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What car stereo is perfect for iPhone?

kdawg said:
I purchased the Pioneer Appradio. It's total garbage. I contacted pioneer and they actually had a rep call me back about my issues. However, he made it quite clear that my problems would not be addressed and that they would not be spending "that kind of money" to resolve the valid issues I had with the product. - If you want my entire review, go to Amazon and read the review. It's too lengthy to type up here.

I told the rep from Pioneer that bluetooth was terrible and that I should have the option to run the phone through the 30 pin connecter since it is plugged in anyways. The Pioneer rep said, bluetooth is what it was, and that they would never allow me to plug in the phone. I spent $399 for terrible bluetooth?

The pioneer rep said that the Appradio was nothing more than an FM tuner with a port for a backup camera and a touch screen. (he was trying to blame the falts of their product on the iphone) However, this means that this product is a ripoff if they are charging $399 for an FM Tuner and a touch interface.

They geniuses at pioneer also tried to blame their products FAIL on Apples API's however when I had previously connected my iphone to my trucks radio, it knew when the vehicle was turned off, and the iphone would stop playing the musing. Pioneer has not figured this out. So when you turn your vehicle off, the ipod/iphone continues silently pumping music, so you are never where you left off. (Plus I bet this has a draw on battery).

But the Appradio is so buggy that nothing is really consistent. Sometimes when I reconnect the unit (After being out of my car for 3-5 min), it has no idea where you left off and so you have to restart the iphone/ipod.

There are a ton of other problems with this product. I was going to keep it in hopes that they would update the devices firmware and the AppRadio app. However the rep from Pioneer told me that they would not spend the resources to address the lengthy list of issues I have with a product that is still in BETA

DON"T BUY
Click to expand...

Wow I had the complete opposite experience.

My Appradio works great. If wired correctly it stops the music and all apps on the iPhone when I turn my vehicle off. I ran a parking brake bypass switch and can operate all functions of the unit while driving.(not that I do, but it is much nicer then pumping the parking brake three times) If your vehicle is turned off for less then 5 mins the unit starts right back up(without boot up sequence) right where you left off on any app ie. Pandora, GPS navigation, iPod. If the vehicle has been off for longer it goes through the boot up sequence but still starts right where you left. The only time it doesn't do all this is when you have switched apps at the phone, but using multitasking I just switch right back to Pandora and it starts right where I left it, same song in the same spot. Backup camera works great.(spend the extra couple of dollars and get a good camera, I found mine for $86) The best part is that the unit is upgradeable. When I talked to the Pioneer reps and addressed a couple things they told me that they were looking into them and others and that a firmware update should be fixing any bugs. In fact they told me to call or email about anything I might find and that they love hearing from customers(not saying it was you, but you might have been overly zealous, or just talked to someone having a bad day). I would recommend the AppRadio to anyone looking for a head unit that cuts out all the other stuff and lets you use the stuff you like from your iPhone. A unit that has Nav, iPod control, bluetooth, video, touch screen, and use of some great apps like pandora all without a $700+ price tag.

The biggest thing I would like to see fixed is the stupid startup warning. Every time you start the vehicle and the boot up process finishes you have to tap the OK button before the radio starts.
 
What about the customgadz mimics? It make you iphone as a car stereo! You can actually touch the double-din screen to control your phone. Looks good but looks like you need to connect it to an amp to get audio to the speakers. Or maybe use a simple headunit aux input. So a bit of installation is required.

icar.jpg

One downside is that I would need to jailbreak my brand new iphone4 to use this!!
Here's the link:
iphone in your car

Anyone installed one of these? Any reviews?
 
Walo said:
The perfect car stereo for iPhone, is where your iphone acts as a front panel.
http://www.oxygenaudio.com/
I'm using this radio for a few months now, and I love it. Here's a movie you can watch:
http://t.co/FNXFz9g
Click to expand...

Looks cool, but i prefer a double-din solution. The tom-tom on the iphone standard screen is a bit small for me, id rather project this onto something bigger. Id like to also fill in my double din opening.
 
Last.Black.80 said:
Wow I had the complete opposite experience.

>>I ran a parking brake bypass switch and can operate all functions of the unit while driving.(not that I do, but it is much nicer then pumping the parking brake three times)<<

I like this idea. How hard was it to run the brake bypass switch?
Click to expand...
 
Wow, thats alot of devices to plug into it. DVD,CD doesnt matter, im sre that headunit has video playback.
 
ippp said:
Wow, thats alot of devices to plug into it. DVD,CD doesnt matter, im sre that headunit has video playback.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it has a lot of add ons if you want. I just have the head unit with the navigation. and yes it does play back video.
 
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