Android-power car radio - iPhone compatible

This was introduced last week at CES and immediately got my attention. I've been wondering when someone would make a car radio based on Android (well Apple isn't gonna do an iOS one… lol!). The fact that it's actually iPhone compatible was the surprise bit for me. This should be exceedingly awesome.
Parrot - Parrot ASTEROID

That strikes me as silly, but that's just me.

Interesting. I'm always looking into better integration of all my electronics, including into the car. I've been thinking about designing a console that holds and charges an ipad where my stereo would go, that's also controlled by steering wheel buttons. Might be neat.

Chris1111 said:

Interesting. I'm always looking into better integration of all my electronics, including into the car. I've been thinking about designing a console that holds and charges an ipad where my stereo would go, that's also controlled by steering wheel buttons. Might be neat.

Click to expand...

That would be cool, post pictures if you make one!

Chris1111 said:

Interesting. I'm always looking into better integration of all my electronics, including into the car. I've been thinking about designing a console that holds and charges an ipad where my stereo would go, that's also controlled by steering wheel buttons. Might be neat.

Click to expand...

one of my friends replaced his radio with a touchscreen one, he can also start his car over the internet.. and it still has radio.

gonna put a mini computer in my car... radio? yea I got one.. ipod? nah, I do have a 2TB hard drive full of music though in my car... it also does gps, and internet surfing...
just have to get me a car... and another computer...

Apple doesn't have to do that. Everyone and their mother that wants to be serious about such a device is going to build in iPod/iPhone compatability.

It looks nice for a 3rd party head unit. I've had voice recognition and hands free calling in my car for 3 years now. Works via USB or Bluetooth. The newer versions have 911 calling, turn by turn directions and a lot more. Microsoft Sync in Ford products.

It's made it so I can't forget my phone any more. Listen to books while driving and mine is set up via bluetooth and starts playing where I left off as soon as I start the car, pauses when I get a phone call, resumes when I hang up - it's great.

Not sure what having apps available would do beside cause a wreck using one while I'm tooling down the road at 75 mph.

I'd use a gps app, pandora, my itunes library, and maybe videos if passengers wanted to watch something. Also it might be useful to have internet (while parked) to look up things in the area, like with the aroundme app.

The only thing is, I've been researching for something that'll let me use an ipad as a head unit to control a radio and I haven't found anything. I wonder if I could create an app that does it. I don't imagine a simple car stereo could be TOO complicated to figure out interfacing with right? I dunno.

bobtomay said:

Apple doesn't have to do that. Everyone and their mother that wants to be serious about such a device is going to build in iPod/iPhone compatability.

It looks nice for a 3rd party head unit. I've had voice recognition and hands free calling in my car for 3 years now. Works via USB or Bluetooth. The newer versions have 911 calling, turn by turn directions and a lot more. Microsoft Sync in Ford products.

It's made it so I can't forget my phone any more. Listen to books while driving and mine is set up via bluetooth and starts playing where I left off as soon as I start the car, pauses when I get a phone call, resumes when I hang up - it's great.

Not sure what having apps available would do beside cause a wreck using one while I'm tooling down the road at 75 mph.

Click to expand...

Well I'm intensely curious about it largely because I really dislike every car mount I've ever tried for my iPhone. I'd rather be using a navigation app on my head unit, and the Asteroid potentially offers a lot more choices in which nav app I'll be using, vs. being "stuck" with what comes on traditional units featuring GPS nav. Couple that with other navigation-related applications, like radar trap alerts and who knows what else that might come in handy once someone thinks of it. As it is, my car won't take a double-DIN unit, and I've never seen a single-DIN unit with GPS navigation on it. I don't know what the pricing will be for the Asteroid, but hopefully it will be a fair bit better than what existing units with "simple" GPS go for (which is a bit much for my blood). Probably won't be though.

Also worth pointing out is that the Asteroid qualifies as "Made for iPhone". Most head units out there only qualify as "Works with iPhone", which is a lesser degree of feature compatibility. My wife's Pioneer is of the latter variety. Alpine is the only one I know of offhand that has units that "Work with iPhone", though this should be changing in the year to come.

I wish this came out two months ago when I changed my 02 tahoe stereo to the sony single din stereo with bluetooth. i could not fit a double din in, wanted bluetooth for my iphone, and wanted built-in nav. I got the stereo then got a nice new garmin GPS. So maybe this will be what I will buy if anything ever happens to the stereo.