Being the new guy here I'm hoping I can add to this discussion on two fronts, first and most importantly, getting the x100 series firmwares to work in our x000 units, and secondly how pioneer sees the whole support of older head units issue.
First,
From reading the fail overflow blog I think I have a pretty good idea as to why both he Bluetooth and idatalink issues are happening when a x100 series update is applied to a x000 unit.
It seems it may be related to the devices being mounted by the android OS.
Failoverflow lists the devices of the x000 firmware as follows.
/dev/ttymxc0 — console port (can’t find this electrically)
/dev/ttymxc1 — Bluetooth module, 115200 bps
/dev/ttymxc2 — used to talk to “uComâ€, which is apparently a “System Microcomputer†(?!?)
/dev/ttymxc2 — used for the GPS interface (not clear how this is shared with uCom)
/dev/ttymxc3 — used for RDS / TMC transceiver (not sure how this works)
/dev/ttymxc4 — used to talk to the iDatalink connector on the back of the unit
/dev/ttymxc4 — CAN bus interface (not used on my model)
In theory, if the x100 firmware is using different device names for the ports, then when the OS goes to look for something it can't find it and therefore can't communicate with it.
It also follows that the device names might be set in a system area which is not modified by the newer firmware and hence the communication problem.
I guess the way to test this theory is to pull a full SD card out of an say an 8100 and put it in an 8000. If everything then works as advertised, then you would simply have to do a "full" update of all partitions to the 8100 firmware and bravo, a 8100 in the body of an 8000.
The failoverflow blog gives a ton of insight into the inner workings of the OS in these units. Well, at least it gives enough insight to start looking at reasons why the units might not be fully working on the new firmware. It seems that it's fair to believe that the older x000 hardware should support this newer firmware. Unfortunately I don't have the tools or the time to verify this theory, but I'm throwing it out there in he hopes it might help someone crack this.
Now, my second part of this and the catalyst for the first part.
One of my best friends owns a very successful car stereo shop. Over the 20 or so years we have been friends I help him do installs from time to time and often enjoy troubleshooting "interesting" problems with him. I was lucky enough to have him in invite me to a trade show today. While there I got into a rather heated and lengthy discussion with the Pioneer rep in charge of the whole northeast region of the U.S. He wasn't a bad guy but he was definitely a salesman to the core. I beat him up pretty badly for the lack of support for older units and he utter failure of Pioneer with issues such as Avicsync. In the end the two things he said that pissed me off the most were.
"We are in the business of selling radios." Which means to me why update older stuff when we can force you to buy a new unit if you want these features that badly.
"If we build a million radios this year we will sell a million radios this year. Pioneer is car audio." Which translates to... We don't have to put effort into continuously improving our products because we are banking on the fact that we can sell half assed products which are still better than our competitors.
Unfortunately he's sort of right. He pissed me off so much I was ready to rip out my NEX-8000 and buy the top of the line Kenwood with CarPlay. Problem there is that the Kenwood with CarPlay isn't even released yet and it is still lacking compared to the NEX-8000 from last year. So Pioneer knows exactly what they are doing, much to the dismay of all the tech geeks like myself. Personally, I think the best way to fight back is to get a perfectly working x100 firmware for the x000 series receivers and show the world how full of crap Pioneer is about these "hardware" differences. Sorry for the long post. Just my $.02.
