MG4 Depreciation

[Rolfe]

To be fair, MG gives us the capability, so they might as well make it work. If you want to listen to the radio and nothing else, or rely on your phone and a streaming service and Bluetooth, carry on. Nobody is preventing you. I want to listen to very specific things that are not available by these methods.

If there was another way to listen to the things I want to listen to, and have been able to listen to in the car for the past 25 years one way or another, fine. But there isn't. It's not much of an advance to say tough, the cool kids don't want to do that any more. The car I bought has a feature that should let me do what I want to do, and that feature doesn't work properly. That the cool kids may not want to use it is not really an excuse.

 

[bowfer]

To be fair, MG gives us the capability, so they might as well make it work. If you want to listen to the radio and nothing else, or rely on your phone and a streaming service and Bluetooth, carry on. Nobody is preventing you. I want to listen to very specific things that are not available by these methods.

If there was another way to listen to the things I want to listen to, and have been able to listen to in the car for the past 25 years one way or another, fine. But there isn't. It's not much of an advance to say tough, the cool kids don't want to do that any more. The car I bought has a feature that should let me do what I want to do, and that feature doesn't work properly. That the cool kids may not want to use it is not really an excuse.

Yeah, I get the argument it should work, but I also get them not spending a lot of time on dead tech.
If it ‘basically’ works, that’s enough.
There’s no point saying you’ve been able to do it for 25 years until now, as that just reinforces the fact it’s old tech.
To be honest, would anyone miss the USB (apart from you) ?‍
I don’t even know if my car has one ?

 

[Rolfe]

Quite a number of people have mentioned the issue.

I've been able to listen to the music I wanted to listen to for 25 years. The method of delivery has varied, but I've always been able to do it. Unless you're saying that listening to the music you want to listen to is "dead tech", then I don't see your point.

It doesn't "basically work". The version in the Trophy "basically works". The SE has a bug that means that to get anything you have to spend hours on your computer renaming files. This is not an advance, from where I'm sitting.

 

[tsedge]

Quite a number of people have mentioned the issue.

I've been able to listen to the music I wanted to listen to for 25 years. The method of delivery has varied, but I've always been able to do it. Unless you're saying that listening to the music you want to listen to is "dead tech", then I don't see your point.

It doesn't "basically work". The version in the Trophy "basically works". The SE has a bug that means that to get anything you have to spend hours on your computer renaming files. This is not an advance, from where I'm sitting.

There are different ways of getting music - you could have it on your phone and play from there via AA or CarPlay, you could stream it. Using USB is pretty rare these days.

Why stop at USB, why not insist on a CD player?

 

[Rolfe]

Thinking about it, I've been able to play the music I wanted in my car for the past 30 years, with minimal effort, using a variety of technologies.

First car, basic 1985 Fiesta, only a radio. If I didn't like what was on the radio, tough.
Second car, 1993 Fiesta XR2, cassette player. Whoopee! The music catalogue is my oyster.
Third car, 1998 Peugeot 306 GTi6, 6-disc CD player cassette in the boot. Whoopee, I don't even need to change the cassettes. (I don't remember if it had a tape cassette player as well, TBH - I think it did.)
Fourth car, 2009 Golf GTi, single-disc CD player on the dashboard and an iPod player. Whoopee, I can make even the longest pieces of music into single playlists. (I think there was a USB player as well, but I used the iPod. Then when the iPod became corrupted I moved back to the physical CDs. But the iPod facility was much superior, and really, I should have fixed it.)

Fifth car, 2023 MG4, if you guys had your way, only a radio. If I don't like what's on the radio, tough. This is progress?

Seriously, you think I should somehow transfer the music I want to my phone (the AA-capable phone I actually just bought this afternoon and can't even get to stay on for more than 10 seconds so far). I have no idea how to do this, if it's even possible. This is supposed to be an improvement on transferring it to a USB stick just how, exactly? And if I could do that, then I'm hearing bad things about sound degradation through a bluetooth connection.

Now maybe this is the way of the world and the cool kids don't want to listen to their own choice of music in the car. But whoopee again, MG has actually equipped the MG4 with the facility for old fogies to listen to their own choice of music. Or they could, but for a small bug in the system.

Telling me that this doesn't matter because the cool kids don't want to do this anyway, isn't much of an answer.

 

[Chequers]

Quite a number of people have mentioned the issue.

I've been able to listen to the music I wanted to listen to for 25 years. The method of delivery has varied, but I've always been able to do it. Unless you're saying that listening to the music you want to listen to is "dead tech", then I don't see your point.

It doesn't "basically work". The version in the Trophy "basically works". The SE has a bug that means that to get anything you have to spend hours on your computer renaming files. This is not an advance, from where I'm sitting.

Your phone IS a USB stick, put a decent music player app on it like poweramp or media monkey and all your renaming tracks issues are gone.

 

[bowfer]

Thinking about it, I've been able to play the music I wanted in my car for the past 30 years, with minimal effort, using a variety of technologies.

First car, basic 1985 Fiesta, only a radio. If I didn't like what was on the radio, tough.
Second car, 1993 Fiesta XR2, cassette player. Whoopee! The music catalogue is my oyster.
Third car, 1998 Peugeot 306 GTi6, 6-disc CD player cassette in the boot. Whoopee, I don't even need to change the cassettes. (I don't remember if it had a tape cassette player as well, TBH - I think it did.)
Fourth car, 2009 Golf GTi, single-disc CD player on the dashboard and an iPod player. Whoopee, I can make even the longest pieces of music into single playlists. (I think there was a USB player as well, but I used the iPod. Then when the iPod became corrupted I moved back to the physical CDs. But the iPod facility was much superior, and really, I should have fixed it.)

Fifth car, 2023 MG4, if you guys had your way, only a radio. If I don't like what's on the radio, tough. This is progress?

Seriously, you think I should somehow transfer the music I want to my phone (the AA-capable phone I actually just bought this afternoon and can't even get to stay on for more than 10 seconds so far). I have no idea how to do this, if it's even possible. This is supposed to be an improvement on transferring it to a USB stick just how, exactly? And if I could do that, then I'm hearing bad things about sound degradation through a bluetooth connection.

Now maybe this is the way of the world and the cool kids don't want to listen to their own choice of music in the car. But whoopee again, MG has actually equipped the MG4 with the facility for old fogies to listen to their own choice of music. Or they could, but for a small bug in the system.

Telling me that this doesn't matter because the cool kids don't want to do this anyway, isn't much of an answer.

Skipping through big bits of this…
I like how I’m being referred to as a “cool kid” at 56. ?
I’ll stick with apple play, voice control and every track I want on earth there.
It’s not like the old days where I’ve to worry about data, now you can get 100GB a month for £20.
If there’s any loss of quality, I’m not noticing in my Born and you definitely aren’t noticing in your MG SE.

 

[Rolfe]

Your phone IS a USB stick, put a decent music player app on it like poweramp or media monkey and all your renaming tracks issues are gone.

Well, as I said, I bought this thing this afternoon, so we'll see. How much phone memory is there though? You want to see my music collection. Right now the damn thing is a black box that's going to need some work to figure it out.

Skipping through big bits of this…
I like how I’m being referred to as a “cool kid” at 56. ?
I’ll stick with apple play, voice control and every track I want on earth there.
It’s not like the old days where I’ve to worry about data, now you can get 100GB a month for £20.
If there’s any loss of quality, I’m not noticing in my Born and you definitely aren’t noticing in your MG SE.

OK, so the music I want to listen to is not available online. I don't particularly want to stream my music either. I own it. Why am I wanting to pay £20 a month to listen to it?

 

[siteguru]

What phone did you buy?

 

[bowfer]

Well, as I said, I bought this thing this afternoon, so we'll see. How much phone memory is there though? You want to see my music collection. Right now the damn thing is a black box that's going to need some work to figure it out.

You’ve bought a phone and don’t know the memory capacity?
Undoubtedly more than a USB stick.

 

[Rolfe]

What phone did you buy?

Samsung Galaxy of some description.

 

[siteguru]

Samsung Galaxy of some description.

Details are important for us to be able to help you.

Edit: go to Settings | About Phone and relevant details should be viewable that way.

 

[Rolfe]

You’ve bought a phone and don’t know the memory capacity?
Undoubtedly more than a USB stick.

I didn't buy it to replace my iPod.

This is all a very long-winded way of trying to absolve MG for providing a USB player that doesn't work properly.

 

[Chequers]

Thinking about it, I've been able to play the music I wanted in my car for the past 30 years, with minimal effort, using a variety of technologies.

First car, basic 1985 Fiesta, only a radio. If I didn't like what was on the radio, tough.
Second car, 1993 Fiesta XR2, cassette player. Whoopee! The music catalogue is my oyster.
Third car, 1998 Peugeot 306 GTi6, 6-disc CD player cassette in the boot. Whoopee, I don't even need to change the cassettes. (I don't remember if it had a tape cassette player as well, TBH - I think it did.)
Fourth car, 2009 Golf GTi, single-disc CD player on the dashboard and an iPod player. Whoopee, I can make even the longest pieces of music into single playlists. (I think there was a USB player as well, but I used the iPod. Then when the iPod became corrupted I moved back to the physical CDs. But the iPod facility was much superior, and really, I should have fixed it.)

Fifth car, 2023 MG4, if you guys had your way, only a radio. If I don't like what's on the radio, tough. This is progress?

Seriously, you think I should somehow transfer the music I want to my phone (the AA-capable phone I actually just bought this afternoon and can't even get to stay on for more than 10 seconds so far). I have no idea how to do this, if it's even possible. This is supposed to be an improvement on transferring it to a USB stick just how, exactly? And if I could do that, then I'm hearing bad things about sound degradation through a bluetooth connection.

Now maybe this is the way of the world and the cool kids don't want to listen to their own choice of music in the car. But whoopee again, MG has actually equipped the MG4 with the facility for old fogies to listen to their own choice of music. Or they could, but for a small bug in the system.

Telling me that this doesn't matter because the cool kids don't want to do this anyway, isn't much of an answer.

Plug your phone into your PC/Laptop accept the prompt from the phone to transfer files/android auto.
Open your PC/laptops filemanager and navigate to your Phone (shows as a drive)

Open the internal shared storage folder and drag your music directories/files to the /Music folder
Thats it. no different to transferring then to a USB stick.

Your new phone will most likely have a media player already installed, if not download one from the Playstore (media monkey I know from experience plays nicely with android auto)
Your media player once opened will scan your installed music and you are all set.

Imagine having your tracks playing in the correct order with voice control and even album covers on the centre screen with track names and durations.

 

[bowfer]

I didn't buy it to replace my iPod.

This is all a very long-winded way of trying to absolve MG for providing a USB player that doesn't work properly.

Just pointing out its old tech and your hope that MG spend any time ‘fixing’ it to your satisfaction is slim to none.
So maybe you need to change your methods.

 

[Chequers]

I didn't buy it to replace my iPod.

This is all a very long-winded way of trying to absolve MG for providing a USB player that doesn't work properly.

But it more than replaces your Ipod and your USB stick

 

[Rolfe]

Details are important for us to be able to help you.

Look, right now I'm more interested in getting it up and running, since my old Motorola precipitated this by dying on the job on Saturday. It clearly doesn't like Ionity either. Two different phone shops have pronounced that they can't get anything off the old phone because the screen has gone. So hello, square one.

Once I actually have the new phone taking calls made to the number I have had since 1993 rather than the temporary stop-gap number (long story), and got back in text contact with the people I really really need to be in touch with right now, and re-installed all my apps and found my way into its settings and figured out how its browser works etc etc, I might have time for additional functions.

 

[siteguru]

PS - depending on your phone you may be able to insert a Micro SD card to expand the internal storage. You could put all your music on that. (This is what I do).

 

[Rolfe]

Just pointing out its old tech and your hope that MG spend any time ‘fixing’ it to your satisfaction is slim to none.
So maybe you need to change your methods.

Maybe, but that's still no excuse for MG providing a facility that doesn't work properly, in a new car.

 

[siteguru]

What you're talking about is essentially a SIM swap ... your network provider should be able to help you with this, and it should happen quite quickly.