it also had them put it in the center console instead of the glove box. It works great. It took about a week to get used to the controls, but I find I use them more in my Acura than in my other car where I have to use the iPod screen to navigate and make selections.

It is nice that they were willing to do this for free.

Kris

 

can you control the ipod from the 05 rl? if so what functions? can you view titles and tracks?

 

There are 2-3 other posts in this forum that answer all of your questions. I would suggest reading those instead of having people reiterate it all here again.

 

I wonder if we would be able to play movies using Ipod video.
KGD, my navi screen displays extension, how did you verify yours?

 

Once your dealer completes the kit install I'd be interested in hearing your comparison of Acura's iPod integration vs. MB's iPod integration in your CL65AMG, especially which one you think a regular iPod user would find most intuitive. As more car makers finally embrace the ubiquity of the iPod I think a lot of people want to know who gets it right and who doesn't (a lot like the way some get the Navi interface and some don't).

 

karl, if you read the last post, i changed my mind about the CL65AMG. I sent some papers to US custom, and waiting the approval to get one of my cars from my country, which will really make up for the CL performance.

 

Just did the iPod setup in my 05 -- works fine.

You're supposed to be able to search and do a bunch of other features, but as of yet, I haven't been able to get them to work. The kit comes with a CD, but I have no idea what it's for (in fact the cd will no play it).

Anybody get all the features to work? Right now I just go to CDC, and it displays track and disc # -- nothing else. The steering wheel controls work fine.

-N

 

Nabbs,
I believe that Ipods is mainly for 06 RL, and only they can perform all the features, and since it wasn't meant for 05 RL, the best we get is the Extension message on the navi screen and we are lucky that it even work with the 05 setting.
The CD that comes with the kit has Acura TTS, which adds voice tags to your songs so you can perform different type of searchs using voice command, but only in a 06 RL.
Steering wheel controls work fine, but its pointless without seeing playing lists

 

Can anyone confirm this? Also any links out there that say how it acts on the 06?

Hey, the alternative is to not play an iPod on your 05, so I don't see the downside. Short money to get your iPod in, and the install is only about an hour and change to do. I am very happy with mine.

-N

 

The software will work with the 05. You need to load the software on your PC and it will then integrate with I-tunes. I-tunes will then add the voice tags to your iPod. Then when you do the searches you will hear the voice tags. The tags will be based on the voice engine on your PC. If you want to spend about $30 you can get some voices that sound less "computerized". I opted to use the standard one included with Windows and it works fine for me. A few names are butchered a bit, but I can always tell what the name is. Once the tags are on your iPod Disks 1-6 will determine the type of search (Play list, Artist, Album, Genre, Album shuffle and All music shuffle) you are doing. The Tune button will initiate the searches, you press the Seek button when you get the to letter of the Alphabet you want to search, press and hold the Seek button again for about 1 second to search within the letter of the alphabet. When you hear the Artist, Play list, Album, Etc. you are looking for press seek again. You can use both the forward and backward buttons ("+" and "-") on the Seek and Tune buttons to get to your desired search result faster (ie. use the Seek - button to get to a "V" entry).

Kris

 

Awesome, simply awesome!

Any other little tid bits you want to share?

I am loading this up as we speak and will check everything out tomorrow

 

It took a while to add all of the voice tags, but now that it is done it works great. The first search using the tune button will guide you through the alphabet. The second search using the seek button will go through all the tags within the letter of the alphabet you select. You select the letter by hitting the seek button once you hear the letter you want. You then need to hold the seek button for a second or so to start the search of the voice tags within the letter. Press the seek again when you hear the voice tag you want. I was initially having problems with this second search but found I was not holding down the seek button long enough. If you don't hold the button down long enough after selecting the letter you want it will begin playing the item associated with the first voice tag in the letter.

I would still like to know if there is a way to shuffle songs within a playlist. The instructions say if you use the random button it will do this, but that button is within one of the menus on the RL and that menu is not accessible when the iPod input is selected. It would be nice if they could program the Scan button to trigger the shuffle command. If someone figures out how to do this, please let us know.

This setup is nice because you don't have to take your eyes off the road to search for items on the iPod.

Kris

 

Kris -- Thanks again for all the adivce. Unfortunately I am not getting any tags on my ipod. I ran the software on itunes and updated my ipod, but when I plug it in to the car I do not see any of the tagged songs. I can now switch discs, although nothing seems to happen. Any thoughts?

Thanks again,

-N

 

Nabbs,
I had the same problem when i got my ipod, what i did was copy all my files to my library, and deleted them from my Ipod.
Then Installed Acura TTS, which added all the voice tags.
Then i updated my ipod which transfered all the files back.
I have the voice tags, but cannot access them when the ipod is connected to my car.

 

Yah that is the same problem I have here. This is a brand new "out of the box" 60 gig iPod Video, so there were no files on it to begin (I unwrapped it , synched it, and then brought it to my car). I will try updating everything and then go at it again. I was able to get the stereo to look for "R" when the iPod was plugged in, but I will need to bring the instructions next time I go to the car as I had no idea what I was doing. The final thing I've noticed is that the tagging is fair at best -- does anyone know what the s/w uses to generate the tags? I may want to go in and manually retag songs.

Thanks,

-N

 

The tagging uses the standard text to speach engine in Microsoft. I found a couple of third party TTS engines that were around $30 and had much, much better voice patterns, but decided that the standard Microsoft one was fine. For those that have a problem with the tags, it is related to the Microsoft software not the Acuralink software.

To get the voice tags onto your iPod make sure that you run the Acuralink software while iTunes is running. The first time you run it will be slow, but is better after the first time.

Kris

 

I'm seeing the same problem with no RDM button on the external radio controls. It seems there should be a workaround. I called Acura Tech support and a no it can't be done answer, but the tech didn't seem to really have a clue.

Anyone with any answers?

I'm ready to dump musiclink in favor of the USASpec interface, but can't confirm if it will work with an 06 RL with Nav and XM, a lot of contradictions out there on this. Anyone know anymore on this?

Thanks.

 

I'm kinda hating the musiclink as well and I don't even use it anymore already. It was cool for about 2 days but it's such a lame pain in the a$$ to play the music you want to play that it's just not worth it to me 99% of the time. I would love to find a solution that worked better but all of the ones I've found that aren't FM modulated won't work with cars that have navigation. If I paid ~$400 like most people seem to have paid for the musiclink, I'd be pissed off even more.

 

I installed the USA-SPEC PA11-HON2Y on my 2005 RL. Can I still use Acuralink software (what exactly is it?) and add voice tags? Or does it only work with the musiclink equipment and can the software be bought separately?