App Radio 2

[Guaruja]

Sorry if this was already posted anywhere - did a search but didn't find anything.

Anyone considering this - or already have it installed?

I played around w/ it at Best Buy today - seems like a pretty cool headunit.

Plus they have 18 months / no interest

[Fish]

I almost bought that today as well. I'm not so sure yet though. I wasn't able to test wether I could keep my phone connected through bluetooth and have my iPod play music at the same time.

[eriktherod]

I had the first-gen model in my Si shortly before I traded it in. I liked the radio overall, but it does have some serious issues that I hope Pioneer has worked out by now.

Installation was pretty easy, though it only has one RCA pair on the preamp. I believe the new model has two RCA pairs, but not three (for subs). Kind of annoying, but that's your call. I was using a 300w Alpine amp with it, which worked great.

The biggest problem with the radio was the nagging effects. You'd turn it on, wait 15 seconds or so for it to boot (ugh), and then be greeted with the normal "don't use this while driving" screen that requires you to press OKAY or something. So you do that, and your iPhone/iPod is plugged in now. The device gets a screen EVERY TIME of either "there is an app for this accessory, do you want to download it?" (if you don't have it installed) or... "do you want to run the app associated with this accessory? (if you do have it). Funny part is, if you hit "yes" on the latter, it sometimes breaks audio coming out until you reconnect. Hitting "no" does not, how ironic. Also, the cable it comes with for the iDevice is rather bulky/unwieldy because it's two, somewhat thick cables that merge to a Y connector. Highly recommend getting the dockXtender cable from CableJive, it's thinner and passes all pins for AV-out still (many other extension cables do not pass all pins for video).

So you get all that done and you're playing Pandora/music from your iPhone. It works pretty well at that point. The next problem is that it offers NO multi-tasking. So say you're listening to music and you want to use launch Waze or something, you'd have to do it on your phone. You'd want to be able to hit the 'home' button on your radio, hit 'apps', scroll to Waze, and press it. Nope, not happening, if you try that the apps screen goes back to the active app (Pandora usually).

If your iPhone/iPod has a non-supported app open, it will try to act as a TV and output it. This part is actually really neat because you can have Waze displayed on the large screen. However, it 'integrates' with the parking brake and requires you to activate, deactivate, and activate the parking break and THEN press "OKAY" to do video-out mode (you only have to do this once per radio boot-up). Netflix also integrates with it as well, and YouTube will do video-out just fine. The next problem is that when you have Waze up, you expect to be able to use the LARGE TOUCHSCREEN to tap things and interact. Nope, not happening. That and the screen would not properly scale apps that were in portrait mode on the landscape screen, so it looked odd unless you literally tilted your phone the proper orientation.

So while I was content with the Pandora aspect of the radio, it was frustrating when I had to do anything else because it required a bunch of babysitting or distractions fiddling with the phone. That and the stupid wonky cable they give you that is near impossible to fit on any iPhone with a CASE, was annoying.

Fortunately, a lot of those stupid issues were resolved via a jailbreak extension called AppRadio extensions. The extension allows you to bypass the stupid boot up video, automatically accept/decline the AppRadio app's request to launch on the phone when plugged in, force landscape mode on apps being video-out, add custom apps to the AppRadio list (like Waze/Spotify/Shazam), interact with apps via the AppRadio touchscreen, and a bunch of other things. Basically, this guy fixed nearly everything wrong with Pioneer's implementation except the stupid nags.

I eventually wired an on/off switch to the parking brake line on the radio so I could do the little on/off/on trickery while moving (mostly for Waze support on the go). That and the CableJive dockXtender cable made it bearable, I actually liked it quite a bit. Having Waze directly on the AppRadio with Pandora playing in the background is -exactly- what I wanted. The problem here is that you have to jailbreak and buy a good extension cable to get what Pioneer SHOULD have provided out of the box.

So now I have the BeSpoke system and I just use Bluetooth. Sure, I don't have visual nav, but Waze navi though audio works for me. What makes me annoyed the most about the AppRadio is that Pioneer -could- have done it but just missed the mark. I am sure for legal reasons the nags are necessary but their support in the app and the way the radio handles things needs vast improvement.

[crimespree]

hmm i am torn

I am thinking of getting the app radio 2..

can get it for around $400 here is Australia, decent double DIN nav units are well over $1000. I would rather spend that on go fast bits so decided to live with the factory unit for now. $400 is manageable though.

Anyone have the Appradio 2

Can i just leave it hooked up to an iPod/iphone and play music without have to launch the appradio app on the iPhone, that would reduce a lot of the nag screen??

[Neyzo]

Anyone heard if they've fixed any of these issues?

[Narcoden]

App Radio 3 should be out pretty soon... i'd wait to take a look at that first.

[GaDgeT]

Ive got the US version of the App Radio 2 delivered and installed in AUS. Did a lot of research into 2DIN HU's that have native Pandora radio and Google maps built in as native apps, and pioneer seems to have the best offering at the time.

Had it up and running on the test bench, and as mentioned, using any of the smartphone apps can be annoying, as the HU will request permission from the smartphone to allow access (have to hit ok every time). Pandora and playing music from iphone work really well and with minimal lag. Managed to bypass the ebrake control by feeding to an external switch that can simulate cycling the ebrake to watch videos and other naughty content while vehicle is in motion.

biggest party piece of this HU is that it will run 'Dash Command' when synced up with an OBD2 to Wifi connection, and display custom gauges, with any bit of info you want, and data logging straight though the HU screen.. I know the 'g-force' meter will get me into trouble eventually ;p

pic of HU up and running, like the simple, easy to read / use interface, and that the buttons match up with the red interior

[Neyzo]

What kind of phone do you have. Are there still issues with the iPhone 5?

[Skippman]

I still wanna see someone try this head unit with a MK808 or MK802.

[GaDgeT]

Im using a 4s, works with 5 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...47534661,d.aGc and android phones

[Santista]

Appradio 3 came out, were these issues fixed?

Has anyone tried it? bought it? installed it?

Anyone have any idea about mic placement?

[beefalo]

I've been looking into this head unit a lot. Does anyone have one in an frs? The best way to use it is with an android phone and the ARLiberator app which sort of hijacks the app features to mirror your phone and give you full control of everything on it through the head unit. Crutchfield has it for 300, and I'm curious how plug and play it would be with the frs.