Gadgetory

you guys just won't give up those CD players will ya yeah we helped a couple of you guys iPod your car like we do every week and we've also got a guy who wants to know like what's what's really even the point of all this car technology I'm antuan goodwin with Mitchell Chang on the control this is seen at roadside assistance episode 44 the show where basically we in this case me because I'm kind of here without the help of Wayne or Brian Cooley they're down driving a new Tesla Model this week as we mentioned last week but this is the show where we take a minute to answer your emails your questions your comments or tweet all of that so let's get right into it because we have a ton of emails this week this first one comes in from Eric who asked last week who basically last week was saying that you know he did see a purpose in uh and in having CD players in the car taking it back another week we were talking about the death the imminent death of the optical media and cars on our other show car tech live and an Eric basically one state that there is another purpose to having CDs and I guess for those who didn't listen last week's show go back and do it but basically Eric's point was lossless audio was a gapless audio was the advantage to having cities and we pointed out that that actually still exists Eric's back this week he has another advantage and he says that having a CD player in your car is good for previewing albums before you decide if you want to digitize them so yeah I guess yes that's a good enough reason I find my laptops good for that and indeed I guess I bought one CD last year yeah I got it on my laptop I don't know in the last time I bought a CD was I think I bought one TD lesser depends like we did the last gorillaz album car last year or the year before because that was the last audio CD I went to a store and purchased and we've got another email about CD players this one comes in from a victor in pasadena says hi guys i have a 2010 mazda 5 with a six-cd changer his daughter bought a few CDs into the car and they were sliding all over the place he was looking for a quick play to stick them and he noticed that there's a slot at the top of his dash so he stacked him in there so he uses his six disc CD changer for storage of his daughter CDs he never listened to it he doesn't know why it's there he basically uses a 30-pin ipod connector and his a USB port in the car to listen to most of his music but basically he says that he wished he would have had the opportunity to save the money on that six disc CD changer but I guess it's good to have it in there for storing junk okay have a good in every other cds yeah if it were like a trade that popped out like on uh on old desktops you could you know dremel out a space for cup holder that would be good you need more couple anymore you can always use more cup holders and you know I don't know if it's just me but it seems like cup holders or end cars are always a little bit less than ideal the worst cup holder and this is basically me complaining about nothing but the worst cup holder that I tested was in the the porsche cayman s we had in last year yeah yeah yeah now you probably don't want to drink in that car anyway but I was in a situation where I needed to get food from point A to point B I wasn't gonna eat it in the car I just needed to transport it in the car and Porsche much like BMW has those weird you know slide out they kind of hinge out of a hidden spot on the dashboard and basically I don't know like a your drink ends up floating out in space but unlike the BMW the Porsche when just didn't seem to lock into place so every time I took a turn the drink would swing a couple of degrees the left and to the right it was terrifying extremely terrifying anyway uh we got a question from from Twitter this one comes in from Fun Zone radio he says hey I need help with a new driver to keep from drifting out of his Lane he will take the driver's test in a few weeks this is a pretty low-tech question because I don't think you could use I don't think you'd want to buy a car with Lane keep assist just take a driver's test and if you did I don't think they'd let you use it well how do they know it's on I think there'd be a light on the dash oh yeah I guess so first artist yeah but here's how i learned to stay in my lane my dad taught me a neat trick is that most roads that you find yourself driving on have a nice oil slick down in the middle of them just like right in the middle of the lane and if you line that up with that in about your right knee your about in the middle of the lane at most points that said the trick that I that I use the lineup and I gave my younger sister and impromptu driving instruction last time I was at home and that's pretty much what I told her it's just like yeah line that oil slick up with with your knee and you'll be about in the middle of the lane also another trick is to actually line your rear view mirrors up it's a less than ideal but it's good for getting used to how wide the lane is but if you aim your rear view mirrors just a little bit lower than you normally would where you can actually see the the lane markers it'll help you align your vehicle up and then over time you'll kind of start getting an idea of how wide your vehicle is and and how much space you have you'll find it a lot of really nice cars when you put them into reverse they'll automatically aim their mirrors down to help you parallel park but that's also a good way it's not the ideal way to aim your mirrors because you're basically aiming them away from your blind spot and they're not really doing very much good for monitoring that but it is a good way to kind of get used to how wide your car is and if you're looking over your shoulder at your blinds but like you probably should be in your any time that you are driving it probably won't be too much of a detriment so I hope those tips help out we got another email in from Louis or Louis basically says hi guys what are your opinions on the new Prius C would you recommend it over the regular prius do we have a launch date and pricing available for the u.s. uh yeah yes yes yes yes yes and yes um the I haven't actually driven the prius c and as much as I you know basically complain about the the regular prius I do kind of risky acknowledge that it's a pretty good car as far as like getting people from point A to point B in an efficient efficient way I'll reserve my judgment on whether i recommend it or not until I get a shot to drive it and that should be actually pretty soon because they're starting to show up in the press fleet now and it is definitely going to be available in the US this year pricing right there as you can see our video users starts at 23 990 so there you go a little bit cheaper than a priest but it's also a little bit oh wait entry-level preseason 19 7 10 and then top of the line is 23 990 go on sale on march and march yeah so get me one for my birthday or don't get be something else I thought yet though hope that answers your questions we should actually have be getting one of those in sometime between now and mark I think the next email comes in from Cass on Benton Illinois says do you guys know or think Apple would ever consider making an aftermarket car stereo I for one would wait in line and pay the first generation apple text to have one installed one that would integrate the iphone or ipad with touchscreen controls I'm losing faith in the aftermarket companies ever producing high-quality car stereos that integrates well with an iphone this would be a market that Apple wants to stay clear of I can't say for sure but I was wondering your thought what's your thoughts on the subject are and I don't think apples going to do it much for the same reason they don't make what is that was at the ipod hi-fi you remember they they at one point they had a boombox that they sold that's right it was a called the ipod hi-fi they don't make that anymore i don't think and it's i think basically apples kind of realizing that the market for us is actually the core stuff will let other people figure out how to use our thing so I don't think Apple is going to get in on the car stereo market especially considering the African market car stereo marketed kind of shrinking anyway it's not gone but it is smaller than it was now had the ipod came out in 1994 at the height of the car stereo boom we'd probably be having a different conversation right now but right now i think you know apple from where Apple standing I need a Bluetooth 30-pin dock connector and ipod out probably enough for most users needs and their kind of wanting the car companies to kind of get in on that again it's also something they can license and still make money off of that works with ipod a sticker that you put on things and and they don't actually have to put the R&D and actually building anything in that case so i don't think they're actually going to they're going to do it but there are devices that i mean for example the the thing is called the devion dash that we talked about on car tech live two weeks ago basically lets you stick your your ipod into the dashboard and it becomes your screen so i mean there are solutions to that and and and as we'll talk about in a little bit of a couple emails down we're going to start talking about the ipad and the dashboard also more so we'll come back to that but a next email comes in from bowden in houston texas he says hi Antoine my wife travels a lot for work and is in and out of various rental cars quite often she used to rely on hertz never lost navigation system and the rentals but now i've installed motionx on our iphone 4s and want her to use that instead can you recommend a good universal mount that would be reliable for using motionx and various rental vehicles i would like to get her a universal mount that is durable and small for easy travel well since you're specifically pointing out that you want to use your ipod for navigation I would probably steer you in the direction of a universal mount that also has a built-in GPS antenna of its own for example the Magellan Magellan that has a GPS melt or tomtom basically both have GPS mounts that have built in the Magellan premium car kit for iphone or the the tomtom car kit for iphone both have built-in GPS receivers that are more accurate than the one that's built into your your iphone let's say if a better photo of a this is not really what I know it's not the one uh it's called the Magellan premium car kit for iphone or you can just do tomtom just if you want to illustrate what they look like tomtom does just have a name or it's just Tom Tom car kit for iphone probably should have put that link in the show notes but basically you get the universal amount of the suction cup which you can put on either a dashboard with the puck or on the windshield which is probably going to be what your wife ends up using but then you get the advantage of a louder speaker for turn-by-turn directions and Bluetooth hands-free calling you also get that's the tomtom mount right there you get the louder speaker for Bluetooth hands-free calling you get a superior gps antenna so when you're doing things like navigating in cities and around skyscrapers you get more accurate positioning more accurate positioning means more accurate turn-by-turn directions which means much less frustration and don't let the branding fool you on either those cases they will work just fine with the motionx gps application so that would be my suggestion the tomtom kit also is super thin as use you kind of saw in that picture it's basically just clips onto the back of the the iphone and it has a very very low profile mounted sarah there uh I forget what they call it but it's a very low profile mount it should fit in her luggage or in a person pretty easily Magellan yeah there's the Magellan when it's a little bit bigger than the the the tomtom kit but I think both of those are really good I've actually tested both of them you can find reviews for those over on cars cnet com we've got another email that comes in from Stefan he basically wants to know what's the best possible aftermarket head unit for a 1992 2002 acura RL used an iphone forest and an ipad I've had to actually any would prefer to have the largest screen available plus nav and obd mounting if at all possible what can he expect to spend on such a unit we I think we actually answered this question last week um who was asking about this last week when I basically recommended the the avic Z 1 30 BTW which is actually going to be out and about a month or two or the Alpine I any z nine to eight HD both of those are going to have really good integration with your Apple devices your ipod your iPad for streaming your music and what not this is a yes that's the pioneer one the Alpine again has that gigantic 8 inch screen so it's even bigger than the Pioneer which i think is seven and some change so if you're looking for the biggest screen possible and an index unit those are probably going to be the ones that you want to look at again look at the show notes for last week's show for that and I think there you're going to expect to pay about 1,200 bucks for an index stereo with navigation at this point with a big screen and an ipod integration your other solution since you've got an ipad 2 lying around just use your ipad 2 you can get a kit from proclip for example for about 50 to 70 bucks that will let you mount your ipad on your dashboard and then all you need of one hundred dollar stereo that lets you put stuff steering wheel controls in and you can actually just use your ipad for navigation turn by turn direction with a nap you have to purchase an app to run that and then also you have a big 10 inch screen which is two inches bigger than the biggest unit that i can recommend it's also cheaper to go that way but it's more complicated as far as installing and setting things up and getting things working the way you want them to work the other thing that you asked about is the obd2 integration and you're not going to get that with a car stereo or with your ipad without purchasing an additional sort of obd reader none of the major car stereos that i've tested or em aware of actually comb with the obd built into them so you're going to have to get either a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth obd connection and and then you'll be pairing that either to your most likely to your iPad or your iPod in that case and running an application that'll allow you to monitor whatever parameters you're looking for whether it's fuel economy or check engine light or whatever you're looking for there how much extra is that reader usually they run anywhere between about sixty seventy dollars to about 120 it depends on which one that you're looking at plx makes one and they're the ones that are popping up off the top of my head and I think they're plx Wi-Fi is yeah they're Bluetooth modules $99 their Wi-Fi modules about 150 and then there are also other brands that are available but we can I guess kind of dig into that probably on another show we get another email actually a tweet which I thought was actually really interesting this one comes in from s prof 68 and i hope i pronounced that properly and basically he's saying that his Bose audio system in his 2001 out EA for distorts when it's cold and then the sound improves the longer is it that it's on and he wants to know if it's an amp issue and if it's a cheap fix and I basically asked him I you know I guess a little bit later as a follow-up tweet you know what he was talking about as far as distortion and he basically says below 45 degrees Fahrenheit it basically sounds kind of like a poor FM signal the same from all sources and there's no rattling that he can hear and so this could still be any of a number of culprits some people say that amps perform better when they're warmed up but at the same time when they get too hot then they start distorting also so amps are pretty sensitive depending on the kind of amp and I didn't do the research as far as what kind of amp Bose uses in their system but amps are pretty sensitive to temperature so it could be the amp it could also be any of a number of things sometimes tweeters for example are particularly a temperature-sensitive and if they get too cold or too hot they can also distort and sound pretty bad there have also been you know I guess sometimes I've in the rarest rarest of cases I've heard of things like the copper in the connections actually drawing up and not making as good of a connection when you get too cold but uh I think you'd kind of be outside of the parameters would be comfortable comfortable for you to sit in in a car so it could be any of a number of issues I don't know necessarily if it would be a cheap fix because I don't actually still don't know what the issue would be so I will actually toss this out to some of our listeners I like to do this every now and then and if you have an audi a4 of this generation i think it's the the b4 chassis code b5 chassis code and you have the bose system and you found similar issues with your sort of system sounding bad when it gets cold and if you know a fix to it give us a tweet send us an email will give you the information at the bottom of the show get two more emails before we get on up out of here one that actually kind of confuses me this one comes in from Barry see he says I enjoy your reviews but I want information rich text not video also it's the performance of the vehicle that interest me 0 to 60 times handling range etc not the infotainment system Barry so you think he's watching the videos and not realizing there's a perfectly good written review that fits beneath the video in most cases that Wayne and I put much love and tender care into so we talk about all of these things we usually don't do zero to 60 testing because I mean it's it's nice to have that sort of you know bravado sort of thing but I feel like in most cases it's not super important to most consumers also know where you're getting here media from mean 0 to 60 times they're super easy to find on the Internet we're pretty much the only publication that covers infotainment our technology seriously and that's what we focus on so you kind of gotta know what you're getting yourself into the equivalent of I think going into a Thai restaurant and demanding chicken parmesan like kind of got to know what sort of restaurant you ran and ending and we do provide most of the information that I feel like berries asking for but we're not going to stop focusing on infotainment because that's why everyone else loves us I think so sorry Barry and that we got one more email us comes in from hung in Virginia he basically says I have a 2005 subaru legacy gt that has nothing more than an in-dash CD changer for entertainment tech a few years ago I got a parrot mki 9200 hands-free bluetooth system and installed it in my car and I've loved every moment of it since then and since my audio system my radio stopped getting reception I get all my in-car entertainment navigation and more from my smartphone via bluetooth I even gave away my beloved garmin nav since the google nav on my android phone has more up-to-date maps with traffic all for free the parrot system also plugs has plugs for ipod iphone USB aux jackson an SD card my question is does factory car tech even matter anymore especially with the restrictions that manufacturers are baking into them like not being able to enter an avid dress while on the move i'm currently looking for a new to me car and i kind of wanted something with no car tech other than a nice stereo having bluetooth streaming is nice but if not i can always install a parrot system for about 300 bucks in addition i want to replace my current phone with a samsung galaxy note and it's 5.3 inch screen will look really nice on my dashboard streaming the hours away that I spend in my car I'd like to know your thoughts on this thanks hyung so he's he is more exterior ave an aftermarket he's kind of like me because this is sort of a use case that i find myself in which is why when i get in a car and it has a ton of tech i'm happy but then i get in a car and has bluetooth audio streaming I'm usually just as happy because I think there are different kinds of users and I think this is the reason that in-car technology is still going to be important it's because there are different use cases there are different kinds of users I mean you've got people who can you know really who know how to take advantage of the the voice commands on their phone who can you know punch in a Google search without really looking at the screen and then you've got people who you know take 20 minutes to open their email and I feel like for those people that sort of separation of here is what's happening in my car versus what's happening in my phone and maybe some communication between them is good um but it's I don't know it's it's kind of like for me the the metaphor of do manual transmissions even matter now that cars will shift themselves or just driving even matter now that you know you know if in five years cars drive themselves there's always going to be someone who has a different use case from you there's also still a large contingency of people who just don't have smartphones we spend a lot of time talking about smartphones and and and high technology here at cnet and that's there like pretty much everybody I know has a smartphone but there are still not everybody my dad still has a flip phone a case in point there are still people who don't keep cutting edge with their sort of portable devices who see their phone as basically just the phone for those people navigation in your car is still important I think being able to bluetooth pair with a phone and get your address synced with your dumb phone I really hate to call them that but your dumb phone is still important and so it's kind of one of those things where I find myself doing this as an editor often where I'm basically like well I think that's stupid because it doesn't apply to me but as an editor we kind of have to look at things objectively and think well for someone is this useful for someone I've got like a FM bluetooth to FM transmitter on my my desk right now and I just I personally think it's the dumbest thing ever because I'm just like well when you just plug in or change your stereo at this point but you know there are people who don't want to do that who don't want to rip a stereo out of their car there's a there's a bunt there are a bunch of people who I think are just actually just you know into the whole gee whiz factor of like oh my car does this my car does that you know there are a number of things I think there are also some people who you know maybe look at their car is like it's its own ecosystem and you know maybe I changed phones you know every six to twelve months but I don't want to have to deal with that in the car you know it's cool to be relearning interfaces and and there's also the whole issue of you know car car technology is usually but the very few exceptions more stable than anything that I've ever dealt with on a smartphone if you're you're listening to pandora and you're on your smartphone and it crashes then and not to say that pandora crashing i'm just using it as an example but if it crashes it's an inconvenience when you're walking around but then if you find yourself fumbling with the music a lot while you drive the interface on your smartphone isn't really designed to be used at arm's length if for example you find yourself in a situation where you're outside of a cell phone signal and you need to navigate being having that stuff stored locally is still important and i kind of feel like again yet you can get your your map stored locally on your smartphone but again it's different use cases for different people and i think is important for us to continue to cover these things just kind of because it's important and again it's kind of kind of goes back to the whole you know the car is a gigantic mobile device and you see a lot of this with the the manufacturers where they're all taking different approaches at things were you know some of your manufacturer Toyota's are basically offloading most of your stuff to your smartphone and or basically offloading the connection to your smartphone but still allowing you to store your apps locally on your in your car but then for basically saying your app lives on your car on your phone and the car just talks to it there we're seeing all sorts of crazy things happening as far as connected cars for our smartphones and cars and as far as as the OEMs basically finding some sort of a way to to make using technology in your car safe a simple solution is duct tape your iPad to your dashboard or duct tape your smartphone to your dashboard but then then you get the I guess the the temptation thereof you know well maybe I'll tweet this or maybe I'll see what's going on facebook and I think that you know at least having a safer way to do those things are sort of you know even you know block block those things is it's kind of important but I don't feel like I'm kind of rambling at this point no no I understand what you're saying I mean it's a it's there's a lot I understand your point about you know technology for those who just have flip phones and don't need all that other stuff Linden people like you and me who lino pretty much use smartphones in our oh yeah but I mean I feel like I have not gone maybe six hours I mean discounting sleep without like touching my smartphone for some reason I feel like I'm pretty adept at like navigating the interface even at arm's length but i still find doing certain things in the car on a smartphone with a 4.3 inch or you know for some might inch screen difficult and I feel like I also kind of under still my talent as a driver so you know I feel like oh well if I you know am feeling you know nervous about going into you know for example I really hate to keep using Spotify as an example like I've picked on them last week on the show but if I go into Spotify and I'm trying to like find a song and you know they've got windows that pop up and parts to the interface that fly it up and that's all pretty intuitive when you're walking around with the device in your hand but then when you're driving and you're at arm's length and your cars on the air your cell phones on the end of a windshield mount and every time you hit a bump it jiggles around a little bit and it's just like you factor all of that up and you realize that something as simple as picking a song has turned into two minutes of nuts they're not looking at the highway and it's terrifying for me will mean it's scary for me but I feel like it's terrifying for you know for example 16 year old me on the road trying to do the same thing if I had a smartphone at the age of 16 I would be dead man right now because I had I had a hard enough time looking at the road and in you know not running into everything in the city of Augusta Georgia with little more than a CD player if there were a smartphone on my windshield and the temptation to do all the stuff that you know that that comes with with having a smartphone I don't know I feel like I may have trouble don't double the number of cars that actually have it's quite possible it's quite possible anyway but i think that said interesting discussion maybe we'll talk about this again next week when uh when wayne and Brian Rebecca's I'm pretty sure they have some some interesting thoughts on this I'm also pretty sure that they'll agree with me though but for now let's say that we're out of emails and call it a day Mitch sounds like a plan alright so if you have any questions or comments that you want to send in you can email them to car tech ed cnet com you can find all of this week's questions and previous week's shows i alluded to a couple of older episodes over at car tech dot cnet com you can also give us a call and leave us a voicemail at 866 401 cnet that's 866 4012 638 and as always you can follow us all on twitter i'm at gu A&T g 00 and as you can see from today's show sometimes I pull user questions from there Brian Cooley and Wayne who aren't here this week are Brian Cooley that's one word and Wayne is way wa y for in E that's Wayne's Twitter handle and then of course you can get all of your car tech news on Twitter at cnet car tech also one word and we'll see you next week