Mod Note: This is the official feedback/impressions/info on the firmware 2.0 thread, post your thoughts here, or they will be deleted!

Wow, what a difference 3 months makes. Now this is what the f series should of been like out the door. Was it really worth the PR nightmare Pioneer? Seriously?

Improvements

1. Boot time is a lot faster, its tolerable now. 30 seconds exactly to music from ipod and screen ( around 10 seconds for xm music on, then 30 to menu). 72 seconds from bootup till vr update complete on iphone3g. 102 Seconds from boot for Bluetooth connection and loading complete.

2. The screens response is much faster now and screens load without the lag after button presses.

3. The blue boxes are now gone from the idle no route navigation screen. Amazing what a difference this makes in the viewable area. Also the destination is cleared out once you have arrived.

4. Screen brightness is greatly improved, quite an improvement.

5. The contact screen is useful now! It lists them by mobile/office/home now. Very handy! Actually complete feature now! Also responds to voice commands in that manner.

Now the issues I see so far.

1. The call status information box doesnt' work very well it seems. It tends to lag and not show the proper phone numbers your currently on. Things like previously dialed phone number shows up, but it varies based on did you call directly from the phone to the unit, did you use voice recognition using a contact name or did you say dial (this phone number).

2. Blue tooth mic pick up while in a phone call is very quiet to others, they can hear me clearly but its very low on iphone 3g.

Overall an excellent update and I am very satisfied with the progress. I am happy that they have listened to the customers and seem to have made it a priority to fix the complaints we all had over and over again.

(I have updated this a few times to reflect more experience and issues i've worked out through trial and error)

A lot of issues I had prior to this I blamed on software when it was in fact the Pioneer branded ipod connection cable, I would suggest a substitute of the Apple AV composite cable. A lot more durable, better build quality and works just the same.

I concur with the static, overall quite nasty/distracting.

Also concur with the "Ok" button lags.

Likewise with the Voice recognition, it has many issues recognizing what im saying where it once understood. IT wont recognize "Karen", seriously, the most important #

The blutooth call i made had no issues, but it might have more to do with the reception of the 3g as opposed to the blutooth, but i could be wrong.

Overall you have a very good analysis and I agree with almost everything.

I can't vouch for the bluetooth quality yet, but for some reason I still have the blue boxes on my map screen.

Nobody else seems to still have them.

Holy Sh**!!!

I thought this day would never come. I thought this fabled second update was an urban legend.

Wow is it faster to boot up.

Time to ipod - ~30 seconds (actually longer than before. Used to take 15-20 seconds)

NAV to operational - ~30 seconds (big improvement)

Bluetooth Connection - ~1:35 (hasn't changed much)

Menu/button response is immediate.

Now to re-create my mods...

I have a total boot time of 1:13....

does this update work with the new ipod nano 4th gen?

What version does it say in the Service Info screen? Mine is only :38

I have a total boot time of 1:13....

yea mine is arround 35 seconds.... where are you getting the minute +.....

Ohh, and ipod touch with FW 1.1.4 still has blurry/pixeled/awful album art...... that's sucks, I was hoping this was going to be resolved..... how are 1gen ipod touch users with FW 2.0 or 2.1 doing.... is it good???? does it work.....???

What version does it say in the Service Info screen? Mine is only :38

 

I have a total boot time of 1:13....

I have new sowftware its all 2.0....it 1:13 for a total boot up mean my iphone is connected to via bluetooth and everything...I got my ipod up and running in about 38-40seconds....Also the VR mode is quicker that took about 2-4minutes for 30gibs worth of music.... overall I'm pretty happy with my avic now.

I was habing problems with my ipod, had to boot it 2 or 3 times in a trip of 2 hours.... Just updated THE IPOD to the latest firmware, all problems were gone.

Update the avic to 2.0...a lot better...now we need to find a way to patch the internal IGO software so we can use with any maps....

GUGA

I played with it some more this morning, and it does boot MUCH faster!

Its not nearly as fast as the OEM Murano system in my wife's car, but its damn near acceptable I dare say!

I made a few phone calls, as one of my biggest problems after the 1st update was that it would freeze up for 30 seconds to a minute after hanging up.

Well, 2 out of 3 calls went back to playing musically almost immediately and I was thrilled, but the 3rd call got locked up for 20 seconds or so.

I worry that the release is numbered 2.0. Sounds kind of final.

-My boot time is 30-40 seconds, which is typical.

-I like the fact that the "system startup" message does not appear if you are on the iPod screen.

-The button response for most things is largely improved, but some of the OK screens are still a bit slow.

-Changing between the map and av screen is much faster.

-The dreaded gas stations all over the map are now gone!

-Blue boxes are gone, but route/destination info box still shows up even when no route is selected.

-Zoom scale is still useless.

-Clock is still too small/hard to see on the map screen.

-Moving the map around (zooming/panning) is marginally faster.

-The static sound when pressing buttons isn't nearly as annoying as I thought it would be based on what others have said. I think it's a lot worse if you have your unit run through an amp. I am powering my speakers directly from the head unit, so the fixed output volume of the static is probably a lot lower than it would be if I had an amp.

-iPod VR catalogging is faster (and is enabled by default after upgrade)

-iPod hasn't locked up or lost connection since upgrade (it's still early, yet)

Contacts now have the word home, work, and mobile attached to them. Great!

Incoming calls from numbers in my contact list now have the name attached. Great!

me, "Call John Smith at home"

F700, "Please say the name or number to call"

me, "Call John Smith at home"

F700, "Calling 090"

Tried 10 different combination of contacts, etc. No go.

VR in IPOD mode works great.

Seriously, the preset buttons are that wide for a reason, so they can tag the station frequency. Other Pioneer Navs (AVIC-D2) do this. Otherwise, they could give us 9 square buttons in the same area that would be a lot easier to press while in motion than the height limited lines they have. Did someone forget to put that in the Requirements Document?

Installed the update while at work. Took about 10 minutes just like it said it would. Only thing I think I did wrong was that I didn't have to update the TTS, I think my unit came with the right version on it, and therefor when I tried to update it. Nothing would happen. So I hope I didn't screw anything up further by trying. However so far everything else I had a complaint about is working fine.

iPod Touch G1 update 2 is working fine so far. I can connect, charge and control. I can play my video's that I have on there which is a SUPER PLUS. I totally forgot that was a feature. But, after not having it since the beginning it is like getting something new for me.

Boot up is faster but, I don't see it as WAY faster. I still have to wait to get to the CD/AM/FM controls. So I don't see anything that much better now.

Haven't tried my phone yet (Blackjack) hopefully its still working fine if not better. And maybe the GPS is fixed like everyone says that the blue boxes are gone.

Going to drive home with it, and hopefully even happier now that I can control and listen to and CHARGE my iPod.

THANK YOU PIONEER!!!!!!!! I told you guys they would fix it!! LOL!!!!

-Blue boxes are gone, but route/destination info box still shows up even when no route is selected.

You can turn that off by enabling the full cockpit mode in the nav visual settings...

Contacts now have the word home, work, and mobile attached to them. Great!

 

Incoming calls from numbers in my contact list now have the name attached. Great!

 

me, "Call John Smith at home"

 

F700, "Please say the name or number to call"

 

me, "Call John Smith at home"

 

F700, "Calling 090"

 

Tried 10 different combination of contacts, etc. No go.

 

VR in IPOD mode works great.

Look at your contact and do "call" in that exact order, my contact list as lastname firstname location and it only do voice call in that order

Ok so I updated my f700 last night and was really impressed w/ the new bootup time (still am today). Went from 52 seconds to get to FM or CD screen (plus button delay time) all the way down to 23 seconds for full functionality for both of these (and no button delay except MENU) after the update. Blank nav boxes gone too. Here's the problems I had or still have:

-Voice dialing by name in bluetooth still does not work. Has never worked. Even "call home" can't be processed somehow.

-There's still a long delay before audio comes back on if person on the other end of a bluetooth call hangs up before I can hit the hang up button on the screen at the end of a call. Today it has begun to stay muted until I hit the source button at bottom right of nav screen.

-Still switches me to nav screen from radio or cd etc. screen when I make a phone call.

-After updating I got stuck in the screen calibration chasing the stupid target around the screen over and over until finally I just turned the key off and on again to make it stop.

-Bluetooth volume was very erratic at first - I have a very loud sound system and woke up the neighbors at 2am to the window rattling sound of GOOG 411 at about 120 db. Also got a loud buzz/hiss noise for a little bit after disconnecting calls.

I feel a little better about selling these stereos to customers now, but I don't use an ipod to know for sure about the reliability yet so I'm still on the fence.

Hey djphat2000,

What ipod touch firmware are you using??? how's your album art???

I purchased my F700BT for four reasons:

1. Direct Input for my Sirius Satellite Radio

2. Bluetooth

3. GPS

4. USB & SD Card connections (KickAss btw)

I installed the 2.0 firmware update last night. It took about 7 minutes for the FW and about 3 mins for the Bluetooth update. I am extremely happy with the result. I don't really worry too much about boot times as I use the remote starter almost all the time (It's cold in Toronto sadly), but when I have had to watch it boot up, it does seem faster than before.

The Bluetooth has always functioned extremely well on my phone (Nokia E71). I think that the phone is a big part of the connection issues people are having (IPhone), but I'm sure I'm gonna get people calling me a hater... You've gotta try Symbian via Nokia to get it. Seriously though, people don't even know I'm on handsfree when I call them from my Tacoma.

Once I hack this thing to view videos while driving, I doubt I'll make too many more changes to the unit as it works so well for me.

Cheers

The improvements are obvious so i will just list my standing complaints:

-VR for phone still doesn't work. I have the same problem as lromoda.

Call John Doe

.....

I'm sorry i didn't understand that

Call John Doe

....

Calling 812

I've also tried "call doe john" and tried some single word contacts like "home" or "mom". Nothing.

-Still switches to map screen when making a call. This is just stupid and has to be easy to fix.

-Samantha still sounds terrible, we need a better voice. And the iGo TTS needs to converted to true US ENGLISH, not this UK nonsense...or should i say rubbish. "Enter the roundabout and take the 3rd exit" or "Take the exit for highway four hundred twenty two" No offense to the British people on here but there are some clear differences that most other navi's take into consideration. I actually fixed the "roundabout" and "turn back" myself, but haven't figured out how to get it to say "422" as "four twenty two" instead of "four hundred twenty two"

-still no way to toggle between presets besides the buttons on the screen. This should be possible via wired remote but for some reason doesn't work

-still no preset labels on HD Radio (duh)

-still no heading up in 2D (duh)

Two other things i'd like to add:

-the static with key beeps, mine has always done

-the destination deleting after it is reached, mine has also always done.

-I'm also convinced the ipod disconnecting issue is a faulty cable. At least i know mine is because it only disconnects if i play with the cable, leave the ipod loose in the glovebox and hit a bump, make rally turns, etc. I put my ipod in a holster and clipped it to the shelf in my glovebox and it didn't disconnect at all.

Oh gee, WOW it finally does "some" of the things it was supposed to do.

HD radio presets still don't display and I can't save the stations to preset. I still don't know how four of the six presets actually did preset (pre 2.0) since I read many complaints that others couldn't save presets. This was pre 2.0 update and still an issue. How in the hell can something so generic to a RADIO be missing???? PRESETS...what a cool idea!

I cannot voice dial anyone or thing by name. I have the original iPhone (2g as everyone calls it). Never could before 2.0 and still can't. I can say "Call - 1 123 456789 and it will repeat it and call it perfectly every time but, if I say "Call George Aben " as listed in my contacts the response is "Calling 089" and that is on the occasional time it actually attempts the call instead of the "Please say the name or number to call" debate which I always lose.

The VR works flawlessly on the iPod connection (always did) so, I know my mic is positioned correctly.

Pre 2.0 I only had a few iPod drops. It wasn't big deal to me considering the hundreds of times I started the system. Today my ipod didn't connect upon start up. I never had this issue before.

Still having problems like many of you.... here is what i sent to pioneer

Sometimes while on the map screen and after disconnecting from a Bluetooth call, audio does not resume! I have to go back to the audio source to get the audio to resume!

When placing a Bluetooth call, the box with the “hang-up†and volume control take a long time to show up! If it does show up, it takes a very long time for it to go away after the call has ended.

The navi voice is still obnoxiously loud when listening to USB or SD. No it is not the SAME volume as my music… it is LOUDER! And it shouldn’t be the same in the first place.

Andrew

Dude, this sucks...I was hoping they would update the TTS voices...

It's ridiculous that it says "Take 57 State Highway 57 Northbound" when a simple Garmin just says "Take 57 North".

Not to mention Samantha's ANNOYING voice, wow.

The improvements are obvious so i will just list my standing complaints:

 

-VR for phone still doesn't work. I have the same problem as lromoda.

Call John Doe

.....

I'm sorry i didn't understand that

Call John Doe

....

Calling 812

 

I've also tried "call doe john" and tried some single word contacts like "home" or "mom". Nothing.

 

-Still switches to map screen when making a call. This is just stupid and has to be easy to fix.

 

-Samantha still sounds terrible, we need a better voice. And the iGo TTS needs to converted to true US ENGLISH, not this UK nonsense...or should i say rubbish. "Enter the roundabout and take the 3rd exit" or "Take the exit for highway four hundred twenty two" No offense to the British people on here but there are some clear differences that most other navi's take into consideration. I actually fixed the "roundabout" and "turn back" myself, but haven't figured out how to get it to say "422" as "four twenty two" instead of "four hundred twenty two"

 

-still no way to toggle between presets besides the buttons on the screen. This should be possible via wired remote but for some reason doesn't work

 

-still no preset labels on HD Radio (duh)

 

-still no heading up in 2D (duh)

 

Two other things i'd like to add:

 

-the static with key beeps, mine has always done

 

-the destination deleting after it is reached, mine has also always done.

 

-I'm also convinced the ipod disconnecting issue is a faulty cable. At least i know mine is because it only disconnects if i play with the cable, leave the ipod loose in the glovebox and hit a bump, make rally turns, etc. I put my ipod in a holster and clipped it to the shelf in my glovebox and it didn't disconnect at all.