Entune emulation with iBOLT Dock n Drive for Android phones

I love the concept of Toyota Entune (and its Lexus Enform cousin that adds Yelp and Facebook) but have been disappointed at Entune's poor responsiveness, lack of promised new applications and that Toyota is going to charge use fees after the three year trial is up. It is just not that good.

For the last several months, I've been using iBOLT Dock n Drive to essentially emulate Entune with much improved performance while adding links to applications that I wished Entune had.

Dock n Drive provides three customizable screens for organizing applications - six large application icons per screen. Navigating among screens is done by pressing left/right screen buttons or with finger swipes. Dock n Drive was meant for use with iBOLT charging cradles but it works fine with the $17.50 Samsung cradle I bought at an AT&T store for my Samsung Galaxy SIII phone. Dock n Drive starts automatically when the phone is inserted into a charging cradle and can be started manually when using a non-charging phone holder like the iOttie in our Prius. It is supposed to be possible to automatically start Dock n Drive through NFC sensing when a phone is used in a non-charging phone holder but I haven't tried that.

One of the cool features of Dock n Drive when used in a non-charging phone holder is that it has a setting that keeps the phone screen from timing out. Dock n Drive also includes a speedometer and a compass and continually updates and shows the nearest street address (my address is blanked out in the attached photos).

I'm not a fan of iHeart due to its lyrics censoring but at least Dock n Drive makes it easy to start iHeart on an Android phone and provides iHeart features that are not available in Entune. I particularly like that Dock n Drive makes it easier to stream audio from Slacker and Tunein radio and even comes standard with a link for the Tunein "Car Mode" application.

Last time I checked, iBOLT Dock n Drive was still a free application on Google Play. Although I occasionally use Dock n Drive in "our" (my wife's) Prius v, I mainly use it in our other "Toyota" (13 year old Lexus) where I have the Samsung charging cradle I mentioned -- really makes the old Lexus feel much more up-to-date.

Sorry .... long post. Attached are photos showing Entune and two of the three screens I've customized on Dock n Drive. A few days ago I counted the number of applications I've downloaded from Google Play to my phone -- 42! Of those 42 applications, Dock n Drive has to be one of my top three favorites.