Silent death of Prime apps on the 2020

Same for me. I park in a garage and it’s a 10 minute walk if I power walk, 15 minutes if I walk at a normal pace.

 

So, let's just update this thread a bit.

Toyota got back to me with the following in regards to the "Toyota App" is not supported for 2020 Prius Prime. Did more digging and found site "Connected Services - Toyota Canada". A little miffed that Toyota Owners\Customers need to perform hours of net investigation and reviews to validate what you may or may not have in the product your are thinking of or may have purchased. I think Toyota can do better? Thoughts?

 

Toyota could be a lot more clear and specific, I have read fairly recent reports even in dealer web sites that indicate upgrade to Android Auto is planned and just a matter of time -

ANDROID AUTO now (or soon) available on 2020 Prius Prime ? 4 articles I found online | PriusChat

 

IF that is the case then the question they need to answer is WHY ?

WHY remove features that likely might cost them some sales ?

 

they won't tell, probably cost

but you can be sure of one thing, they are selling as many primes as they want to

 

I'm not in Canada, but I looked at the web page. In addition to learning that the majority of Toyota features are not available on the 2020 Prime, it seems odd that "Safety Connect" is available on the "Prius Prime" with "standard package" but is NOT available on the "Prius Prime Upgrade" with either the "standard package" or the "technology package."

So you get Apple Carplay (I don't have an iPhone) and Sirius FM -- period. And, if that's the case, I don't think I'll even consider a Prius Prime when I go car shopping.

Possibly the U.S. offering is different, but I'm not encouraged.

 

Read an article that all the 2020 model Prius will have safety connect standard. Toyota makes CarPlay and Alexa standard in the 2020 Prius With this feature being standard in all the trims they must have decided not to include remote apps with the safety connect functions?

 

The other day was giving some 2020 Prius AWD advice to a friend on FB, and I got pre-empted by another friend they have works at Toyota USA in TX and knows all the details. Now if we could get some help over here...our friend is going with AWD Forrester for safety they feel they need AWD and want to go bigger vehicle, trading in a Gen3 which is otherwise fine fit.

 

It would be really nice if that Toyota worker joined this forum and was able to give us some definite answers on some of the questions here.

 

When I first got my Prime, I had a LOT of problems with the Entune apps. Basically, they flat-out wouldn't work on a Samsung Galaxy S8+ running Android Nougat at the time (nor would it work with the Qi charger, but that's another story). I spent a lot of time on the phone with the Entune folks, and several of them hinted that the Prime apps were not an "in-house" system that they could support. All they could do is put in a word with the team/vendor that wrote them and wait for a response. Said team was definitely not available weekends. In the end, they were able to get the Eco Dashboard functional, but the charging app and remote climate portions always just timed out while trying to anything with them.

My guess is that when the decision was made to go to Carplay, management pulled the reports on usage of the Prime apps, looked at the relationship with the third-party, and decided against both. If you can't make the app work on the most popular phones out there, then no one is using it, so what's the point?

Living in South Texas, part of the appeal of going with the Advanced trim was the ability to turn on the AC before I jumped into a 100+ degree car when going home. Kind of sad I'll never be able to use that, as it's never worked, and I won't pay to keep Entune after the 3 years because... it doesn't work. A huge blemish on an otherwise remarkable car.

 

That is indeed sad, and I sure hope Toyota is aware of all the negative feelings from the Prime apps not working on the 2020 and is trying to figure out a solution behind the scenes and just simply not saying anything up front about it.

If the Prime apps used to work, surely there must be some solution to get them to work on the 2020.

 

I have a much older phone, one of the first Samsung Galaxy models, and when I purchased my 2017 Prime, I was unable to download the Entune app because my phone's older version of Android was "not supported."

I did some research and discovered that the older Android operating system on my phone worked with an older version of Entune. After some poking around, I found someone had archived the APK install package and was able to use that to install Entune on my phone. A lot of effort (and self-education because I'd never installed an APK manually before), but the app works very well.

I love the Eco Dashboard ("We love sheep!") and frequently use the charge management, climate pre-conditioning, and stock price and sports score functions. The car locator does not work because the GPS on my old phone does not respond quickly enough, but I can use the charge station locator to show exactly where my car is on a map of all the charging stations around it.

Hopefully, I will be getting a new Android phone in a month or two (when the model comes out) and that the recent Entune app will still be available to install. If not, I'll be going on another search of the internet to find the APK and keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a clean copy without any concealed malware.

 

I have a 2017 Advanced, and the lack of the remote apps is sufficient for me to not even consider downgrading to a 2020. I guess they figured that having the media functionality from Apple and possibly Google was worth more than the "geeky" Prime Apps.

 

I just upgraded from an OG 2017 Prime to a new 2020 model due to my lease ending. A few things excited me like Car Play and a fresh new car, but this entune thing is a bit of a drag. I used the app occasionally to remotely check location, battery status, trigger remote charge or trigger remote climate operation. Now its not an option. I’ve had the car less than a week, barely driven it and only used Car Play for 5 minutes in my driveway, but so far I’m not sure if this feature switch is better, the same but different, or worse. Will report back.