How do I use A2DP conveniently and reliably?
 

After 10 years with my WRX I finally sold it for a BRZ. For all that time music in the car has been mostly an afterthought (couldn't even listen to radio because of the tint shielding the rear window antenna), but I've truly gotten horrible about music in the car. What I'd really like is to be able to get in the car, have my phone connect to BT automatically and have Spotify start playing as if it were regular radio. What I have is almost sorta close. The Google Music app will start playing and stop when I get out, but there are a few issues.

1) The onscreen controls are "alright." I can see the track info and skip forward and back in my playlist. Anything more advanced and I need to pull the phone out.

2) That doesn't work at all in Spotify. I basically just have a streaming music player if I want to listen to Spotify.

3) Most importantly, the connection is quirky enough that I don't want to use it. It will disconnect (I think there's a pattern but I haven't figured it out yet), music will start playing from the phone speaker and continue until I fumble around with it and either stop it or get it reconnected. (At that point I'm frustrated and usually just stop it)

The other biggest issue is -- and I don't know what I was expecting -- SMS on this thing is truly a nightmare. I haven't played around with it much. The day after I brought it home I got in and was bombarded with every text I'd gotten since I parked it. After hitting ignore 100 times I turned off notifications in the HU settings. Is SMS worth using on this HU at all?

And finally the navigation isn't very good. It's really a low priority but I thought I'd add it.

So.... can anyone tell me what I want? The connection issues are really the killer for me right now. BT A2DP streaming is more trouble than its worth. I doubt a different HU would solve those problems.

Ugh.. No one? I'm so close to what I want.. I just need it to actually work. :(

Nobody responded because these are common issues. All of them.

Some of them were fixed with a firmware update, but that breaks other things (like if you wanted to bypass the VSS and parking brake to watch videos, you might not be able to with the updated firmware).

Suggestion: go to dealership, demand firmware update to fix bluetooth connectivity and GPS reception issue due to TSB.

I talked to my dealer and they say they don't know anything about BT connectivity issues. I can't find a thread discussing any issue Subaru acknowledges -- can someone point me in the right way?

I did buy my car out of town and I know the local dealer is bitter about it. They're pretty notorious for giving people a hard time so I don't expect it to be easy.

Alright.. one more bump. I've given up on using my phone for music, but I still want to know what's up with BT.

I'll drive for a day with no issue. This morning on the way to work I couldn't even tell what song was playing (from USB) because the screen was plastered with "phone disconnected" "phone connected" for the entire drive. The dealer says they don't know of any firmware update. The Ca-Fi knockoff I bought was complete garbage and I took it out after 5 minutes of playing with it. How do I tell the dealer exactly what I need, and where is a thread I can use as evidence so they can't just shut me up?

What phone do you have with it? Are you using custom roms?

Galaxy S4 with stock firmware and rooted