Pixelthing.

Ok, this is the last time I whine about the Blue & Me media player in my Abarth 500.

It’s a shoddy piece of kit. In some ways it reminds me of some windows/nokia smartphones. It has a great spec list, and demos really well, but in-use it’s so awkward and buggy that you give up and just go back to CD or radio. It should be a source of shame for Fiat, who have described the 500 as the “iPod of cars”. It’s useless. Crap.

I’ve previously gone through the technical reasons why it is of no real use to an iPhone user (no AAC support, no iPhone support, no non-FAT formatted drive support – see my other post “Day 2 with the Abarth”), but it doesn’t even do what it’s specs say it should do.

I still plug-in a USB stick with music and podcasts (as I previously talked about), and use an applescript to update the MP3s from iTunes. It seemed a bit of a cludgy way of doing it, but by-jove the script does exactly what it should. Actually, I abandoned doing it for music, just doing it manually seemed simpler for a collection that isn’t updated regularly, but it still works like a charm with the podcasts (well, those that aren’t AAC of course, because Blue & Me doesn’t play those…).

The trouble is that the Blue and me system doesn’t always spot the changes to the content of the USB stick. That means that when I select the podcasts folder it often shows podcasts that I know are no longer there (selecting them gives a “no media” error), while not showing the files that I know are there.

Being the sort of person I am, I’ve tried figuring out why. Maybe the old files were still in the hidden “.trashes” folder on the stick (which happens on Macs when you throw something away without flushing the trash). Nope, not that. Maybe the Blue & Me system was creating a hidden tracklist on the stick that wasn’t being updated. Nope, no extra hidden files. Maybe if I insert the stick before the ignition is on? Nope. Maybe if I remove the stick and re-insert it after the ignition is on? Nope.

Hopeless. I’m left with a unintelligent system that can’t read a simple filesystem correctly. Then almost randomly, you’ll start the car or insert the stick and press play, it’ll tell you it’s “reading the catalogue” and when you try again a moment later, hey presto, the MP3s are available to be played. But sometimes only a few appear (maybe it can’t see all of the 8GB stick?).

There are also other niggles, like the crappy use of interface (MP3s only show the title on the dashboard, not the artist), and the lack of any fast forward/rewind (if you hold down the skip, it just skips, a pain when you want to scan through a hour long podcast). It also randomly decides whether you want to listen to the tuner or the media player when you start up the car – it makes no difference how you left it when you turned the ignition off – and it will start where it left off if it starts straight away, but won’t if it starts with the tuner and you have to tell it to play.

In all, it’s buggy as hell. If I was Microsoft, I wouldn’t even want my little logo on it.

I can muddle on with it, but the USB stick was only a viable solution while it worked as advertised – it was already a bit of a pain because I carry and sync music with the iPhone, not some stupid stick that’s still in the car, so it’s already a compromised workflow to get around a problem.

So I’m back to thinking about playing the content on the iPhone through the stereo. As Fiat in their wisdom didn’t put an AUX 3.5mm jack into the Fiat 500 (unlike manufacturers like Ford), Blue & Me doesn’t support A2DP bluetooth streaming, and it seems I can’t find a sneaky CD-disc-changer to 3.5mm jack cable like I used in the Smart, I’m thinking about using old-tech radio transmitters, where the iPhone broadcasts like a very local radio station and I tune the Abarth’s radio into it. It’s not perfect either as I’ll need to click the iphone to skip tracks instead of the steering wheel controls, but at least it would mean access to ALL my music (MP3/AAC/Protected AAC) and start off podcasts/audiobooks where I last left them.

I could wait for the new generation of iPhone/iPod radio transmitters that will properly interface with OS3.0 with on-screen controls, or I could get the belkin variety that plugs into the cigarette socket and charges the iPod at the same time. A more pro alternative would seem to be the DICE electronics Fiat RDS box, which does the same job as a radio transmitter, but direct into the radio antenna socket (so no interference), and shows track info on the radio’s RDS screen, all while charging the iPhone. Seems neat, although it would mean a wire to the iPhone, so where would I put it? And it doesn’t seem to talk and about passing through the existing aerial so you can listen to normal radio. A little more investigation needed.

There is some good news on the technical front – the iPhone (OS3.0) is finally bluetooth connected to the hands free system. It didn’t work for ages (I had a “call failed” response every time I made or received a call). Un-pairing and re-pairing it made no difference. I even restored the iPhone from a backup to rebuild it from scratch but no dice. Then suddenly, one day it paired and copied the address book across as normal and ta-da, it worked. No explanation why. Sigh. Anyway it seems to work pretty well, the only problem being that it makes a deafeningly loud buzzing sound just before it dials a number. Still, compared with the rest of the Blue & Me system, that’s a win.

Away from the “car-as-computer” stuff, the Abarth is a hoot, it’s not had any problems (save kerbing the front nearside alloy a bit – surprisingly easy to do – but still makes you feel like an arse), it’s done a couple of weekends away and been practical, comfortable, quick and above all, fun. Loving it.

And one last thing – random thoughts on the abarth come out at twitter.com/abarth500/