Tag: aftermarket head units

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Pioneer Europe

Press Release

My Comments

Pioneer AVIC-F77DAB car stereo that supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay

I have raised the reality that in a car’s life, there will be the need to support smartphone interlink technology in a vendor-neutral manner because people change phones and cars very frequently with some changing to different phone platforms.

Pioneer has answered this reality with aftermarket car infotainment systems that work with both the Apple CarPlay platform and the Android Auto platform. They even support the Mirrorlink baseline requirement for having the car stereo be a terminal for your mobile device. Some of these units are also supporting the DAB reality as more countries in Europe and Oceania implement the Eureka-based DAB and DAB+ standards.

They will be a 2-DIN form factor with a touch screen and will fit well with most vehicles on the market since the 1980s. Here, the touchscreen will be the main control surface for your phone if you tether it to the infotainment system using the USB cable. But what I like about these systems is that a person can use an iPhone or an Android phone and get the full benefit from these systems.

As well, it is also symptomatic of the trend to use the touchscreen as a preferred control and display surface for newer gadgets.

Articles

Apple CarPlay Comes To Pioneer’s Aftermarket Infotainment Systems | Gizmodo

Apple CarPlay Coming To Pioneer’s In-Dash Systems This Summer | Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Pioneer

European Press Release

Product Page

My Comments

The talk about Apple’s CarPlay in-dash infotainment operating system has been focused on vehicle builders providing this as standard with particular car models. But Pioneer, who is well-known for a long run of high-quality car-infotainment technology for the vehicle aftermarket, has become the first company to launch an Apple CarPlay setup for this application class.

This will be available as an up-and-coming firmware update for a few of Pioneer’s premium “double-DIN” multimedia head-units that are being launched this year. The units, some with and without optical disc will have the large LCD touch screen as the operating system but will require the use of a iPhone 5 or newer device running iOS 7.1 or later to run with the new operating environment. They will also be connected to that iPhone via a USB-Lightning “charge and sync” cable. Key advantages will come in the form of access to Apple’s assets like iTunes, especially iTunes Radio, the reformed Apple Maps along with the Siri voice-driven “personal assistant”. There will be some driving-appropriate third-party apps like Spotify or TuneIn Radio that will be made “CarPlay-ready” as they are developed or revised for the iOS platform.

What I see of this is that the aftermarket scene, which will cater to the younger drivers who primarily start out with older vehicles, will need to embrace Apple’s CarPlay and other similar connected-infotainment platforms offered by Google and Microsoft. As well, it is showing that the vehicle is becoming part of the home network and the Internet and heading towards a platform-driven connected environment rather than one directed solely by the vehicle builder.