Kia iPod USB cord
I have the 2011 Kia Forte EX sedan and here are my experiences with my iPhone 4: I first bought the apple USB cord assuming it would work (figured if KIA USB dock only works with KIA USB cord it would have come with the car, unfortunately I was wrong). The iPhone connected by the apple USB was not recognized at all by the KIA and it had no functionality. I then tried a knockoff of the KIA USB that I found on Amazon.com. This only worked like a AUX device and did not allow for me to use the KIA wheel or dash controls to skip songs and had AUX quality sound (poorer quality than the USB but not horrible). I finally broke down and bought KIA brand USB connector which is insanely overpriced (i think it was about $60), this provides the best sound quality (better than Sirius and AUX) and directs all media controls through the car system so that I can use the steering wheel or radio dash controls. I later realized one more option, when playing music from pandora or itunes on my iPhone i can change the Audio source to my bluetooth connection to the Forte and the select AUX on the car radio system and the iPhone will stream through the car speakers using bluetooth instead of an AUX cord (functions as AUX so still no controlling the music through the car system, just streaming).
I still have some glitches that I could use advice on fixing. The first is that often times I will turn on my car, plug my iPhone 4 into the KIA USB attachment and the music will play for a short bit until the bluetooth in the iPhone recognizes the bluetooth device in the KIA and the iphone will automatically switch speaker device setting to KIA Forte bluetooth. This is simply fixed by changing speaker device back to the KIA USB source but it's somewhat annoying if I've already started driving and I have to look at my iPhone and fix the settings; any ways to avoid this? This second issue, and more annoying one in my opinion, is using pandora through the iPhone and USB dock. I can play pandora but when connected to the USB the controls for skipping songs defaults to the ipod music library. I can control the sound level through the car but if skip songs through the car controls it switches from pandora to the ipod music library. It's somewhat odd because while the iPhone is connected to the USB I can skip songs in pandora from the iPhone, conversely, when using the USB to play my ipod library on my iPhone I have no way of controlling the music from the iPhone and can only use the car controls to pick library, songs, playlists or adjust volume. Anyone understand this technology better and how to better manipulate it?