"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
08/21/2020 at 14:03 • Filed to: None
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"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
08/21/2020 at 14:03 • Filed to: None | 1
| 20 |
As we speak, BMW is !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of rolling out Android Auto to all of its cars running iDrive 7, and new cars rolling off the line with iDrive 7 now have Android Auto built in. But, BMW in its infinite “wisdom” made its Apple CarPlay and Android Auto so lution wireless-only. This is ok for CarPlay, but up til now has been a major headache for Android Auto, because only a very limited number of phones have supported wireless Android Auto.
Having these smartphone-mirroring capabilities be wireless only is a bad idea, because the wireless connections aren’t super reliable, and having a USB cable as a backup to make sure the connection just works is good. But BMW, even though its cars have plentiful USB ports, can’t be bothered to make those USB ports work with CarPlay or Android Auto.
Basically every iPhone with iOS 9 (which came out in 2015) or higher can do wireless CarPlay. But only certain Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones could do wireless Android Auto. Which meant that even if you had a brand new BMW with its fresh, way-overdue Android Auto capability, and a brand new Android phone from any other Android phone manufacturer, you still had no ability to use Android Auto in your BMW.
BUT, as part of the upcoming Android 11 release, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (with some restrictions in the EU but not here in FREEDOMLANDIAMURRICA ).
So basically, without BMW having to do any additional work, Google went ahead and made a feature somewhat universal on all Android phones that Apple has been universally supporting since 2015. At least once those Android phones’ various manufacturers eventually update them to Android 11.
VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
> Textured Soy Protein
08/21/2020 at 14:06 |
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I’ve never owned a BMW, modern or otherwise. Is iDrive 7 good?
Tripper
> VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
08/21/2020 at 14:15 |
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All infotainment systems are trash. I have used each of the big 3 recently and I’m just like “ok how tf do I get to carplay”
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Textured Soy Protein
> VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
08/21/2020 at 14:16 |
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I haven’t used it personally but from the videos I’ve seen of it, it seems fine enough. BMW has some interesting surround-view camera tricks, and the wide center dash screens allow you to split-screen different stuff like nav + audio.
The #1 big thing for me on Android Auto is the ability to use your navigation app of choice on the car’s screen. Because I’ve yet to experience any car’s built-in navigation that comes remotely close to as good as Google Maps or Waze. Also, I use Google Hangouts as my main texting app with my wife instead of regular texting, and Android Auto will read you your Hangouts messages and take dictation for replies.
(Whatever the hell iDrive version in my 2011 E92 is not good. It’s better than the original iDrive, but the bluetooth audio connection is finicky and takes a bunch of twiddling to get modern phones to actually play audio thru the car. When I start driving I need to switching from bluetooth to aux to back to bluetooth just to get the audio to stream properly. Each time I’ve gotten a newer Android phone while owning this car this has gotten worse. I never use the car’s nav, but on the random occasions I tried it instead of my phone, the voice doesn’t even say street names, it only says “right turn ahead.” So dumb. )
facw
> Textured Soy Protein
08/21/2020 at 14:21 |
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I’m a bit shocked to learn that any car supported wireless Android Auto. Every time I’ve looked for a list of cars with support, I basically find nothing but comments saying that automakers will be announcing their offerings at some point in the future.
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VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
> facw
08/21/2020 at 14:30 |
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Lexus and Toyota just barely got in wired Android Auto for 2020. How nuts is that!
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VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
> Tripper
08/21/2020 at 14:30 |
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TBH I’m the same way but I always hold out hope for in-house solutions so I have to fiddle less.
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Textured Soy Protein
> facw
08/21/2020 at 14:30 |
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So far outside of BMW it’s been only available on aftermarket headunits.
My guess is this was a chicken & egg problem where most automakers didn’t want to bother with adding the feature when it was only usable with Pixels & Samsung flagships. Samsung is by far the dominant player in the Android market in the US, but in the rest of the world there are so many other brands, and even among Samsung phones the lower-end models are much more popular in places where phones are not generally sold on wacky carrier financing plans like here in the US.
Maybe now that Google is rolling wireless AA out to a much larger number of phones, more carmakers will start adding it.
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facw
> VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
08/21/2020 at 14:32 |
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It’s bizarre, I can only assume that some executive who liked his iPhone thought it was no big deal for people who wanted it to switch to Apple or use the built in crap.
PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120
> Textured Soy Protein
08/21/2020 at 14:38 |
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Star for Hangouts. Not sure if it’ll be killed off as they say but it’s running strong for us Fi users.
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facw
> Textured Soy Protein
08/21/2020 at 14:38 |
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As far as I can tell (without insider info), it seems like people are concerned with both wireless Android Auto and Carplay that users will end up draining their batteries and blame the car. That might be a problem on a road trip, but it really should be a problem for trips around town. And I do like that a few new models have started having qi charging niches where you can toss your phone to charge wirelessly if needed.
Probably irrelevant to me though, while I could install an aftermarket head unit, I don’t want to spend like $700 to upgrade a car that’s probably only worth a few thousand, and it’s pretty likely that when I upgrade, I’ll be buying used, and be likely to even have wired Android Auto, let along wireless (especially since it’s much harder to do aftermarket upgrades for modern infotainment systems).
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Tripper
> VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
08/21/2020 at 14:43 |
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Honestly I think we will be waiting until wireless carplay is stable. Having to plug in is a huge hangup for some. Even still that only takes care of nav/music. when the air condition /heated seats etc are all intertwined with the infotainment system it is the worst!!
duurtlang
> Textured Soy Protein
08/21/2020 at 14:45 |
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This is odd to me. It might be different in the US, but globally Apple has a relatively small market share. Including in BMWs Heimat Germany. So why such silly restrictions?
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Textured Soy Protein
> facw
08/21/2020 at 14:54 |
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I’d be good with a reliable wireless connection because most cars’ USB ports don’t support all the different fast charging standards out there. But I always make sure to have a proper fast car charger that works with my specific phone’s fast charging modes. So running wireless AA and plugged into a fast charger, bam, good to go.
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VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
> Tripper
08/21/2020 at 15:00 |
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Ah jeez that sounds like a pain. I’ve worn out connector plugs on phones before from car use so I wouldn’t want to constantly plug in either.
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Tripper
> VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely
08/21/2020 at 15:13 |
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Same, I wasn’t that cheesed about plugging in until a cords started lasting only a few months
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Textured Soy Protein
> PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120
08/21/2020 at 15:32 |
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We migrated to Hangouts wayyy back in the day before we were living together because I was still on a cell phone plan with a finite amount of texts. I suggested we use some kind of messaging app that used data instead. At first we did fb messenger but I hated the stupid ba- DING notification sound it made, which yes I could’ve changed but we switched to Hangouts for various other reasons anyway.
She loves Google Messages which has RCS built into it for Hangouts/iMessage-like features like read receipts and typing indicators, but with the cross-device ability on Hangouts we still use it for our chatting with each other.
I believe Android Auto works like this for most messaging apps so it’s not even so much tied to specifically doing Hangouts. Just good to have it for whatever messaging you do without looking at a screen.
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Textured Soy Protein
> duurtlang
08/21/2020 at 15:55 |
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I don’t really know the motivation for them sticking to only Apple CarPlay so long. There were some security concerns from the automakers around how much OBD data would be sent back to Google thru Android Auto but pretty much everybody else hopped on the AA bandwagon a few years ago. For BMW to only finally do it in 2020, only on iDrive 7, and only wirelessly, is pretty lame.
CRider
> Textured Soy Protein
08/21/2020 at 16:00 |
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Awesome, now maybe Google can do something about the design of new BMWs.
ihm96
> Tripper
08/21/2020 at 17:21 |
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Woah woah woah, the OBC infotainment in my 1995 E34 works flawlessly sir! All the info I need at the quick press of a button
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Tripper
> ihm96
08/21/2020 at 19:21 |
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Same on my e46