Kenwood's Aftermarket CarPlay and Android Auto Systems Now Shipping

[NightStorm]

And they wonder why we have been screaming for Apple's UI in this industry...

All of these look unnecessarily busy to me. If they would just make Siri smarter -- which appears to be coming in iOS9 -- I think they would have something here.

That said, I do wish they would allow more information to be shown on the screen. I hate when I ask Siri "Show me a list of albums by <insert name here>" and she replies that she can't do that in the car. So instead, I'm forced to touch my way through multiple screens which causes even more distraction than if she would have just shown the list in the first place.

 

[joe-h2o]

You seem to want to tell people what to do and what not to.

I do like to read peoples opinions and put in my 2 cents.
So do others. Plus, I am interested in tech.

There is info in these posts and treads and on may rethink a bias or other idea.

What I do not like is MRs way of piece mealing the same thing for clicks.

And, like you say: Use your two fingers and scroll past my posts if you don't like my opinions.
You can do that with anybody's!

Well, your complaint boils down to "I'm not interested in this and I must tell everyone and there are too many of these threads" - you can't play the "I came in here because I might change my mind therefore it;s justified that I open the thread".

You can't play it both ways, but the easy way for you is just to scroll past in the first place. You can't claim you're "interested in tech" as your justification either, given that your other posts on this topic lament on the extreme unimportance of CarPlay and are a demand for MR to stop talking about it.

So yes, while you are entitled to your opinion, we are entitled to tell you to go away if all you want to do is moan about how many threads there are on topics you do not find interesting. The thread will be better for it.

 

[joe-h2o]

I've got a Pioneer SPH-DA120 and it's crap.

Siri only hears me correctly half the time, and he will happily start directing me to the wrong address because he can't hear me properly.

It only works if you have 3G or greater. This solution is useless if you only have GPRS (data signal not to be confused with GPS).

If you plug in a USB pen full of music you have to use the crappy Pioneer interface, which sucks, so I have to use external local storage. My iPhone is only a 16GB model, so I can't fit much on it, even though I absolutely love it.

Don't get me wrong, in the big cities it works wonders, when you've got constant 4G connections and at worst, 3G. Maps is great provided Siri can make out what you're saying. Perhaps it's just my voice, but even when i clear my throat he still gets it wrong, and I have to re-do text messages or navigations or song choices.

I have the DA-120 in the UK and my experience is totally the opposite. I do have good data where I am, so that helps (for a while I had O2 and around my home I was stuck on GPRS only, but I've swapped to 3 now my contract is done and it's been much better).

If Siri is having problems hearing you then it could be road noise or microphone placement - the DA-120's mic is mounted inconspicuously on top of my steering column and I have no problem talking to Siri and dictating messages to her. She rarely gets it wrong. Maybe try repositioning the mic. If you can make Siri work on your phone normally then there should be no difference when using Car Play - except the external mic is picking you up and not the phone. You might also want to check it's actually connected to the radio. If it's not then it might be falling back to the phone's mic and thus it will struggle depending on where you have stashed it while driving.

It's not perfect by any means - I'd like it if the DA-120 had some physical buttons on it, especially one that I could map to activation of Siri without having to glance to where the touchscreen home button is, and I'd like it if the whole start up procedure was a little faster from ignition to music/system ready, but on the whole it has been excellent for me.

 

[Chuck Kostalnick]

Does this support Wireless Carplay?

 

[remo72tg]

When a CarPlay unit allows me to use Waze I'll consider buying one. I know u could use it on some other older systems but this is what CarPlay is currently lacking in my opinion.

I'm also waiting for Waze option. Are there any non Carplay head unit that support waze?

 

[Thunderhawks]

↑
I feel like displaying text messages on the screen is a really bad idea....

My guess is that they will be read by Siri

You can set your calendar that Apple will get sued upon the first distraction accident!

 

[4jasontv]

I don't think so.

Not a deal breaker, but I'm a huge fan of mobile communication that excludes those around me. It's not just that I don't want to know what your talking about, I don't even want to know your having a conversation. Privacy for you, silence for me, and vice versa. This is such a weird technology though for my mindset. I can see its wow factor for others. Maybe if it could limit sound and visibility to specific quadrant of the car it would work better.

 

[ENduro]

At the risk of admitting I'm a terrible person sometimes I either need to do some stuff for work that this would prevent while driving and sometimes I just plain want to. This is a lot of money to lock yourself into a crippled experience and I have a feeling a lot of people will be taking these aftermarket solutions back after they realize how limited they are by design. The tech and Americans' attention spans are quite ready for this yet.

 

[mdelvecchio]

Which is only helpful if you drive alone, otherwise you still need to wear a headset.

what? how often are you trying to hide texts from your car-mates? never heard of this, and its a not a very compelling use case.

 

[pacalis]

Pricey? Yeah. But not as pricey as dealers charge for their infotainment options (think Toyota Entune). If I could pay $1000 to get this instead of Toyota's option in my new Prius, I would pay it without batting an eye.

Entune is coming with all the hardware, speakers, antennas etc... and cross platform compatibility. You're comparing "apples" and oranges.

How do you keep the other people in the car from hearing your message?

Same as before. You have to put your left knee on the wheel and hold your hands over their ears.

 

[EdT]

Pricey? Yeah. But not as pricey as dealers charge for their infotainment options (think Toyota Entune). If I could pay $1000 to get this instead of Toyota's option in my new Prius, I would pay it without batting an eye.

2 years ago I bought a Toyota Camry, and because I wanted a better radio I "upgraded " to the navigation package to get their premium stereo. This came with satellite maps ( on DVDs) and Entune. This cost me $3000.00. Entune has, at max, 6 or 7 apps available, uses its own crappy voice recognition, has no way to update maps without buying a new DVD-$450.00 and also relies on my phone and data plan for everything. I wish I had only wasted $1000.00 dollars on CarPlay.

 

[pacalis]

2 years ago I bought a Toyota Camry, and because I wanted a better radio I "upgraded " to the navigation package to get their premium stereo. This came with satellite maps ( on DVDs) and Entune. This cost me $3000.00. Entune has, at max, 6 or 7 apps available, uses its own crappy voice recognition, has no way to update maps without buying a new DVD-$450.00 and also relies on my phone and data plan for everything. I wish I had only wasted $1000.00 dollars on CarPlay.

So your point is that the old system not as good as a future system? But also, CarPlay is just a head unit. You're $3000 bought speakers, controls in the steering wheel, antennas, install costs, none which are included here.

 

[ActionableMango]

Thank god this appears to be the beginning of the end for proprietary car stereo and navigation systems. None of them work the same way and almost all of them suck. Will be nice to be able to view the same apps in your car that you have on your phone.

I wish this were true, but I'm seeing more and more integrated systems where you cannot replace the factory car stereo because it's a proprietary "infotainment" system and sometimes they even have environmental controls wrapped in.

 

[Lancer]

This is more like it but I do agree it's a high price for an upgrade.

 

[Fortimir]

Why?

Visibility. You're absolutely right about the physical "performance", but I think people tend to forget that cars are victim to the elements of direct sunlight and glare. I'm getting ready to do an install in a convertible and it's even worse.

I'm also waiting for Waze option. Are there any non Carplay head unit that support waze?

Let me know when you find one. I'm essentially waiting to do a major install until I find the right head unit.... and unfortunately we're at a really awkward time where good things are finally starting to happen, but we're not quite there yet. Everything is either legacy or half-baked.

 

[akbarali.ch]

Crazy expensive considering the iPhone does all the processing. There's really very little needed from the hardware itself. All you really need is a screen and chipset that works with CarPlay. Sadly the licensing fee raises the price of things. The current cheapest CarPlay compatible deck is around $450 from Pioneer.

It is crazy, crazy expensive just for an LCD, IMO. And if its not just an LCD, then why not just be the LCD, rest is all done by the iPhone anyway.

 

[akatsuki]

They are living in the old world where they could come out with incremental updates every year.

I have an AVIC-8000NEX and literally have no idea why they bothered with the 8100.

And since Carplay is being updated, you have no clue what version of Carplay these things will support... There are a ton of other problems with the first-gen Carplay, which seem like they may get resolved in the new version.

So what someone needs to do is come out with a better version of this, that is upgradable, that supports all the Carplay functions, that has more than a 1-year lifespan.

 

[Crzyrio]

They are living in the old world where they could come out with incremental updates every year.

I have an AVIC-8000NEX and literally have no idea why they bothered with the 8100.

And since Carplay is being updated, you have no clue what version of Carplay these things will support... There are a ton of other problems with the first-gen Carplay, which seem like they may get resolved in the new version.

So what someone needs to do is come out with a better version of this, that is upgradable, that supports all the Carplay functions, that has more than a 1-year lifespan.

CarPlay does all the processing on your phone, so when ever you upgrade iOS you will get an updated version of Carplay. You will get the majority of new features that CarPlay is updated with.

So these units have a lifespan that correlates to your iPhone.

 

[4jasontv]

what? how often are you trying to hide texts from your car-mates? never heard of this, and its a not a very compelling use case.

Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays or just becauses? I think having something ruined once is justified to want control over how my information is shared. Sometimes a name gives things away.

Besides just because you don't care if others know you got a message doesn't mean they aren't bothered by it. What if they don't want you getting messages while they are in the car? What if they have a headache and the sound bothers them. There are many reasons to be able to control, limit, or disable how and when you are notified of messages. I like how my Apple TV shows content from my iPhone, but I don't need to take over the TV every time I am in the living room.

 

[EdT]

So your point is that the old system not as good as a future system? But also, CarPlay is just a head unit. You're $3000 bought speakers, controls in the steering wheel, antennas, install costs, none which are included here.

The map service was out of date from day one, the voice recognition doesn't work, trying to use Entune to play music off of my phone is frustrating and dangerous, as you need to keep looking at the screen, and if you try to search for a song or an artist you better not have a lot of songs on your phone because it will lock up. For $3000 dollars I could have bought an EXTREMELY nice aftermarket stereo with Bluetooth connections that worked much better, used Siri to search and play songs, and if I felt I wanted a Nav system (not my phone) I could have bought a Tom Tom for $150.00. Everything would have probably worked reasonably well,which is more than I, and a lot of other disgruntled Entune users can say about that system. The underpinnings of Entune ( and Fords MySync and GM's OnStar) is a Microsoft software system. Both Ford and GM are ditching their current entertainment systems and replacing them because of how bad a reputation they have gotten. I don't know if Toyota is going to replace theirs but they have quit referencing Entune in their commercials.

 

[Joshitect]

This is intriguing for me. I dont just see this as carplay. Its a DVD player, Sat radio player, Radio Tuner, GPS etc. Not having to have to connect to it is nice to get most of the functions. I dont think I'd want carplay only because if there was an issue with my phone or cell service I would be out of luck to get any use out of it at all. My car didnt come with any indash infotainment system so even to just get the DVD player and Navigation is $1000+ If you are in my shoes this is actually a much cheaper option, in the price range you get better features and a larger screen.

I'd go with the the more expensive model ($750 at crutchfield, maybe $50 less on amazon?) for the added GPS antenna. $50 for the metra for steering wheel controls and install it myself.

Hopefully the local stereo stores get some in soon so I can play with the OS.

 

[rdlink]

I feel like displaying text messages on the screen is a really bad idea....

It doesn't display the texts. It reads them to you. I have a CarPlay system (Pioneer) and it's very safe.

 

[rdlink]

Which is only helpful if you drive alone, otherwise you still need to wear a headset.

Why? What are you trying to hide?

 

[Mildredop]

I don't really know who this is aimed at - This wouldn't fit in the dash of any of my vehicles.

 

[Mildredop]

And people complain that Apple overprices its stuff.

Uuhh lawwdy

The high price is probably as a result of the licensing they need to pay Apple.