We’re not saying our story was completely wrong Monday about iPhone 4 compatibility with car radios, but it turns out there are plenty of glitches being reported by users of iPhones running iOS 4 who try to link up with their car radio.
Over 200 consumer complaints are posted on the Apple discussion boards from users who find their car radio fails to work properly once they plug in an iPhone updated to iOS 4.
Radios from Pioneer, JVC, Alpine, Kenwood, Clarion, Panasonic, Honda, Nissan and Mercedes Benz were cited among others. Users are getting “device incompatible” messages when connected to an updated iPhone in some cases. Some Alpine radios are said to scroll too slowly. A user complained a JVC radio stops playing music after an initial few seconds, and another said a JVC radio produced an error message, “Cannot Play.” Another user said a Pioneer radio stops playing after 5 seconds. All worked fine before the user upgraded his phone.
A user named Mikesnow wrote: ‘It’s the iOS 4.0 that is messing it up, I have a 3GS and work at a Car Audio Shop and 100% of every model of every manufacturer does not work with the iOS 4. Some of these radios were just released less then a month ago built specifically for iPhones, and after the update to OS4 they no longer function. Same phone, same radio, different OS different results. Sony’s will just sit there frozen with iPod displayed on the screen. Pioneer radios will display “searching” then after a few mins give Error-19. Kenwood’s flash “Searching”….forever. Alpine’s display “Device Error:” the Alpine that’s made for iPhone and Pandora never recognizes the phone or iPod even if you have the Pandora Alpine link app running. JVC displays “Searching” forever…’
A second user named biggjerry wrote ‘upgraded to iOS 4 a few hours ago. Went to my car and plugged it into the USB port of my Pioneer stereo and it says ‘Not compatible.’’
JVC, Pioneer and Alpine all said performing a hard reset on the phone solves the problem in many cases. “As you know, Apple tests our units before it confirms them to be Made for iPod or Works with iPhone – so any issues that consumers may experience are on the side of Apple since they updated their OS system…” said Chad Vogelsong, JVC’s GM of marketing.
Pioneer director of marketing for car electronics Ted Cardenas, said, “Currently issues seem to be related primarily to the automatic pairing of the Bluetooth A2DP profile with various manufacturer’s products including Pioneer. Apple is aware of the issue. Regarding the USB error message, this is simply a communication error that is resolved by fully shutting down the iPhone (v4 or older running iOS4) and re-starting. Once completed, the USB connection functions fine from that point forward.”
Alpine also said the problem is with Apple software and not authentication chips in the radio. Alpine gave us this statement: “We have received some calls about some Alpine units having glitches when used with the iOS4. Since each user has his or her own set-up, each case needs to be evaluated separately so a “blanket” solution is not applicable. However in some cases, we have found that performing a “hard” reset on the iPhone alleviates the problem. This is done by pressing and holding the top and Home buttons simultaneously for 8-10 seconds, ignoring the red slider bar that pop up on the screen, until the screen goes black. Then, the iPhone can be turned back on by pressing and holding the top button.”
One vendor noted that the iPhone 3G also created buggy car stereo connections and an update was issued by Apple within a month, which solved the problem.
It was not clear if the new iPhone 4 creates car radio glitches or only iPhones upgraded iPhones to iOS 4.
Next time we’ll check the Apple forums first.
Source: CEoutlook
we have just spent hours trying to sort this out with calls to Apple support. Unbelivable – you cant restore to previous operating system. It is the software OS4 that is the problem. your itunes will have saved your albums etc since your last backup. We tried restoring to factory settings to no avail. We thgen tripped over this forum and the advise to do a hard restore (holding power switch and operating buitton for 10 secs at same time worked. WHY doesnt Apple know this is a solution when you have paid them £60 for support- absolutely useless company no wonder more people are getting fed up with their selfish and inept R and D Thanks to thjis site for its help (mine was for a JVC car radio)
Could not beleive that i had spent 3 hours trying to downgrade my iphone from 4.0 to 3.1.3 to read this post of a hard reset.
My Alpine CDA-105E just picked it up no worries after the hard reset..
Thanks Apple support for the awsome advice of, Ring Alpine because we dont know.
I’m there too…my ’07 Jaguar XK HAD bluetooth for my phone until the upgrade; now when anyone calls in it doesnt work (though it shows as connected) and when I call out you can’t hear the other party’s phone ringing.
I hope they can do their R and D POST launch and get this fixed. Having the bluetooth in my car is one of my big benefits.
“thanks” for the upgrade.
I’m a fairly experienced car audio installer and also have just put in a 2010 model kenwood deck in my truck. I have several different generation iPod’s and an iPhone 3GS. I just did the damn update and it just stays on “reading” when I plug the phone in. If I plug one of my ipods in it works like a charm.
Apple needs to seriously do real R&D BEFORE they release software… they are not new to the game and this is very poor business.
I have an iPhone 3GS that i’ve been plugging in to my Kendwood KDC-BT945U for the last month with no issues. As soon as I update to OS 4, the only thing it does consistently is charge the phone. The bluetooth functions were all messed up for a while and now the bluetooth just doesn’t work. Also after using pandora, the unit won’t go back to playing iPod until you do a reset. I’ve tried a soft and hard reset and I’m still having issues. Kenwood said they had no plans in updating their cd receivers but they’re “looking into it.” I just bought this deck 6 weeks ago and now paid extra for features that i don’t have anymore… thanks apple.
The hard reset worked perfectly on my Alpine CDA 105E, I only updated my iPhone 3G to iOS4, waiting to see what will happen when I update to the iPhone 4
The Hard Reset worked for me and my Clarion VZ400. I Appreciate it!
I updated my 3GS last week to the new OS4. Plugged it into a new JVC Double Din and it worked fine. I also ran it with my Pioneer AVIC Z110BT with no problems. Everything worked as it did before.
I was at a retailer last week (I work for JL Audio) and a customer came in complaining that his phone did not work with his radio after he did the update. We did a soft reset on the phone and now it works.