750/Artura owners : Android auto

750/Artura owners : Android auto

Author
Discussion

bunyarra

Original Poster:

323 posts

220 months

Thursday 11th July
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Has anyone tried these Carplay to Android Auto converters?

https://carlinkitcarplay.com/collections/carplay-a...

Seems they work on many different systems and only needs a wired carplay connection. Might be an interim solution until/if/when MCL finally enter the 21st century.

Streetbeat

1,099 posts

84 months

Friday 12th July
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If i was in your shoes i would probably do what a couple of others on here have done and just get an old iphone and use a sim only deal and leave it permantley plugged and make use of car play until android auto is ready.

murphyaj

815 posts

83 months

Friday 12th July
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Do brand new McLarens still not support Android Auto in 2024?!?!?!
Is that a bloody joke? Even my mate's Dacia offers Android Auto.

I thought the infotainment in my lowly 8 year old model was bad, but to still not offer integration with 70% of the global smartphone market is stunningly poor.

bunyarra

Original Poster:

323 posts

220 months

Friday 12th July
quotequote all
Streetbeat said:
If i was in your shoes i would probably do what a couple of others on here have done and just get an old iphone and use a sim only deal and leave it permantley plugged and make use of car play until android auto is ready.

It's my backup option. I'd have to admit to my daughter (apple fangirl) that my new car needed Apple ... very embarrassing. Truly miffed McLaren could not do this .. probably some beancounter somewhere looking at the £50 license cost and sucking their teeth.

Streetbeat

1,099 posts

84 months

Saturday 13th July
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Its mentioned elsewhere, the US has a near 60% iphone market share and iphone users have a 44% higher average salary than android users, so that may give you some insight into where Mclaren see their market.

kbf1981

2,290 posts

208 months

Sunday 14th July
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Streetbeat said:
Its mentioned elsewhere, the US has a near 60% iphone market share and iphone users have a 44% higher average salary than android users, so that may give you some insight into where Mclaren see their market.
I recon Apple probably pay brands not to install Android Auto in some way.

I know the contract Apple make companies sign to be on the app store is very, very aggressive and restrictive and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple said "licence for car play is £50 per car if solo, or £500 with Android auto", or said "if solo installation of car play then we'll give you £500 marketing allowance back", something like that

In other areas this type of stuff isn't uncommon - I know a certain energy drink brand pay retailers not to list other energy drink brands on shelf, so they'll pay retailers to not give their competitors space.

Why would any other area be different? I bet this type of thing is common.

Edited by kbf1981 on Sunday 14th July 08:08

bunyarra

Original Poster:

323 posts

220 months

Saturday 27th July
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Full Android Auto on the 750 (or I guess Artura too). All Android apps like Google maps, Chrome, Youtube etc. Can also have it's own sim card for data etc.

Plugs into the USB C port and will also give you wireless Carplay as well as wireless AA.

Product is called CarlinKit T-Box Plus. Still evaluating but seems to work well.


964Cup

1,526 posts

245 months

Monday 29th July
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bunyarra said:
Full Android Auto on the 750 (or I guess Artura too). All Android apps like Google maps, Chrome, Youtube etc. Can also have it's own sim card for data etc.

Plugs into the USB C port and will also give you wireless Carplay as well as wireless AA.

Product is called CarlinKit T-Box Plus. Still evaluating but seems to work well.
Interesting. I am one of those who went with the dedicated iPhone mini. I believe some are saying Android Auto is due in December, but I'm not holding my breath, so please report back when you've properly tested this option.

The thing I find weird is that for £280 I bought an Isudar upgrade board for my 3RS that was plug and play for both wireless Carplay and Android Auto. Given the design and fab expense for developing such a niche item (991.1 911 PCM only) the licenses must be pennies, so there must be more to my £330k car not having Android than merely cost.

Streetbeat

1,099 posts

84 months

Monday 29th July
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964Cup said:
Interesting. I am one of those who went with the dedicated iPhone mini. I believe some are saying Android Auto is due in December, but I'm not holding my breath, so please report back when you've properly tested this option.

The thing I find weird is that for £280 I bought an Isudar upgrade board for my 3RS that was plug and play for both wireless Carplay and Android Auto. Given the design and fab expense for developing such a niche item (991.1 911 PCM only) the licenses must be pennies, so there must be more to my £330k car not having Android than merely cost.
I was having a chat with a guy i have done some work for, he does infotainment on some top marques, aston, lotus, pagani and more, i was surprised to hear its not quite as simple as adding software, it all has to be tested by authorised bodies and licenced, apple car play costs about $300,000, android auto about $250,000.

Chrisatronic

304 posts

107 months

Monday 29th July
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964Cup said:
Interesting. I am one of those who went with the dedicated iPhone mini. I believe some are saying Android Auto is due in December, but I'm not holding my breath, so please report back when you've properly tested this option.

The thing I find weird is that for £280 I bought an Isudar upgrade board for my 3RS that was plug and play for both wireless Carplay and Android Auto. Given the design and fab expense for developing such a niche item (991.1 911 PCM only) the licenses must be pennies, so there must be more to my £330k car not having Android than merely cost.
Those units typically use unofficial reverse engineered AA/CarPlay server apps. It won't be certified / 'official' / licensed but yeah 99% of the time works fine. I have the same ISUDAR in my 981 GT4 and it's broadly as reliable as any true OEM integration I've used, throws a wobbly maybe twice a year.

bunyarra

Original Poster:

323 posts

220 months

Saturday 3rd August
quotequote all
964Cup said:
Interesting. I am one of those who went with the dedicated iPhone mini. I believe some are saying Android Auto is due in December, but I'm not holding my breath, so please report back when you've properly tested this option.
Run it for some time now. Once in a while it is unable to connect to the wireless hotspot from the device but trying again usually solves it. Other than that, not bad at all as a (temporary) option. Only weird thing is that Whatsapp notifications won't play when you have AA running via the phone connection. Everything else works fine; music, traffic announcements etc.

The satnav lagged a bit but there is an option to use the car's GPS instead and that seems to have fixed it.

964Cup

1,526 posts

245 months

Saturday 3rd August
quotequote all
I've bought the Tbox USB (which - I think, given the weirdness of the site - is the same one you have but with the ability to expand the storage with a usb stick). Will let you know how I get on - thanks for the tip.

bunyarra

Original Poster:

323 posts

220 months

Saturday 3rd August
quotequote all
964Cup said:
I've bought the Tbox USB (which - I think, given the weirdness of the site - is the same one you have but with the ability to expand the storage with a usb stick). Will let you know how I get on - thanks for the tip.
If you find the gps lags a bit then :

Go to Settings - Factory Settings, input 4545, click on Others, and turn on the Original Car GPS button.

br d

8,610 posts

234 months

Saturday 10th August
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964Cup said:
I've bought the Tbox USB (which - I think, given the weirdness of the site - is the same one you have but with the ability to expand the storage with a usb stick). Will let you know how I get on - thanks for the tip.
Have you had time to try it yet mate? I've been looking at the site and I'm a bit lost.

I have to admit I've got used to having the iPhone Mini as the car's phone, I've been on a long trip and everything just worked, didn't have to think about it at all.
Hopefully these December rumours have some substance.

964Cup

1,526 posts

245 months

Sunday 25th August
quotequote all
Yes. It seems to work well with my Android phone. Haven't really tried to get the built-in Android working yet. Will put some more effort in next week. The only reasons to ditch the iPhone are to have access to the messages and calendar on my phone and, of course, not having to remember to switch the iPhone off when parking up (or it will be flat and unusable if left for more than a couple of days).

964Cup

1,526 posts

245 months

Tuesday 1st October
quotequote all
Feedback now I've had the thing a while and am using it on a long tour.

I'm mostly using the built-in Android with its own SIM. When it works, it works very well. But - and it's a big but - it frequently loses GPS and then takes up to half an hour to connect again (the message is "No GPS signal - showing approximate location" or "Waze is connecting to GPS". It's completely unpredictable; it can work flawlessly for days, then leave you stranded after you switch off to fill up with petrol. This happens whether or not you've chosen to use the car's GPS, and whether or not your phone is connected by Bluetooth.

If you use the Carkit (i.e. the wireless Android Auto connection to the phone) instead you obviously don't have the GPS problem. However, first off it sometimes, but not always, bleats about not having the WiFi hotspot set up (even though I don't use and don't want the hotspot) and then, crucially, the keyboard doesn't work properly in Waze - it's not using any of the phone's keyboard selections but something proprietary that doesn't fit the screen so that the backspace and enter keys are off screen. Unhelpful. Secondly, you can't then play audio from the phone through AA as it will only play the first couple of seconds and then cut off, presumably because it's fighting with the integrated Android on the device.

If the integrated unit GPS worked all the time, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the unit. As it is it's nearly there, but not quite. I haven't tried many things I could try like factory resetting it, removing the SIM and using the wireless AA only, faffing about with different keyboard choices on the phone etc. Life's too short and you have either to sit there with the engine running like a tit or deal with the limited time you can run on battery before it starts shutting things down.

I also haven't fed this back to the manufacturer. I need to do that, I suppose, once I work out how. I'm not typing all of this up again using the device keyboard.

I may take some time to try to understand what's going on. Will report back again if I find anything out or hear back from the vendor.