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  • Car head units with Apple CarPlay
  • gozarch
    Free Member

    Evenin’ all. On the lookout for a replacement radio for our van and the husband’s discovered Apple CarPlay. Has anyone got any first-hand experience of a head unit with this feature? It’d be nice to have DAB as well, but they seem a bit spendy.

    Will be connecting our iPod to it, as well as syncing both iPhones, for calls and maps and stuff.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    If your data plan on the phone is big enough you can stream DAB. As long as you drive in 3G areas.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    Just to add the unit will need the passenger to fly it if you want to pick and choose music on the go. Much too distracting for anything other than set playlists and navigating to a spot if on your own. Apple Maps can be a bit hit and miss if you’re navigating to a business check both sides of the road as sometimes these are wrong.

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    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    I use Android on the Sony XAV-AX100 which also does Apple carplay

    The functions are very limited on these units (in a good way) and the voice functions are excellent. I find it much easier to use whilst driving than my old Clarion unit which just had its native/traditonal maps and nav.

    In Spotify, you can voice search for an artist etc, or pick from a very limited number of recent playlists or suggestions whilst in motion.

    (there is an unintended design flaw with the Sony model when used with Android…Google uses the units own satnav to limit functions when in motion. The unit doesn’t have built in satnav, it relies on the phone. So Android Auto defaults to drive mode even when parked. Still perfectly usable, just a bit irritating if you want to find a specific playlist as I have to unplug the phone, select what I want and then plug back in. I’m sure they’ll sort it with an update at some point…)

    (PS The Sony is head and shoulders above the boy racer units by Pioneer etc in both build quality and on screen menus)

    CountZero
    Full Member

    If your data plan on the phone is big enough you can stream DAB. As long as you drive in 3G 4G areas.

    3G is barely usable for any sort of data, let alone streaming music, and huge areas of the country don’t even have 3G, so effectively useless. In fact there are large parts of south Wiltshire and Dorset where it’s impossible to even get a phone signal!
    I’d be very surprised if any head unit with CarPlay didn’t have DAB built in, basic head units with DAB and a direct USB for a phone are around for about £70, and due to the limited number of apps that are set up for CarPlay I wouldn’t bother myself. I use TomTom on my phone for navigation, and that doesn’t work through CarPlay AFAIK, and neither do CoPilot, Navmii or Here WeGo, and I don’t use online mapping because I cannot rely on getting any data when I need to start a new route, I need to have all map data on the phone.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    Bear in mind most BBC channels on DAB are streamed at 128kbs or less, 3G should be good enough (iPlayer runs at 320) source. I was able to comfortably stream radio to iPhone 3 BITD, before the unlimited data on O2 was rescinded.

    Your experience day to day may differ due to the miles you cover most of us stick to well served roads with minimum 3G. I too would use off-line maps on the device if I were regularly heading for the back end of beyond (somewhere beyond Barnsley I think that is 😀 ).

    gozarch
    Free Member

    Yeah, we live in mid-Wales, so even one G is a luxury! Very patchy DAB signal too. We do lots of long trips (it’s a long way to anywhere for us!) both U.K. and the rest of Europe.

    Husband is the navigator and music controller, but bad travel sickness means looking down is an issue. He thought the large screen would be a better way to control iTunes.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    It’s very good for controlling iTunes.

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    3G is barely usable for any sort of data, let alone streaming music

    I’ve never had a problem. I’ve driven from Bristol to Farnborough and Farnborough to Sheffield/Leeds/Huddersfield steaming all the way

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    My Three mobile 3G runs faster than my BT Broadband a lot of the time. 4G flies relatively. Where I not restricted to 12GB per month tehtering I’d not bother with BT at all.

    As for Apple CarPlay never used it but the Apple mapping application is still dire

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