Iphone OS 3.0 Review on the Prius 2010

Absolutely the case.

Thanks, Dave. I'd like to continue hoping there is a "pause" effect built in, but it appears there is not. Please try to check it next time and report back.

BTW: What phone do you have? Not only that, but: What car do you have? To my knowledge there is no BT audio streaming in the 2006 Prius. There wasn't in my 2007, I know. Do you have another car (a 2010 Prius, perhaps) with BT audio streaming?

 

Aha.. profile updated - thanks. I'd updates my sig some time ago, but forgot about the profile listing.

The phone is a 16g iPhone 3G. I'm not sure how long I'll last before going 32GB 3GS. I've sold several iPhones on eBay, and so far, I've made more money on them than I've spent on them

Dave

 

If your phone is controlling/playing the music, and also handling all phone calls, then it stands to reason that it would do the same thing, whether it is playing the music over bluetooth, aux, whatever. When the iPhone is playing music and receives a call, what does it do, pause the music (I have to ask since I don't have one)? If so, then I would guess it would do the same thing no matter what. Why would the phone say, "Oh, I just received a call. Am I playing the music over bluetooth or aux?" and do a different thing depending on the answer to that question?

 

I had trouble too the Totota Service Manager connected my IPHONE in 30 seconds so I was missing a step. Now my Generation III phone works great in my generation II Prius., better than when I had a Motorola cell phone.

 

Thanks a lot and I believe you're right. The dealer is simply misinformed, and not just one, two of them. Anyway, my decision of buying the Prius without NAV was not based on BT streaming, to be honest, I did not know that BT streaming even existed before ordering my Prius. My dealer called me recently to update about the shipping and told me about the BT streaming in non-NAV Prius. Then I called another dealer and they confirmed it is actually available without the NAV, so they are clearly wrong. No offense, but I did not get the NAV because the rather infamous Prius NAV is just not worth the extra cash, even with BT streaming. I have been vaccinated with poor NAVs before (and Toyota is remarkable for using lousy NAVs) and I did not want to waste money and end up using my garmin in a car with NAV, like I currently do with my Odyssey. In addition, the fact that Toyota was not making the IP connector available yet also encouraged me dump the NAV and I'm very happy with my decision. I think this is something Toyota should definitely correct in the next generation because it's absurd that the so-called hi-tech Prius has these big gaps in the NAV and IP connectivity. The fusion hybrid, for instance brings a kick-nice person NAV and beautiful IP integration with voice commands to select songs and playlists, which literally crushes the Prius, if you have had a chance to check it out. If Ford can do it, why not Toyota?

 

Well, as you said you know my answer for this one, and I also addressed it in my post above, but in summary: $1800-350: 1450... I wouldn't pay anything above $500 for the bloody Prius NAV, not in this life! And you know I don’t care about the backup camera because it’s useless for me….

... I'm also really careless about BT streaming to be honest... discussed it with my brother last night (expertise in car sound systems) and he said the wired connection through the auxiliary jack delivers better sound quality... and I'm so used to turn on/off my IPod whenI leave the car...

Car makers (not only the case of Prius) should understand that there are some small conveniences that can make a difference for overall comfort but they don’t have to charge hundreds for it…

… and I also realize that the Prius brand, for many, is not about saving money at the pump anymore… because there are very good options to get a non-hybrid as much as equipped than the Prius at much lower price… lower MPG too, that’s true, but it would take several years of use to compensate the difference in the cost of the car due to lower MPG… so many people are not really saving money with the Prius, unlike a common belief… and I opened a window to get bashed again but I don’t care because a hybrid makes sense for me when it not only preserve the environment but especially when it saves money at the pump… otherwise it’s bloody pointless!

 

Great info IndyKing! I was wondering how you know that they are coming out with the IP connector? I can't understand why they didn't make the usb port connector standard on the Gen III... The new Camry XLE has it standard right next to the Aux input. I'm picking up a model III hopefully next month and had been wondering about that Ipod integration dealio.

 

You would not need to turn off the iPhone music manually when you receive a phone call, because the iPhone itself would stop the music when the call came it whether you use BT streaming or an aux cable.
That doesn't need to be integrated with the car stereo in any way.

 

Aside from the fact someone told him about it, I think Indy also saw it on the accessories page at Toyota's Prius page. I know he's also talked with his dealer about it.

It is a bit difficult to understand why the integration isn't either standard or at least part of the JBL system. The demographics probably show that Prius buyers are also big users of iPods and iPhones. My only guess is that the problem comes from having JBL provide an amplifier equipped to take only one input, and that input is used by the XM system -- or that there are other interaction issues not resolved by JBL before the radios/amps had to be provided for the build. Probably the latter if the add-on will be ready by this fall.

 

Does the BT audio streaming with the 2010 Prius support stereo?

I ask because I run a Garmin Zumo 550 navigation unit on my motorcycle and in my car, and this Garmin unit supports only Mono audio, not stereo.

The Garmin 550 is an interesting GPS: it's completely waterproof (to allow use in the rain while on a motorcycle) and its touch screen is designed to be able to be used when wearing gloves. Very versatile GPS unit, with XM radio and XM traffic capabilities, etc.

 

I tested Pandora, and it works - but the audio quality seems to suffer a lot - probably because the phone is working hard with the internet based stream at the same time as it's transcoding for the bluetooth stream. I found it not to be worth it.

 

Hiya a_priori

Good news - I tested this a couple of times yesterday - and yes, the audio does pause when you make an outgoing call. Actually, now that I think about it, this is an iPhone thing, and nothing to do with the Prius's radio/A2DP/AVRCP.

On the same subject though - I REALLY wish the remote control worked (AVRCP). I finally went through the nav system manual, and it has all kinds of wonderful depictions of the driver pressing the "next" button, and joyously viewing the title of the track being played. All I get is audio and a play/pause button on the screen. Sigh.

I don't think this will be fixed by the official 3.0 release next week - but I would expect that an update from apple comes soon that addresses the AVRCP issues. I've read of other users experiencing the same problems with other hardware.

Dave


P.S. - repay me by clicking the "THANKS" button down there vvvv

 

Thanks Dave. I'm hoping the faster iPhone 3GS due out this week might help with this.

 

Actually, scratch this. All contacts imported fine, I just had to read up on how to do it.

 

I would doubt that - I'm pretty sure the AVRCP (remote control) code is going to be the same as the 3.0 GM release, given the traffic in the apple dev forums. It's going to take an update to fix it. So far I haven't read of any success stories with AVRCP and the iPhone 3.0....

Dave

 

If you stay connected with A2DP, yes, it resumes at the same place, but you have to manually hit "play" after the call. If you wind up disconnecting and reconnecting (I.e., exit the car) it plays from the beginning of the last track.

Dave

 

Dave, are you getting an occasional clicking when using the bluetooth streaming?

Also, any way we can import navigation destinations from our iPhones?