I just purchased a Mazda M3 with this fancy Bose stereo system, while it sounds great, the usability s*cks. I loved the decade old Phatbox, I had in my old VW.

My biggest problem is 'play order'. It makes sense to me that when I plug a USB stick with 400 albums into it and start playing ABBA, I would be able to get this unit to 'play though' each artist, in alphabetical order, then for each artist, play albums together, and when it hits ZZ Top 30, 000 miles later it starts over again.

So far, I have only been able to get it to play one album at a time. Actually, it will play all by one artist, but instead of by album, it dutifully alphabetizes each song and plays them in order. Do you know how ridiculous "The Wall" sounds when the songs are played in alphabetical order? Even individual albums do not get played in order of their MP3 tags (track number).

Is there is way to 'play trough'? Artists/Albums? Play albums in proper order?

Another pet peeve is the system always returning to the top of the index to select a new album/artist. If I was just listening to Rush, and I finished listening to Vapor Trails, there should be some way to get back to the album list for Rush, other then going back to all Artists with the selector on ABBA.

And WTF, why is there such a delay in scrolling on the display. If every MP3 tag on my memory stick were cached in memory, surely is would be less the a few MB.

Possibly there is a firmware update to fix this (don't recall seeing one on Maza ToolBox)? Also, is hacking allowed to be discussed here?

Sorry for the long post. My next rant will be why my $75 phone has better voice recognition then my $25K car.

 

There are operating system software updates available from Mazda. Latest is 56.00.100

 

Hmmm, I'm at 55.something or other but MazdaToolbox says I am up to date. Is there some other way to uprev the OS?

 

Simple answer is because Mazda cheaped out on the electronics. When I try using my iPod via this so-called HD Bose stereo, it starts from the beginning of the list of artists and plays 1 song from each in alphabetical order. If you turn off the radio, it will start back at the top of the list.

Mazda's answer to this issue? That's just the way it's designed. The incredibly advanced technology they used does not have any memory in it so it cannot remember where it was when it stopped. Even if I pause my iPod (which I do all the time at home when using it with other radios) and restart the radio, it will reshuffle back to the top of the list.

Mazda absolutely blows. Wish I never bought a car from them and I will absolutely NEVER EVER do business with them again. If I can sell this POS, I will.

 

Hit up Mazda, they are replacing the Bluetooth module, ( which controls the USB system) in Australian models when customers complain.

 

I've had the Bluetooth module replaced already when my phone wouldn't connect and still doesn't work properly. Mazda has been absolutely ****ty in responding to the issues I've raised about their garbage electronics. All they say is that it's functioning as designed. Should've bought a Volkswagen. At least their engineers were smart enough to design a program to beat emissions testing. Mazda engineers couldn't figure out how to program an alarm clock.