A bit of a nightmare, this. The R3 comes with an auxiliary socket in one of the cubbyholes to allow you to connect an MP3 player to it, but all the play or selection functions have to be performed from the player.
When I ordered the car, I also spec’d it to include Mazda’s iPod integration module which is by no means cheap.
And it’s full of fail!
So far, I’ve tried it with three iPod nanos of varying age and although all connect to the system fine, none of them will actually play through the Bose system. And worse still, fitting the iPod Integration Module apparently disables the auxiliary socket as well! So I’m worse off with it fitted.
I’m giving it one more try: with a birthday coming up, I’ve asked for a new, 5th Generation 16GB iPod nano which should – in theory at least – work. We’ll see. Mazda’s Customer Service department did not have a clue when I specifically asked them the question…