Thinking about a new iPhone

[jason]

The Ram's "UConnect 8.4" does not feature Apple CarPlay, just has its own Bluetooth integration. We bought a Kenwood 2-DIN height radio for the E55 that had CarPlay built in and liked it. The positive of it is that the navigation and integration with the phone is good, so you open something on Maps and it shows/displays on the radio. With my Ram if I want to navigate I either have to enter the address in the on-board navigation or use my phone, I can't take an address I find easily on the Maps ap on my iPhone and then simply dump it into the truck's navigation.

The real negative of CarPlay is that it makes the radio essentially an external screen for your iPhone and you can't multi-task. We found this annoying last year when at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. Laurie did most of the navigating and would plug a route into the phone, it would display on the radio through Apple CarPlay. Then she'd go to Google to look something up while I was driving and the map directions (including voice prompts) would disappear. We figured after a bit to use one phone for nav and the other phone for other stuff.

For any sort of retrofit application, I think there are a lot of benefits to CarPlay. But other than a few things I'd like to improve with the Ram's setup, I think it works better overall.

With iOS 13, they now make it possible to have something on CarPlay and do something else on the phone. They also have the ability to have split screens on the CarPlay interface so that you can have something like maps and music both running on the carplay interface at the same time. .

 

[Ted]

With iOS 13, they now make it possible to have something on CarPlay and do something else on the phone. They also have the ability to have split screens on the CarPlay interface so that you can have something like maps and music both running on the carplay interface at the same time. .

Good to know! That definitely changes things.

 

[MIFlyer]

The Ram's "UConnect 8.4" does not feature Apple CarPlay, just has its own Bluetooth integration. We bought a Kenwood 2-DIN height radio for the E55 that had CarPlay built in and liked it. The positive of it is that the navigation and integration with the phone is good, so you open something on Maps and it shows/displays on the radio. With my Ram if I want to navigate I either have to enter the address in the on-board navigation or use my phone, I can't take an address I find easily on the Maps ap on my iPhone and then simply dump it into the truck's navigation.

The real negative of CarPlay is that it makes the radio essentially an external screen for your iPhone and you can't multi-task. We found this annoying last year when at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. Laurie did most of the navigating and would plug a route into the phone, it would display on the radio through Apple CarPlay. Then she'd go to Google to look something up while I was driving and the map directions (including voice prompts) would disappear. We figured after a bit to use one phone for nav and the other phone for other stuff.

For any sort of retrofit application, I think there are a lot of benefits to CarPlay. But other than a few things I'd like to improve with the Ram's setup, I think it works better overall.

We've drifted into car stereos, but the idatalink maestro stuff is pretty cool to bring engine and powertrain info into your double DIN screen. I'm going to EFI with an old GM style system, but won't gain this, which is the only bummer.