A quick update of my findings and some tips for new buyers.
The USB section of my new F10 was faulty. it had to go back to the dealers for just short of 1 week to get the unit replaced. It's now back and working fine. Here are my findings for reference:
Im using an iphone 3gs with iOS4 installed.
The first mistake I made was to get the snap in cradle adaptor. It really isn't required. All this adaptor does is charge your iphone and "supposedly" connect it to the sharks fin.. but no one in the dealer could confirm this. My advice is don't bother with it..
I got the USB - BMW iphone cable. It consists of an iphone connector with a USB and jack plug on the other side. My dealer told me this didn't charge the iphone.. guess what.. it does.. It also allows the iphone to communicate with the idrive system which allows full search facility and works very well. I can't seem to get album art showing.. no matter what I try.. so I will keep looking for a solution.
The USB socket in the glovebox is used for importing / exporting tracks from a USB stick. This was quite useful... the data it exports, is encrypted to a .b4r file.. from searching, this is quite a simple encryption. I have it on good authority
that the encrypted songs are not restricted to the car they were exported from.. i.e. they can be moved to another car.
All in all, it seems a massive leap ahead compared with my E60 electronics..Im pleased with it so far.