Iphone Leaf General Question

I need a new phone. Considering an Iphone 5.

Question is this:

If I connect the Iphone 5 to the usb port, will I be able to play audio from any app on the iphone or just itunes?

I believe you should be able to output any audio from the phone through the car's speakers, however you may need to control the app through your phone. The AUX-->USB selection enables this.
Better yet, you can use the car's audio system to control your iPhone directly in two ways. There is an iPhone screen that enables you to control your iPhone using the vehicle controls. There is also a Pandora screen in the 13MY that enables control of Pandora on your iPhone, assuming you have either the SV or SL model.
I hope that helps.

I have the S

I tried with my daughter's iphone 4. The only thing that could be output through the phone via USB was through the music player. I tried to play recorded voice messages through the usb connection but nothing came through. The screen interface on the Leaf is dialed into the music player only.

I guess this is good because then I'm not limited to an iphone if I want to play things other than music through the stock music player. So I'll have to use the headphone jack and aux jack on the Leaf.

Shame that bluetooth audio was disabled on the S.

I have an iPhone. Not sure if it's a 5 or not. It's running version 6.1.3 of the OS. Also have a 2012 SL. I'm not sure about connecting through USB, since I always use Bluetooth, which is more convenient. It works with Music, Podcasts and iTunes U. The only drawback is that when you have more than one device, you have to connect it manually. There appears to be no auto-detection of whatever devices are in the car.

Hope this helps

The S does not have bluetooth audio, so the only way to hook up a cell phone for audio is via usb or the aux jack. It appears that iphones can be hooked up to the usb port but you only have access to what's stored on itunes. Other apps that generate audio does not work.

The SV/SL has bluetooth audio and bluetooth phone
The S has bluetooth phone only

I tried connecting the iPhone with the USB cable, after turning off Bluetooth. I like USB better than Bluetooth! At least as far as the interface. You have more control of which songs you listen to on the screen, while with Bluetooth, you can only play and pause. All control of track selection is done on the device, which means you have to be juggling it while driving. Much easier on the Leaf screen, at the cost of a cable flopping around.

Interestingly, you can turn BT back on, and toggle between USB and BT from the selection button on the console.

Thanks for asking your question, I learned something new.

egizzi said:

Shame that bluetooth audio was disabled on the S.

Click to expand...

Didn't know that: that alone would have killed the "S" for me. Having music+hands-free phone integrated is a big plus for safety.

I'm glad i tested this before posting. It used to be that the USB interface would allow only iTunes and control of the player was mostly limited to the car (iPhone locked out). On the flipside bluetooth would allow playing any source (including games for what it is worth--fun to pass the time if you are waiting to pick up someone) but most controls had to be done via the phone (skim and skip controls worked in either).

It appears that somewhere in the ios6 / iphone5 timeframe apple fixed the USB interface to allow playing of "music" sources meaning itunes of course but also Audible and other player apps. In addition you can now control the player from the phone except for pause which does not work as the USB seems to require constant playback.

In summary choose USB if you want access to album menus and primarily play itunes. I recommend bluetooth if you use other apps and this is for two reasons:
1) Bluetooth will be connected anyway for phone usage so it is convenient and you can still select albums via Siri which usually is faster than navigating the Leaf's less-than-perfect ipod interface.
2) Having both bluetooth and USB connections confuses the system! Many times you will see something playing but have no sound because the audio output on the iPhone has chosen the wrong one. Of course you can correct this with the little rectangular output button on the iphone app but it can be a hassle to do each time.

If you have an older iphone/ios you may find you still have the old interface and that means...
USB: itunes only, iphone music controls mostly locked, album menus abailable
Bluetooth: any app, control from car or iphone but car controls limited to skip and skim and pause, no album menus (but siri works)

I just bought an iphone 5 and plugged it into my usb. It is only looking for itunes music. I'll play around with it some more, but so far, my mlb app does not play. Interestingly, when plugged in to the leaf usb, the phone goes silent, so it is sending signal via usb, but nothing from the leaf stereo comes out

My iphone5 runs my itunes music and Pandora w/ album art on the nav screen, only when plugged into the USB port. When streaming itunes audio from my iphone 5, via Bluetooth, there is no album art and Pandora doesn't work.

Call Leaf support
I spoke with Eric
877-664-2738 ext 457256
Case# 12859861

Add yourself to the complaint. The more the merrier. I just simply asked for a software update to add a pause button to the iPod interface on the Leaf.

Enjoy

No Bluetooth Music on my S!!!!!! No way. This would have been a definite reason to upgrade to one of the multitude of SV or SL Leaf's sitting on the lot last December 30. You just presume when you get in car and see "Bluetooth" featured prominently on the dash that you have Bluetooth in all its incarnations.

Shame on you Nissan. And no, the salesman did not mention a word about this.

In the same boat here with my newly acquired model S. I bet there is a hack that could unlock playing music in the model S via Bluetooth.

Just need to wait for one of the hackers to figure it out , I hope.

One more advantage of USB over Bluetooth: when connected to USB it should charge the iPhone.
One advantage to Bluetooth over USB: you can turn Bluetooth on and off by speaking with Siri.

I just want my iTunes radio or Pandora to work with my model S Bluetooth or USB connection. Don't care which one as long one lets you do it!

Having USB Iphone connection and then not letting you to stream content other than songs on you iPhone is idiotic to put it mildly. :x

so the question now becomes does leaf Bluetooth adapter differs between the leaf models past 2013?

From my research model S and SV/SL use different bluetooth modules, so the main question is do both modules have the same plug that would work with either model stereo head unit? My guess is they are probably standard...

these are the part numbers of the telematics bluetooth modules:

model s module 28388-3NF0A

model sv/sl module 283B0-3NF0A

Little late on my part but if you have an "S" model and want to play music through Pandora, Spotify or similar when your iPhone is connected through the USB all you have to do is have a song downloaded to your phone.
What mine does is when I first plug the USB lightning into my phone the car will find the song I have on my iPhone6 and auto play it. At that point I can play audio from any source on my phone and have it project through the car stereo. What blows my mind is if I don't have any songs on my iPhone then when I have it plugged into the Leaf via USB it won't even detect the phone is there. Serious bullshit if you ask me. This day and age with technology and you can't just plug in through USB or connect via Bluetooth and play any music source.