Has anyone used their iPhone to play music thru the usb port? When it is connected to the port, music plays for about 2 minutes then it disconnects. I can unplug the Lightning connector from the iPhone but it will not start again. 2016 GS350 with nav and ml radio.

 

I have no issues with mine connected via USB

 

guys, go to lexus dealer and ask for a firmware update for your radio. my 2013 gs received a firmware update, perfect now.

 

2015 Nav & ML here. I use USB exclusively with my iPhone. Worked before and after the firmware upgrade.

 

Why to make our life more complicated via USB? We have Audio BlueTooth in GS, I don't even pull my phone from my pocket.

Another what I discovered recently... If I used live radio app, when I get back to car it start playing radio from that app again, I just need to make sure that particular app not killed in da phone.

 

Have you changed any settings on your iPhone to make it work with the usb, such as turning wifi off or putting iPhone in airplane mode.

 

WiFi is not used for communication in your car, just Bluetooth. What source are you trying to access with it connected? Are there options for USB and iPod? With an iPhone, the only benefit I could see with plugging it in, is using it as an iPod. Otherwise, just stream the audio via Bluetooth. You lose nothing, as far as sound quality goes.

 

I an totally aware that wifi is not used in the car. My last response was to the member that had successfully connected his iPhone to the USB and was wondering if he did anything special on his phone settings. As to your comments regarding just stream the audio over Bluetooth. Streaming direct connection via USB will yield the best sound quality because it eliminates extra manipulations of the signal allowing the ML head unit to do the DAC which is far better than the iPhone DAC. Bluetooth streaming runs a close second, but it does have to manipulate the signal for broadcasting over the air. If you listen very carefully to the music using the bluetooth you will notice some very brief skips, lack of real definition and the chopping off of the highs and lows. I know that it is inconvenient to hook up the iPhone each time i want to listen to music from the iPhone, but i am willing to do that for the pure enjoyment of listening to the music without the brief skips, lack of definition.

 

Well, unless you're referring to lossless audio, there is no audible improvements using usb over Bluetooth in your GS.

Please share the source you're selecting for the hook-up in question.

 

Selecting iPhone from the selections, trying to play aiff music that is download and converted to acc 256. According to lexus user documentation the ML DAC should convert. Music plays for a couple of minutes. So i know it works. Other members are doing this with no problem. Can you or someone else tell me how they setup their iPhone to make this work. I know bluetooth will work but it is not as good as a direct wired connect. You can ask any audiophile what is better wire or air and they will always say a direct wired connect is better. Just like wifi in the home, a cat5 ethernet cable connection is always better.

 

I had some problems when I first used a usb cable. I had a 1 meter cable and switched to a 1 foot cable. I think the weight of the cable was causing a short with the car's usb connector. I also had to switch from the right usb port to the left. To me this indicated the problem lies with the cheap usb connector in the GS. I did nothing special with the iPhone. Standard settings.

 

Thanks rockydog. I agree the usbi connectors are cheap, when I try to remove the cable from the connector sometimes it is very difficult to remove. I have tried several cables and they all seem to work the same, easy to remove then stuck. Sad because the car is a 2016 and only a couple of months old. It was a special order vehicle that we waited for, so it was not on the dealer lot. We took delivery the next day after it arrived.

 

I also had this problem happen to me. I have a new to me 2013. My issue is not with sound quality between direct wire connect vs air, but for the simple reason that I had to charge my iPhone 6+S. I was using a usb cable that had lightening adaptor vs an apple cable.

 

You may be having the same issue as me. I normally use Bluetooth for music streaming such as Pandora or Spotify. Bluetooth plays fine but when I plug my phone into USB to charge, the systems gets confused and starts to think I want to play it through USB. I would have to manually go into my phone and select "Multimedia" instead of "iphone" if that makes sense. Not sure if this is the same problem you are having.

 

Yeah I've had this issue but just annoying extra step. But mine was like OPs issue where I was using USB connect & iPod setting & it just stopped playing