Old Ipod works ok?
 

I have an older Ipod with lots of music on it. On my 2010 ES I could just plug it into the USB port and would work fine and play through the radio. Now the new 2019 doesn't seem to recognize it? What am I doing wrong?

Probably need to go through the AUX port. Better yet, load your music to a flash drive and play from that.

Unfortunately the newer Lexus systems doesn’t work well with the old software from iPod. I used to play music from an old iPod on my 2017 GS but it started occasionally freezing and rebooting the system. The dealer and region technology specialist deemed the system problems to be the old iPod, so I stopped using it...the battery in the iPod was terrible anyways and wouldn’t work for a while if I didn’t drive the car for a few days.

Either, like already mentioned, use a flash drive...or...transfer to your phone...or...get a music streaming service.

Interesting suggestion! I've used a Bluetooth connection from my phone to stream music. First was Pandora, then Spotify, Apple Music, and now Prime Music. They all work OK, but the connectivity to the car and flaky issues with the streaming apps have been problematic for all services. So now I'm thinking I might try a flash drive. Because I've been streaming for so long, I'm thinking I'll have to buy a lot of new music and figure out how to get it on a flash drive. I've simply never looked into how to do that with the different formats.

Why is it better on a flash drive? Is there any change in the sound quality? I read about using a flash drive in the manual, but didn't pay much attention to it because I didn't use it. Is it difficult to manage the music on the drive, or to find individual songs, artists, or genres?

Does the iPod have the latest iOS version? Our first Gen iPod worked well in a 2014 ES300h
and also a 2018 ES300h.

A regular iPod doesn't run iOS.

I guess the quality depends on the source of the file although I'm no expert on this subject. I just notice that some songs sound quite good and others not so much. Your other option is to stream through the ENFORM APPS - like Slacker or any of the others. Just set up a free account on the APP of your choice, download ENFORM 2.0 to your phone, pair the phone to the ES and you're good to go.

I have terrible cell reception in my neighborhood and solved the problem by using Spotify premium. Now, I just simply download all the songs added to my playlist and never have any issues.

I’ve used a 5th generation iPod Video on a 2019 GS350 without any issues. While I haven’t tested it out on a Gen 10 car like the ES yet, it should still work the same. I’ll have to test my iPod out in an ES when I get a chance.

Using a flash drive isn’t a bad idea either.

I think he has an iPod Classic older design - not the touch screen.

If you look in your owner's manual, it will show compatible iPods. If it's not compatible, personally I would get a newer compatible iPod over using a flash drive. Kinda depends on how much music you have. With a flash drive, the car itself is having to index the music which can slow the process of the music loading. With an iPod, the iPod itself handles the indexing which it's much faster at since that's what it was designed for.

Never have an issue with flash drive loading music and nothing to carry around.

That's great! I've just seen those issues when there was a BUNCH of music on the flash drive. But I would imagine most people would just leave the iPod in the car. That's what I do.

Takes up way more space than the flash drive:)

The other possibility is to dump a few hundred tunes onto your phone and just bluetooth it. Personally I have different play lists on a USB drive (2,500) and another 800 on a phone, so I can switch around as I feel like. For long trips I have an additional 2,500 on an iPad that I can Bluetooth or USB connect. I agree that it takes the car a minute or so to index the USB stick but I can go days without repeating.