For anyone with Xtrons units (or other android based units on android 4.4.4+) that are interested in carplay/android auto, get yourself on of these!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076D2BP4S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
TL
R - Its brilliant and very fast, worth the money in my opinion, make sure you update to latest version I have provided in dropbox link below. Only issue is lack of steering wheel control for skipping tracks (volume works), but an update could fix that.
Its super easy to use. Just install an app on your head unit, plug in the device to a USB port in your car, and then plug your phone into the USB port in the device. Open the app and it will connect and start up Carplay!
I 100% recommend this for anyone who is looking to gain this feature. Audio calls seem to be a lot clearer than using the head units bluetooth and it just works a lot smoother. In my experience, google maps has been very slow and clunky on the xtrons unit, so its brilliant to be able to just open the maps app and get maps straight away without waiting around. Carplay is currently limited to just apple maps, but when iOS 12 drops in probably a few weeks, it will also gain support for Google Maps and Waze. Currently, Google Play Music, Spotify and Amazon Music are all supported. I don't know about any other apps like Deezer or Tidal as I don't use them. The only app that hasn't got support that I use is Youtube Music, but its still quite a new app so I expect support is coming soon as play music is supported.
For anyone who buys this, do yourself a favour and DON'T use the app and firmware versions the seller provides the link to. It is quite an older version that has issues such as stopping carplay whenever you put the car in reverse and asking for USB access everytime you want to start using it, even after selecting to always allow connection. Download the files from the below link instead as they are the most updated files as of now and it fixes those issues.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9fbspztgp4uhwxj/AAC0GAxctS4dVGQ0yF1VLKGIa?dl=0
There is only two problems I have with this unit now. Currently, there is no support for steering wheel controls. Only the volume up and down buttons will affect anything going on in carplay. This could change however as there is another version of this device which does support steering wheel controls from what I have read. Carplay tends to use Siri to perform certain actions. A lot of them are just yes/no answers which are fine, but when it comes to things like telling it a destination or sending a specific message or just asking it general questions, it will have issues hearing you properly. This is the fault of the crappy in built microphone on the unit as its not good enough to clearly understand what it is being said. I haven't got the extra external microphone so I'm not sure how it is with that, though I may get it now to see if its any better. Also, do yourself a favour and disconnect your phone from your cars bluetooth if youre planning on using this. If you leave them connected, it does things like skipping a track twice when you press the next button and you have two interfaces when you get a phone call.
This device also supports android auto. I tested it last night and it does work, although I find Carplay to just be a lot easier to navigate in a car with the massive icons. I didn't really do any extensive testing with it as I don't plan on using it, but I can't imagine it will have any major issues.
If anyone wants me to test any apps specifically, let me know and I will give them a go.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076D2BP4S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
TL
R - Its brilliant and very fast, worth the money in my opinion, make sure you update to latest version I have provided in dropbox link below. Only issue is lack of steering wheel control for skipping tracks (volume works), but an update could fix that.Its super easy to use. Just install an app on your head unit, plug in the device to a USB port in your car, and then plug your phone into the USB port in the device. Open the app and it will connect and start up Carplay!
I 100% recommend this for anyone who is looking to gain this feature. Audio calls seem to be a lot clearer than using the head units bluetooth and it just works a lot smoother. In my experience, google maps has been very slow and clunky on the xtrons unit, so its brilliant to be able to just open the maps app and get maps straight away without waiting around. Carplay is currently limited to just apple maps, but when iOS 12 drops in probably a few weeks, it will also gain support for Google Maps and Waze. Currently, Google Play Music, Spotify and Amazon Music are all supported. I don't know about any other apps like Deezer or Tidal as I don't use them. The only app that hasn't got support that I use is Youtube Music, but its still quite a new app so I expect support is coming soon as play music is supported.
For anyone who buys this, do yourself a favour and DON'T use the app and firmware versions the seller provides the link to. It is quite an older version that has issues such as stopping carplay whenever you put the car in reverse and asking for USB access everytime you want to start using it, even after selecting to always allow connection. Download the files from the below link instead as they are the most updated files as of now and it fixes those issues.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9fbspztgp4uhwxj/AAC0GAxctS4dVGQ0yF1VLKGIa?dl=0
There is only two problems I have with this unit now. Currently, there is no support for steering wheel controls. Only the volume up and down buttons will affect anything going on in carplay. This could change however as there is another version of this device which does support steering wheel controls from what I have read. Carplay tends to use Siri to perform certain actions. A lot of them are just yes/no answers which are fine, but when it comes to things like telling it a destination or sending a specific message or just asking it general questions, it will have issues hearing you properly. This is the fault of the crappy in built microphone on the unit as its not good enough to clearly understand what it is being said. I haven't got the extra external microphone so I'm not sure how it is with that, though I may get it now to see if its any better. Also, do yourself a favour and disconnect your phone from your cars bluetooth if youre planning on using this. If you leave them connected, it does things like skipping a track twice when you press the next button and you have two interfaces when you get a phone call.
This device also supports android auto. I tested it last night and it does work, although I find Carplay to just be a lot easier to navigate in a car with the massive icons. I didn't really do any extensive testing with it as I don't plan on using it, but I can't imagine it will have any major issues.
If anyone wants me to test any apps specifically, let me know and I will give them a go.
