CarPlay Impressions

[mattaus]

With CarPlay, as soon as you connect the cable to the phone, Bluetooth is disabled on that phone (a secondary phone can still be connected via Bluetooth). So it's either App Connect via cable or non-App Connect via Bluetooth.

I thought Android Auto behaved the same as CarPlay?

Well as you probably will have noticed I'm far from impressed with AA (posted my thoughts in another thread complete with a demo video). They do not appear to behave the same either, as AA still takes the blue tooth connection even when running. Its required for the calls to work. The voice button on the steering wheel doesn't work with Google Now either which is frustrating. Basically I'm giving up on it until it gets a few major updates that are sorely needed.

Never switching to Apple though

[stev99]

Connection bugs

Noticed a more frequent occurrence of a bug happen yesterday; Non-detection of phone when connecting to Lightning cable.

The App-Connect screen would appear, but with no option to select CarPlay.

Turning MIB & engine off didn't work. Unplugging/reconnecting cable didn't work.

What did work was restarting the iPhone (5).

I have the same issue, it occurs for me if I plug in the phone a bit too early, while the MIBII is "booting" up. I find if I wait 5 seconds or so after starting the car it connects properly.

[Ralfi]

I have the same issue, it occurs for me if I plug in the phone a bit too early, while the MIBII is "booting" up. I find if I wait 5 seconds or so after starting the car it connects properly.

Thanks for the tip, Stev.

Had no issues this morning btw. Detected every time & songs continued where they left off.

Any other things you dislike/like about CarPlay? Find any hidden tricks to using it?

Well as you probably will have noticed I'm far from impressed with AA (posted my thoughts in another thread complete with a demo video). They do not appear to behave the same either, as AA still takes the blue tooth connection even when running. Its required for the calls to work. The voice button on the steering wheel doesn't work with Google Now either which is frustrating. Basically I'm giving up on it until it gets a few major updates that are sorely needed.

Never switching to Apple though

Couldn't find other thread, so I'll post here...

I have an Android phone & im sure when first pairing with the car, it asked something like if I wanted to use the phone to stream Audio &/or Calls.

Maybe try & unpair your device, re-pair & deselect the Calls-over-Bluetooth facility if you can.

I was under the impression that if you disabled Bluetooth on your Android, the Phone App in AA would work through the cable...

Also, with Voice (Siri), you need to press & hold the button on the steering wheel for a second to get the command prompt (as you do with iPhone). I notice with Android, you double-tap the Home button on the phone for Google Now.

Try either holding button down, or double -tapping, as tapping once only brings up the VW prompt asking if you'd like to be ripped off by paying for VW's propriety Voice option.....

[stev99]

Any other things you dislike/like about CarPlay? Find any hidden tricks to using it?

I find it mostly "just works", and is pretty great, especially with Apple Music and Siri, e.g."Play songs by xxx" is great when you have access to any artist, streaming from 4G.

I did buy a shorter lighting cable, as the standard one was coiled up like a mess of spaghetti in that little hidey hole where I put the phone.

Other that that I've had to "re-pair" it a couple of times - I suspect after each iOS upgrade it's forgetting the pairing.

[mattaus]

Couldn't find other thread, so I'll post here...

I have an Android phone & im sure when first pairing with the car, it asked something like if I wanted to use the phone to stream Audio &/or Calls.

Maybe try & unpair your device, re-pair & deselect the Calls-over-Bluetooth facility if you can.

I was under the impression that if you disabled Bluetooth on your Android, the Phone App in AA would work through the cable...

Also, with Voice (Siri), you need to press & hold the button on the steering wheel for a second to get the command prompt (as you do with iPhone). I notice with Android, you double-tap the Home button on the phone for Google Now.

Try either holding button down, or double -tapping, as tapping once only brings up the VW prompt asking if you'd like to be ripped off by paying for VW's propriety Voice option.....

This was my other post. Thanks for the tips, I'll give it a try later this afternoon and see if my experience improves!

[SIRIoz]

Does anyone know if there is an aerial pan in the front centre console of golf alltrack or is it just a euro thing? Also does the gps aerial get used by the carplay maps?

[AJW]

I've just picked up my GTI , I'm using Android Auto (AA).
Regarding the Cars GPS antenna, at least for Google maps in AA it looks like it's using the cars antenna.
When I was driving along with Google maps running in AA I had a look at the GPS symbol in the Notification bar of my phone.
I can only see it when the car has stopped and it's under a building for example.
It seems to be a lot more accurate than my phone running Google maps NAV just by it'self.

I's be surprised if Carplay wasn't doing something similar.

[RMBB]

Does anyone know if there is an aerial pan in the front centre console of golf alltrack or is it just a euro thing? Also does the gps aerial get used by the carplay maps?

Not sure about the Alltrack.

But, CarPlay does have the ability to use the cars GPS antenna if available. As for the MIBII specifically I am not sure, this all depends on what VW have allowed the iPhone access to. I would say I am 90% certain that it would use the VW GPS and potentially more. I've put in some quotes from some websites.

Source: CNET on new Mercedes C-Class

If the car has its own GPS antenna, as the C-class did, CarPlay makes use of it to get better positioning. There is also a bit of dead reckoning programmed into Apple Maps, so a temporary loss of the GPS signal won't show the car driving through a forest or the ocean.

Addition Source: ExtremeTech.com on CarPlay (and Android Auto)

The USB connection not only carries power and audio/video signals, it also carries the car’s GPS location information to the phone, a signal that may be more precise than the phone’s GPS. It knows and reports the state of the car: moving, stopped, parked. And when you are parked, there may be more things you can do via CarPlay or Auto, such as see texts onscreen, not just hear them. If you start an app, including navigation, while you’re outside the car, the app continues once you get in the car and connect the USB cable. If you have to park several blocks from your destination, the app continues to guide you on foot.

[Ralfi]

I notice the just released IOS 9.1 has a reference to improved stability in CarPlay. Look forward to seeing how it is....in a couple of weeks....

[Ralfi]

I notice the just released IOS 9.1 has a reference to improved stability in CarPlay. Look forward to seeing how it is....in a couple of weeks....

& I can say that after the most recent update, CarPlay has been an even more of a joy to use. Even Spotify has a higher strike rate of not failing. It still has its quirks (not displaying track name/info in certain rare circumstances), but it works pretty much every time now.

What it needs though is a shortcut button to get back to Music when Maps is in use (to match the Maps shortcut which appears on the right side when Music is running).

Overall, I guess I can't complain too much at all (hence why this thread's been quiet of late). Hopefully others here are happy with it too.

From reading overseas forums, many headaches are being caused by App-Connect in other regions. Seems we've been lucky here with the way it's implemented in our MIB II units.

[WallySimmonds]

Might give Android Auto another crack - I've not used it because as mentioned previously it feels pretty buggy to me.

[Ralfi]

Might give Android Auto another crack - I've not used it because as mentioned previously it feels pretty buggy to me.

If you're having issues with AA, check out mattaus' thread. Some good tips in there too...

http://www.vwwatercooled.com/forums/f78/android-auto-mib-ii-109633.html

[nharvey120]

Does anyone on this thread know if it impossible to get a software upgrade on an MY15 to have App Connect?

[fatredwombat1]

I believe not. On another note, I had a play with connection and disconnection. I found it wouldn't reconnect. I then turned off Bluetooth and it would connect.
It seems that as it was disconnected from Android Auto but connected as a Bluetooth device prevented the AA connection.
Hope this helps out some people.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

[Ralfi]

Spotify is still buggy.

Apple Music had some issues today - music would stop/start constantly..........went away after I shut down the engine & reconnected..