Kolenka

For me, it is: - Access to podcasts without having to interact with the phone (and actually interacts correctly when the podcast needs to be streamed). - Access to Spotify without having to interact with the phone. - Access to Siri + Maps for quick directions around town (I still tend to need something offline for some of my trips that I take once or twice a year).

Yeah, a reboot cleared it up. Which is weird, since the CarPlay process was getting killed/restarted multiple times on its own. I wonder what state could have been hiding that got cleared on reboot.

While I've started enjoying the feature that allows me to use CarPlay without unlocking the phone every time, I've run into an issue with 8.3 and third party CarPlay apps. If I try to bring up Spotify or Overcast, I just get a blank screen. Same with Podcasts. Music/Maps work. Now Playing will actually hang the UI until the watchdog kills the CarPlay process and it restarts. Anyone else seen this behavior?

Yeah, Bluetooth is at that point where on paper it could carry video, but in practice, it isn't going to be a good experience. Plus, the early leaks around wireless CarPlay months ago were also saying WiFi. Using the bluetooth connection to trigger the WiFi pairing though is one way to do it.

Well, to be fair, it does have a couple drawbacks: 1) It uses WebKit on iOS like Safari. So you mostly use Chrome for the UI, and syncing of bookmarks with Google's servers. Not because the rendering of pages is any different or faster. 2) It can't be used as the default browser. So apps that want to send you to Chrome when you click a link need to specifically support it.

The icons used for CarPlay are just whatever icons would have been used on the home screen for that app (Phone/Messages actually launch/interact with the apps on your phone for example). Apple's not doing anything weird here, so when you change an app's icon, you change what icon CarPlay grabs to represent that app. The except is Now Playing and the OEM's button. The OEM button comes from the head unit as far as I know, and the Now Playing is a fixed icon (but can probably be replaced if you can find it).

Played with Overcast this morning for my commute. The free version is more than enough if you just want a basic podcast app, and the premium features are pretty good for those who want some power user features. Not to mention I had not one bug or hiccup with it. Not entirely happy I lose video podcast support doing it this way, but I can deal with it. Buh-bye Apple Podcasts...

While it works, I'm not very happy with the interface. It seems to like throwing lists at the user without any real structure to any of it. And it took a while for my favorites to even show in the list, leaving me wondering where to find them. Oddly, I find Spotify is nicer to use than iHeartRadio.

It has been working okay for me. But it was a fresh install, not even logged in. I do have one issue where if it takes too long to login, CarPlay will show no content. Have to exit and re-enter to force a refresh.

Noticed that there are a couple other tweaks in the 1.0.6 firmware, in the Navigation app. - Heading display is now a bit more readable, and no longer has that "compass ball" skeuomorphism. - Traffic data now actually includes severity. It no longer assumes everything is heavy now, which is good.

I'm waiting for: - A podcast app other than Apple's. Instacast, preferably. - APIs for something other than audio. Waiting for Waze/Garmin/TomTom doesn't make sense to me until that happens.

Depends on where bugs are. Pioneer gets an audio + video feed from the iPhone, and feeds in inputs from the touch screen, mic, and steering wheel controls. That integration can certainly have bugs. And the nag screen is Pioneer's as well. Anything on the side of UI, behavior, etc is on Apple's side for the most part though (lack of auto-resume might be partly how Pioneer integrates). So new apps, or enhanced functionality in CarPlay itself is up to Apple. Another trick here is tap the region with the instructions in them. It turns guidance off, so no voice or instructions, but gives you a

That's Apple's bug as bass_rock mentions. The display and behavior is all on the phone. The head unit is simply responsible for displaying the video feed and sending input back to the phone (mic, touch, buttons, etc). I have folders of playlists too, but I can't reproduce your bug on 8.0.2, unfortunately. Have you tried rebooting the phone or force-quitting the Music app? I can imagine both of these being punted in one way or another. The first seems by design, and the second is mostly by design as well (maybe a bad design, but intentional nonetheless). The defaults seem to be about g

Spotify worked well once I logged in. Apparently there is no good way for apps to report errors like that to the user, so you just get no content. Music was fine. Maps was a little twitchy, but it did notice that I was very likely heading to work and offer up a route. I wonder if it will integrate with the calendar in the same way. Podcasts though, egad. Apple, you need to actually let the dev that owns this app fix some bugs. I had to force quit the app just to get it to play anything. I'll be happy when someone like Instacast is allowed to integrate.

Knowing folks who work at American arms of Japanese companies, I'm not surprised that they are being tight with an apology. It is a cultural thing, and one of the biggest differences between how the western and eastern cultures handle business. And when you have a Japanese-based company calling the shots, they will tighten up on their international arms as a way of preventing the further loss of face. But an apology really only works if you have something else to give with it here. Otherwise it appears you are just trying to calm down an angry crowd (which you are). You may satisfy the fo

Which is fair to say. A more reasonable response than the poster I was quoting, but not really relevant to my point. It's one thing to make a choice based on a company's behavior. It is another to expect a bunch of hardware guys to either sit idle, or somehow be retrained to tackle software problems. Companies don't sit still, and nor should they. Especially if they've screwed up. It becomes even more important to keep pushing forward, making it right, and rebuilding trust in the years afterwards. It is interesting that it looks like they were holding back the AppRadio 4 announcement until

And it is sloooow. I ditched them because of how much time they added every time I needed to use the navigation before I left anywhere, or wanted to pick music before driving off. With the Pioneer, I could at least use Siri while driving out of the parking lot to pick music without interacting with the touch screen. I almost went this route myself, and it is a good idea. I didn't do it primarily because I don't like trying to use an iPad at arm's reach in a car. The UI isn't really built for it. I still miss my XAV-701HD at times though. At least as fast as the Pioneer to boot, m

To be honest, Pioneer shouldn't be saying anything right now until there is something to say. The damage of delivering a date (however vague) and then missing it is already done. Speaking up with a revised date, while a fair request, just provides another opportunity to screw it up all over again. Sometimes it is better to just let folks be angry at you while you work to fix it than trying to placate them and failing at it.

Doesn't surprise me. Someone goofed up pretty big here, and I bet Pioneer EU jumped the gun on this too early. But with Winter around the corner, I'd be more surprised if they weren't prepping for the launch of this thing. I just wonder how many people lost their jobs over this one. I understand the sentiment, but the logic is flawed. Should Pioneer's hardware engineers sit idle while the software guys do their work? Hell no. This is something that the hardware engineers have likely been churning on since probably CES or earlier. Usually when one product is done, the project to produc

I've actually seen the bug on iOS 7 as well. But a reboot of either the phone or head unit cleared it up.

Except, that's not an Apple bug, AFAIK, so iOS 8 won't fix it. CarPlay isn't a fix for the NEX outputting a bad signal, and it isn't present in all installs. I really don't know what this is other than wishful thinking. The reality is that wrt/CarPlay, Apple's been done for a while.

I'd be surprised if it got more than a mention. iOS 8 going "gold", the new iPhone, and a new product are already enough to fill 2 hours for Apple at this point. Ferrari shipping cars with it enabled tells me two things: - CarPlay does work correctly with 7.1.2, and there likely aren't lurking bugs on Apple's end of things. - Pioneer, being responsible for the code running on the NEX... done goofed.

There was an update for EU head units to support map updates this way, but I haven't seen it on the US site yet.

I had the 890 that I got dirt cheap. Jumped to the NEX as soon as I could. Even on deep sale, the Kenwood wasn't worth it. The 991 doesn't fix any of the core problems in the 890/990 units.

Problem with that thought is that Pioneer needs zero access to 3rd party apps for their integration. Apple needs to worry about that, but Pioneer doesn't. And since the apps are on the device, not the head unit, Apple's devices are carrying builds from their partners for testing and demo purposes. So why would Apple be handing over pre-release builds of someone else's software to Pioneer and/or Motor Trend?