With Android smartphones gaining in market share, JVC Mobile is now including basic Android control on any of its 2012 car radios with a USB jack.
Plus, any CD/radio with Bluetooth now controls Pandora streaming from Android and BlackBerry phones.
JVC is also including some sexy HD Radio features on two radios. And for the first time this year, it’s offering iPod out on most of its AV models for faster iPod scrolling.
In AV radios, last year, JVC added integration with some key apps like MotionX-GPS. This year’s radios work with more apps and have better integration So instead of just seeing a map from MotionX on the radio screen, you can now zoom in and out and pull up traffic incident reports directly from the radio screen (instead of the phone).
Two AV models can now serve up songs on demand through a MOG app that also shows album art on the screen. For free music streaming over Internet radio you can link to TuneIn Radio.
“We will add apps as we go. We’re also working with Inrix and others” said JVC’s Jacob Hardin. Other apps include Cobra’s iRadar, Web Reader and DriveMate.
App control is featured in the in the multimedia radios KWAV60BT at $479 and KW AV70BT at $579 that ship in January and February, respectively. The latter is the top of the line model with a 7-inch motorized screen, built in Bluetooth, Android control and new SiriusXM SXV100 compatibility.
For its 2012 navigation/radios, JVC upped the speed so start-up time is now about 8 seconds. The company is using its own processing technology and it switched to a solid state drive instead of a flash drive to improve response time. The radios also move up to WVGA monitors (from QVGA) and they show 3D maps so you see a “ghosting” of buildings along the road as you travel.
Several new HD Radio features are offered. You can now bookmark your songs directly to your smartphone so you can download them on the spot. Or you can take a picture of a QR code for the song that shows up on the screen and then pull it up on iTunes for ordering.
And there’s a new HD Radio channel guide that shows you songs playing on all the stations for both HD and analog stations (that broadcast RDS data). So you can listen to one station and see what’s playing on others.
These features are on 2 of the new navi/radios–the KW-NT500HDT with 6.1 inch screen at $999 and the KW-NT800HDT with 7-inch screen plus basic Android USB control at $1,299.
Two other navi/radios without HD Radio are the leader model KW-NT300 with 6.1 inch screen and the KW-NT700 with 7 inch screen. All the JVC navi/radios are due to ship in March.
Pandora control for iPhones is now on all navi models (joining control over iHeartradio). Bluetooth pairing has also been streamlined to about 3 steps instead of 8.
Source: JVC Mobile
