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brsedu

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 9, 2009
22
3
Sacramento, CA
i currently have an iPod classic 160gb connected via usb to my car stereo, where I have synced my entire iTunes music library, taking up almost 80gb of space. I control it through the car's factory stereo system (BMW iDrive). I am happy with this setup, but recognize this iPod won't last forever. My biggest gripe is having to sync new music and playlists to it when they are added to my library (by physically removing it from the car, connecting to my computer, etc.)

I am considering a 128gb iPod touch to replace the classic.

I really enjoy the ease of iTunes Match with iPhone and iPad, but I want to know about some possible limitations of using it in my car and keeping it always upated with the most recent downloads and playlists.

My car stays in the garage at night, and my home wifi can connect to devices in the car, so automatically downloading new music to the iPod touch could happen then.

If I get all of my music initially onto the iPod touch when I set it up (just load all artists, albums, and songs) and turn on iTunes Match, I will see all playlists when it finishes matching.... No problem there.

But when I am driving and away from wifi, will the playlists disappear? I don't want to manually add all the playlists, since that is time consuming, and I want to have the playlists automatically update like they do with my iPhone, and via wifi in the garage will satisfy that. And there is no consistent way that I can find to connect the iPod touch to my iPhone's hotspot automatically, every time I get In the car. I really just want a low-effort way of maintaining content on an iPod touch while leaving it always in the center console.

So, my question is, without wifi or hotspot, will I be able to access things like playlists or even matched songs (but not downloaded) and play them? Or do these iTunes Match features disappear in absence of data connection?

Thanks for your help.
 

venom600

macrumors 65816
Mar 23, 2003
1,295
1,098
Los Angeles, CA
Match downloads an index of your music, so it would appear to be there. However, unless you have specifically downloaded a playlist of music to the device, it won't play without an internet connection.
 

Gav2k

macrumors G3
Jul 24, 2009
9,216
1,608
Providing you download the music to the iPod touch playlists will be visible
 

Mlrollin91

macrumors G5
Nov 20, 2008
14,119
10,106
Well if you have an iPod Touch, you can use iTunes WiFi Sync. Therefore, you wouldn't ever need to remove your iPod from you car and you can just hit sync and it will make sure your music library is up to date. I do it with my old iPhone 4s that is in my car.
 

awair

macrumors regular
Sep 6, 2011
103
15
When you first turn on iTunes Match, all playlists will synchronise (but not the songs/media) in those lists.

To play anything (at first) you must have a data connection (wifi or cellular).

You can choose to download (make available offline), any or all of your content. You can do this by playlist, artist, album, genre or any other 'slice' that you can think of.

Once you have the complete contents (media) from a playlist, you no longer need any connection, except to update any new changes.

If you have downloaded only partially a particular playlist, then playback will pause at the missing item.
 

jimmirehman

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2012
502
341
i use an ipod touch in my car and i have iTunes wifi Sync enabled so i dont need to remove the ipod from the car, as long as i am home and connected to the wifi (which it will automatically do, once in range), i am good to go.
 
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