Theedge, read the post above yours for the answer to your last question.
And can you please elaborate on the "many areas that the unit could benefit from that type of persistant wifi" I am honestly curious/would love to see what I seem to be missing in my thought process and no one is offering up any SPECIFIC benefits.
The more I think about it it seems superfluous to have wifi connection with avicsync and carplay. Both of these are meant to integrate apps/connectivity into the unit.
What would be the benefit of having say a Netflix/pandora/youtube/browser app ON the receiver itself when carplay is meant to achieve that exact functionality and more? I have already addressed the voice + data issue in my above post.
99.9% of consumers who own a phone aren't going to go out and buy a $100 piece of hardware, pay $5/month and pay to add extra data to their plan just to use built in wifi.
I think once carplay is available everyone in here will begin to realize there isn't much point at all to having wifi on the receiver. If you are android you should be looking into app radio unchained anyway, you can do everything you are talking about in such a better way.
You're not going to be browsing the web when you are driving down the freeway so in a real life situation you are almost certainly going to be using the browser far less often than you would imagine.
The exception to all of this being a case of if you had forgotten your phone at home. But then you would have to have a hotspot anyway. We are going in circles here.
By having a properly networked system you could,,
Stream video from any phone (not just the one hardwired) to a rear entertainment screen
Stream music from any connected phone on the network
Get real time, updated maps to the built-in navigation system, without a dedicated phone
Get real time traffic without the phone hooked up, or with Verizon, being on the phone
For CarPlay or AppRadio, connect content from any phone in the car, without switching wires or dropping and adding a Bluetooth connection
A WiFi enabled HU could also get real time car diagnostics and gauge information from anther OBD II device, without a maestro.
So you see, a WiFi network is more than just the internet. It's about a NETWORK. A network that would link all WiFi enabled devices in the car
As to your comment about the cost of a hotspot, it's not about the phone, it's about the car. 99.9 percent of the folks out there will not spend $1400 for a new entertainment radio for their car either.
As far as taking in circles, it must be be you, I have a Wifi enabled vehicle and can see its current and future benifits.