LC 500: The iPod Saga


The owner's manual says that the LC 500 infotainment system supports iPods via the USB connection tucked into the center armrest. What is less apparent is which iPods are supported. 

But before we get to that, a brief aside about why anyone should care: after all, iPods are long obsolete, right? We all now rely on Spotify via CarPlay/Android Auto, right? Or just plug in a USB flash drive, if you need locally-stored music? 

Sure, fine, if you're good with those solutions, feel free to skip this entry. But there are two reasons that the iPod is better. 

  1. Syncing. If, like me, you still have a large collection of music stored in iTunes/Apple Music, and if you update that collection from time to time, you're going to want to periodically sync the music in your car. When you connect an iPod to your computer, Apple Music (the app, not the subscription service) has a pretty nifty set of syncing tools, including transcoding from lossless to compressed formats. And once you have it set up, it happens automatically when you connect the iPod. Slick. Now try that with your USB flash drive, I'll wait. 
  2. Zero touch user interface. I'm an old dude. I remember cars with CD players and, even better, CD changers. When you got in the car and turned the key (yes, when you had to turn a key), your music just started playing. No need to select an app, find a playlist, or search through artist/title lists. Leaving an iPod in the car filled with your favorite music, set on shuffle, does a great job duplicating this. (Yes, yes, I know you can mostly duplicate this in Spotify via CarPlay/Android Auto, but I find it's not always reliable, especially if your cellular connection is spotty.) 

OK, so which iPod? 

tl;dr: I've confirmed that the iPhone 8 and the iPod Touch (6th gen.) are both supported via USB in my 2025 LC 500. These are relatively cheap on eBay (considerably less than newer iPhones and the Touch 7th gen.).

I happen to have a bunch of different iPods, including Classics, Nanos, and Shuffles. These all use the flat 30-pin "dock connector" that was standard from 2003-2012. None of them work in my 2025 LC 500. (But the owner of a 2023 LC 500 confirms that these do work in his car -- it seems Lexus dropped support for older iPods when they refreshed the infotainment system in 2024.)

A close look in Appendix 9.1 of my "multimedia owner's manual" reveals a list of supported devices, and the iPod Touch (7th gen.) is the only "iPod" listed. All the rest are variations on the iPhone, starting with the iPhone 6s. These devices all have the Apple Lighting connector, rather than the old 30-pin connector. 

I've confirmed that the iPod Touch (6th gen.) works, despite not being listed in the manual. In those, you could get storage capacity up to 128gb, which is pretty good (the largest iPod Classic was 160gb). 

But in the end, I chose an iPhone 8, because it offered a top storage spec of 256gb and is cheap and plentiful on eBay. You need to disable CarPlay, however, lest it constantly try to activate (which is very annoying to this Android Auto user). For good measure, I also put it in Airplane Mode, deactivating Bluetooth and WiFi. That turns it into an iPod, just a music storage device, that I can just leave in the car full-time. 

Another nice feature is that if you have the iPod handling music duty, you can still use Android Auto for all non-audio functions, like Google Maps. 

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