First, let me offer my deepest condolences that you're having to use an Apple product. I'm very sorry for your loss. Onto a serious note, if you get a text, you can tap the notification and it will read the text to you and ask if you want to reply, without apple car play? my gf has an iphone and hers definitely doesn't do that. And as I mentioned if you want to listen to the RADIO (there's a comedy station I really like here locally so I listen to that the majority of the time) you can't listen to both the radio and output from your phone at the same time. You have to switch modes to BT to hear your phone output, so it's either radio OR phone. But if that works for you, more power to you. I just MUCH prefer having it integrated into my headunit. Plus I don't want to have yet another thing clogging my dash and windshield. I already have a radar detector and dashcam. I don't want to look like I'm an undercover cop.

 

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Since I have waze displayed on the phone I have to select the phone as the sound source. However if I want to listen to a radio station I can use an app like Radioplayer to play it. It doesn’t stop me making or receiving calls or texts. So in my case I can have the radio and phone at the same time.
Perhaps you should try an iPhone
My dashcam is very small and high up behind the mirror.
Radar detectors are not much use in the uk since the cops use laser and any warning would be too late.

 

Waze is an Android Auto app. Not sure about car play. And yes, I wasn't saying it stops you from making/receiving texts or calls, I was just saying that in AA, it will read it to you and ask if you want to respond. It will then confirm your response and ask you if you want to send it. I'm 99% sure you can't do that on an iphone (or android for that matter) just natively on the phone. I imagine if you turned on the accessibility options for the blind, you could have it read to you, but then it's going to do that for everything. And I've actually had 2 iphones. I was super excited about the first one. Had the 4S back in the day and the 8 just a couple years ago. Hated em both. iphones are not for me. BUT even if I loved iphones, I'd still want Apple car play, so same boat. I'm telling you, once you've had it, you'll never want to go back to ghetto methods of interacting with your phone in your car,

 

“ I'd still want Apple car play, so same boat. I'm telling you, once you've had it, you'll never want to go back to ghetto methods of interacting with your phone in your car,”
I’ve used CarPlay but as I said in my post I don’t feel it’s necessary for me with my setup. I just talk to Siri and she obeys

 

Ok, I'll take your word for it. And even if I didn't care about AA or CP, the head units in the Jag are just garbage, imo. That one on Alibaba looks pretty fantastic and is 2.5" larger to boot! And I'm sure none of us would hate having an extra 2.5"!!

 

Don’t need to fiddle with mine in the MY16. Do not need to plug it in, touch any button or do anything other than start the car. Car automatically pairs with my iPhone and starts to blast tunes which can be changed from the center display or steering wheel (also automatically delivers Waze instructions via the sound system). If I actually plug it in, it syncs with InControl unless I deny access. Anything more sophisticated than that is wasted on me. I’d trade all the techno-wizardry for an oil pressure gauge, boost gauge and dipstick.

 

That's weird. Mine does of course sync BT when I start the car, but it definitely doesn't start blasting tunes. Doesn't even do that with Android Auto unless I have a music app already running and I don't waste battery power doing that. I also tried to do plug in and use InControl, but it gave me some kind of compatibility error and it doesn't work. Also, the F Type doesn't have a dipstick??? And yes, it is weird that there's no boost gauge.

 

No, oil level has to be monitored through the dash menu system, which is a faff. I guess the lack of a boost gauge is down to whom Jaguar thinks would buy an F-Type.

 

I haven't gotten around to it yet, but
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/g...p-more-213503/

 

Also: VOLTAGE gauge!

Never owned a British sportscar where this wasn't a valuable asset!

And from the multitude of glitches reported here, caused by low voltage, it should be a recall. <--- J/K

 

I make due with a small voltmeter that is designed to plug into the lighter socket.

 

I run a radar detector that can display voltage... but I always forget to check. Too eager to drive!

 

Yep, I have one of them, cheap as chips.
Question - do you leave it permanently plugged in?
If you do and that doesn't cause a problem I will do the same.

 

Leave it plugged in. It powers down when the car shuts off.

 

Just to let you know about my experience with xcarlink. I bought an apple carplay adapter from them for my 2014 S.

I installed it and it started overheating and the HDMI cable was red hot, even burned my arm. I sent it back and he said there was nothing wrong with it, I must’ve wired up the power supply wrong (yes, he implied I was incapable of joining two wires).

He sent me a new one and that didn’t work either and he said I must be doing something wrong. He went through it with me and agreed it was faulty and he’d send me another. I told him I didn’t want it and just wanted my money back (still haven’t received it!).

Anyway I bought this one https://unique-ad.co.uk/product/wire...ype-2013-2015/

It’s £100 less, quality of it looks a million times better than the xcarlink one that was just a cheap plastic homemade box with connections sticking out of it and it also supports wireless carplay as well as iOS mirror link so she can watch rubbish when we are out! It has proper instructions not ones that don’t actually match up with the product like xcarlink and also a YouTube video of installation on an f type even down to hiding your wires and that. Took 10 minutes to wire it up and get it working and then less than an hour to install it so everything was hidden.

So avoid xcarlink! Save some money and get a product that works!

Also with xcarlink they’re a nightmare to get in touch with. If you do have a problem, by the time you’ve heard from them you’ve put everything back together anyway. 5 times I had everything to bits and back together again!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. How is the performance? Does it work with steering wheel controls, etc?

 

The steering wheel buttons don’t work, don’t think it’s possible since it runs through the aux, I just use the screen.

Performance is really good though through wireless and wired

 

To the OP: Did you ever buy this head unit? I too am wanting something that has android auto, but since our climate control is integrated into the head unit, there's NOTHING out there. I looked at this and Alibabba seems a bit shady of a place to buy an aftermarket head unit. I called up a couple stereo shops in the area and the one that was familiar with them said they have super slow processors and more often than not have to be returned because they don't work properly. Definitely seems sketch. So if you ordered it, I'm definitely curious as to how it turned out.

Also, does anyone know if you can put the head unit from a 2020 F Type in a 2015-2018 with the older head unit? That seems to be the ideal solution. I've been googling and couldn't find anything about that, but did stumble on this thread, so thought I'd register and maybe get some input.

 

Dang, I guess I missed one of my threads to unsubscribe to. @Kona I gave up this forum and wouldn't even bother replying, but I wouldn't want to see you get screwed. Yes I did get this headunit a couple weeks ago. Took about a month from when I ordered it to when I got it. There were no instructions. I had to contact them and they sent me a video. Guy that installed it had a hard time with it, but got it put in. There was no audio. Reached back out to the seller and they sent another video with some settings screen and that got audio working. The remaining issues were as follows:
After switching to english, the main screen was in English, but a WHOLE bunch of other stuff was still in Chinese
There was no Android Auto
It randomly restarted at least 5 times in the 15 minutes I was out there messing with it with the installer
There was no way to access the climate control (which, as you mentioned, is a pretty big deal)

I actually didn't notice much in the way of slowness, so not sure if that's true or not, that they use super slow processors. It was definitely garbage. I requested a refund and the seller fought me on it and I had to escalate it to Alibabba with video evidence of it not working to get a refund. I definitely wouldn't recommend. I don't know about getting a head unit from a 2020, but that's a good idea. Wish I had thought of that before I went through this ordeal. Might call the local Jag shop. I see you're in Colorado. Are you near Denver? If so I recommend Stevinson Imports. They're JLR/Porsche and they've been really great for me. I'm a bit persnickety when it comes to customer service and they haven't let me down yet.

 

That's disappointing, but I can't say I'm surprised. I won't bother with the Chinese then. I'm down in Parker, so probably not too far from you. I did call Stevinson, but I guess they're closed for coronavirus. I'll have to check with them after the quarantine is over. Thanks for the tip!