Does anyone know if there's a car radio, you can connect your blackberry to, via a data cable? so that you can control what music is playing with your car radio's buttons instead of using the blackberry media player which can be tricky while driving. My friends got one for iPod i can't find one for blackberry... ?
so would it not be possible to do something like: put the blackberry on major storage mode, get a usb kind of wire, and the right connection on the radio?... is that possible?
so would it not be possible to do something like: put the blackberry on major storage mode, get a usb kind of wire, and the right connection on the radio?... is that possible?
I have not tried it but my radio does have a usb mode and I think it will negotiate storage levels. If I get a chance later today I might give it a try.
ok I have never seen one with a usb you can connect but mine car stereo is a pioneer with stereo bluetooth capability. It automatically connects when i start my car and it lets me stream slacker, the mp3 player, or a phone call through the car speakers. I have a storm and it can also control the mp3 player... but not slacker. It can skip tracks forward and back on the stereo but it cant search for a song and it doesnt display the song title. If this idea intrests you i can get you the model number... I did the install myself... the stereo is the least user friendly i have ever had but the sound quality is amazing and once its set up it does everything automatically.
Yeah in theory the mass storage mode option could work I have a Kenwood with USB for Ipod or any USB device. I currently have a USB flash drive connected. I am curious if that will work or not. I will test that out and respond back.
Ok so after replying i remembered my pioneer has a usb jack that I never use so I plugged it in and put it into mass storage mode and sure enough it worked. I could view the file name and control the music from my stereo. only problem was finding the songs i wanted it just showed which number track it was and didnt tell you the name until the song started. It wasnt in any discernible order either... i think it has something to do with how i put the songs on my bb though... i'll take a look at it and get back to you on that.
I tried this morning on a way to a hike but did not have a proper usb cable.
Just went back out to the car with the cable. My Kenwood worked. It took its time scanning the 8gig card. The Kenwood has two modes, I think, one just moves through the folders and plays whatever is the next track. The other mode shows the song titles (mp3 info) and allows me to select. I was able to go folder by folder but that can be tedious since I have, apparently, 73 folders. I don't think it has any search (I will have to check the manual) so you would need to manually move through the folders - might be a driving hazard.
As an aside: it also put my BB into charging mode - so you are not running off of the battery.
My Kenwood is about 2 years old so there may be more current models with better usb characteristics. Unfortunately, so many car stereos are geared to ipods.
My pops has a Kenwood Excelon 492 in his truck and it plays the music off my Pearl's Microsd card just fine. I can use the control knob on the stereo to move through the folders and tracks. It even displays the track/artist name info on the display. Only thing that troubles me a bit is that the battery tends to get warm after a bit and I'm afraid that if I leave it plugged into the headunit for too long it might damage the battery or worse the phone.
this is what i use.
and i plug my bb up to it in the USB port and just use my little remote to go through all my songs. a big plus in having a radio that you can plug you phone up with the USB is no need for a car charger!
Nice one amber. I have a deck like that with the 3.5 mm jack. It is very nice to not only have it charge my phone but also one that I can stream music on with Slacker. Sound quality is awesome...
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Who is your deck made buy? the only time I have "crappy" quality is when the song that I download has bad quality. Other then that I sounds perfect and charges great.
I regret that I bought a car charger...I never get to use it(unless I'm in someone elses car).
I guess I should add: that whatever I did or the usb connection to my car stereo did, my 8830 has now told me my 8gig cards needs formatting. The BB no longer sees any of my music, videos or photos.
The items are still on it and I can see them when the BB is connected to my computer and looking at the sd card as another drive but....
And to further muddy the issue... I decided to use my computer connected to the BB to delete all of the BBthumb.dat files in all of my music, video and photo folders and it appears that the BB is now reindexing them (creating those files anew) and I may not have to copy from the card, format it and copy back to the card.
Unfortunately, unlike a computer, there is no "safely remove devices" option in my car's stereo. Maybe I did not change the mode appropriately before removing the BB from the cable.
Lesson learned. I will not soon be doing this again. Or maybe I will but make sure that I've selected a non-usb mode on the stereo before proceeding.
