iPad mini in dash of G35
#16
11-14-2012, 04:25 AM
I don't hate google or apple, I hate seeing some excellent work go into putting something in that's terrible as a headunit, functionally. It's the audio equivalent of when you see a donk car with a pristine, gorgeous 5-color paint job of the Trix rabbit on it. Great work, but it just makes me ask "Why?".
Yes, I hate Pioneer, Kenwood, Clarion, Alpine, etc. for failing at innovation.
If you read my post on Pioneer's late-2012 lineup, you'd see how appalled I am at the garbage they just dumped out. The only thing that seems to be going in the right direction is Pioneer's AppRadio, but instead of making something dependent on a smartphone, they could have just built an android tablet with a built-in amplifier, a driver-friendly interface and pretty much called it a day. Give it a way to share your smartphone's internet for location searches, weather, traffic, and you've got something that's nearly future-proof.
Yes, I hate Pioneer, Kenwood, Clarion, Alpine, etc. for failing at innovation.
If you read my post on Pioneer's late-2012 lineup, you'd see how appalled I am at the garbage they just dumped out. The only thing that seems to be going in the right direction is Pioneer's AppRadio, but instead of making something dependent on a smartphone, they could have just built an android tablet with a built-in amplifier, a driver-friendly interface and pretty much called it a day. Give it a way to share your smartphone's internet for location searches, weather, traffic, and you've got something that's nearly future-proof.
The tablet / pc market has much shorter product cycles, higher economics of scale and much much tougher competition. Its basically innovate or die, especially if your a android tablet manufacturer.
Your already starting to see it in the cell phone market with blackberry and nokia..suffer a slow death.
#18
11-14-2012, 04:36 AM
The install was done really well, great work, especially considering the time. It's a shame there's no thin 90° lightning connector so you don't need the wire coming out the passenger side like that.
That said, when the original iPad came out, I was considering doing it, but there were a few reasons against it, and I consider the iPad Mini an even worse choice as a primary headunit.
The reasons I think this is a horrible choice:
So basically, by putting this in your car, you get the storage of a really old iPod in a much less usable format than the iPod would be attached to about any aftermarket radio. Any neat-o things you can do with the iPad in the car permanently mounted in the dash, you could easily do by just pulling the thing out of your bag and using while sitting in the driver's seat while parked, and be able to easily take it with you.
Essentially, you've made something that's useful largely only because of its portability and taken that away. I suspect whatever smartphone you're using to provide the iPad with a hotspot would provide you with a much better experience.
That said, when the original iPad came out, I was considering doing it, but there were a few reasons against it, and I consider the iPad Mini an even worse choice as a primary headunit.
The reasons I think this is a horrible choice:
- The OS and interface are not "minimalist" - one suitable for driver use, so it's downright dangerous for the driver to try and use this while operating the vehicle, and if the passenger's using it, there's no reason for it to be mounted in the relatively hard-to-access position in front of the shifter.
- No 3G or 4G/LTE, so you don't get streaming internet radio.
- It doesn't connect to your phone to take hands-free calls like any decent radio.
- The screen is horribly reflective, so any sun shining onto the passenger or passenger seat are going to make the screen impossible to read, compounding problem #1.
- There is insufficient storage for all my music, which compounds problem #2.
- The screen won't work in the winter when wearing gloves.
- No FM tuner. Compounds problem #2.
- Doesn't interface with the steering wheel controls. Compounding problem #4.
- No GPS or A-GPS, so no turn-by-turn navigation.
So basically, by putting this in your car, you get the storage of a really old iPod in a much less usable format than the iPod would be attached to about any aftermarket radio. Any neat-o things you can do with the iPad in the car permanently mounted in the dash, you could easily do by just pulling the thing out of your bag and using while sitting in the driver's seat while parked, and be able to easily take it with you.
Essentially, you've made something that's useful largely only because of its portability and taken that away. I suspect whatever smartphone you're using to provide the iPad with a hotspot would provide you with a much better experience.
I agree, the ipad isn't a great solution. I do think the android tablets more suitable.
1. you can use widgets
2. you can tether the internet from a android phone or jail broken iphone
3. tablet talk will let you do sms but i'm sure there will be one for talk eventually. The 1st gen galaxy tablet allowed you to make calls on it but samsung took it out. Right know the solution is a bluetooth receiver
4. most android tablets come with usb ports so you can interface with usb drives and usb hdd
5. thats true for any touch screen
6. tunein radio app downloads all your local radio stations and labels them categorically. You can stream there music for free.
7. true nothing as of late. For now you need to stick with hand gesture apps or simply scrolling
8. Google navigation. Works way better then most gps's out with free live traffic updates.
Right now the problem is the tablet has no real amplifier. Seems he got around it using a equalizer to amplify the sounds and give extra aux in and out.
Last edited by TemjinX2; 11-14-2012 at 04:44 AM.
#19
11-14-2012, 04:42 AM
Right now i mounted a toshiba thrive dock to the center of my console. When i go on long trips, around 30min or more i take my 10.5" toshiba thrive and dock on the center console. So my tablet is removable.
Right now i'm running a aux in through the stock factory bose to the toshiba dock, so i'm still using the stock radio to amplify the sound.
My toshiba thrive comes with built in usb, hdmi, mini usb into the tablet so i use thumb drives or usb hdd to extend my storage. But i mostly use it for the Google navigation and Pandora.
All I have to say is, that its awesome to have all the features of a tablet in a car, especially on long drives.
Right now i'm running a aux in through the stock factory bose to the toshiba dock, so i'm still using the stock radio to amplify the sound.
My toshiba thrive comes with built in usb, hdmi, mini usb into the tablet so i use thumb drives or usb hdd to extend my storage. But i mostly use it for the Google navigation and Pandora.
All I have to say is, that its awesome to have all the features of a tablet in a car, especially on long drives.
#20
11-14-2012, 02:02 PM
I agree, the ipad isn't a great solution. I do think the android tablets more suitable.
1. you can use widgets
2. you can tether the internet from a android phone or jail broken iphone
3. tablet talk will let you do sms but i'm sure there will be one for talk eventually. The 1st gen galaxy tablet allowed you to make calls on it but samsung took it out. Right know the solution is a bluetooth receiver
4. most android tablets come with usb ports so you can interface with usb drives and usb hdd
5. thats true for any touch screen
6. tunein radio app downloads all your local radio stations and labels them categorically. You can stream there music for free.
7. true nothing as of late. For now you need to stick with hand gesture apps or simply scrolling
8. Google navigation. Works way better then most gps's out with free live traffic updates.
Right now the problem is the tablet has no real amplifier. Seems he got around it using a equalizer to amplify the sounds and give extra aux in and out.
1. you can use widgets
2. you can tether the internet from a android phone or jail broken iphone
3. tablet talk will let you do sms but i'm sure there will be one for talk eventually. The 1st gen galaxy tablet allowed you to make calls on it but samsung took it out. Right know the solution is a bluetooth receiver
4. most android tablets come with usb ports so you can interface with usb drives and usb hdd
5. thats true for any touch screen
6. tunein radio app downloads all your local radio stations and labels them categorically. You can stream there music for free.
7. true nothing as of late. For now you need to stick with hand gesture apps or simply scrolling
8. Google navigation. Works way better then most gps's out with free live traffic updates.
Right now the problem is the tablet has no real amplifier. Seems he got around it using a equalizer to amplify the sounds and give extra aux in and out.
2. Tethering's great, but if all you're doing is using it to give wifi to the tablet to run the same audio source programs that could be running on your smartphone, with the bluetooth streaming audio as well as allowing you to use the steering wheel controls, you might as well just be streaming to a standard headunit. - Advantage headunit + smartphone.
3. Talk works just fine with a phone over bluetooth with a standard headunit. - Advantage headunit + smartphone.
4. Headunits almost all come with USB ports, and anything on them can be played through the car-friendly interface. - Advantage headunit + smartphone.
5. Alleviated by a good tablet or headunit with external storage, but the tablet will play more file formats. - Advantage tablet.
6 ( & 7 were transposed on your list). Having to go through a separate app through the non-optimized interface definitely makes the tablet a lot less usable for this, and the same apps are available for the smartphone. - Advantage headunit + smartphone.
7. No gestures or scrolling possible while wearing gloves. - Advantage headunit + smartphone.
8. Navigation requires either A-GPS from cell towers or a satellite navigation receiver, which are almost guaranteed to be in a smartphone, but the small screen is definitely inferior to a 7" tablet display, so this one's a toss-up, depending on your tablet.
If you could make an app that tied in all the disparate streaming audio sources in a car-friendly interface and make an adapter to tie into the remote controls available through the headphone port, you'd eliminate a lot of the shortcomings of a tablet as a headunit. If a company would put a couple of programmers on this, they could turn out a $10 app that'd I'd gladly use as a headunit when combined with a good anti-glare screen cover.
#21
11-14-2012, 10:02 PM
#22
11-22-2012, 03:39 AM
To fix the navigation problem, you can download an offline GPS map app, like co-pilot or add a GPS receiver to your wifi iPad (bad elf). I didn't do my HW and already purchased the mini iPad for my car, so there is no turning back now. Just have to figure out how to make it work. Also they sell anti glare screen protector and once it is jail broken I think the iPad mini will make a good substitute
#23
11-22-2012, 05:31 AM
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lsmooth81 (11-22-2012)
#24
11-22-2012, 11:39 AM
To fix the navigation problem, you can download an offline GPS map app, like co-pilot or add a GPS receiver to your wifi iPad (bad elf). I didn't do my HW and already purchased the mini iPad for my car, so there is no turning back now. Just have to figure out how to make it work. Also they sell anti glare screen protector and once it is jail broken I think the iPad mini will make a good substitute
I'm just not seeing any advantage of the iPad mini being used as a headunit replacement that just using the smartphone + real headunit combo doesn't do better.
If all you're looking for is a bigger screen for your smartphone, just put an external screen in the dash.
Once the user interface is optimized for a driver's use, there's good offline maps and the screen isn't a glare-inducing mirror, you're on your way to a great headunit replacement, but it's just not there yet.
#25
11-22-2012, 05:33 PM
To fix the navigation problem, you can download an offline GPS map app, like co-pilot or add a GPS receiver to your wifi iPad (bad elf). I didn't do my HW and already purchased the mini iPad for my car, so there is no turning back now. Just have to figure out how to make it work. Also they sell anti glare screen protector and once it is jail broken I think the iPad mini will make a good substitute
You can do the online version, since they took out the app in the newer versions of ios.
#26
11-22-2012, 05:49 PM
To fix the navigation problem, you can download an offline GPS map app, like co-pilot or add a GPS receiver to your wifi iPad (bad elf). I didn't do my HW and already purchased the mini iPad for my car, so there is no turning back now. Just have to figure out how to make it work. Also they sell anti glare screen protector and once it is jail broken I think the iPad mini will make a good substitute
You'll probably be better off if you just sell your ipad mini for $300 and just buy a nexus 7 for $200.
You'll have google navigation, tabletalk (sms on your tablet) more custom roms and widgets that car friendly.
#27
11-22-2012, 08:48 PM
great install OP..another member did a similar install with android tablet.
https://g35driver.com/forums/car-pc/...ouble-din.html
https://g35driver.com/forums/car-pc/...ouble-din.html
#28
07-01-2013, 01:13 PM
#29
10-03-2013, 03:15 PM
Registered User
Seems dope, if you have an iphone jailbreak it. Theres a app pdanet, which basicly snakes your 3g from your iphone and can output your internet through wifi or connect via usb. you get in the G plug your iphone into a charger, turn on the app, and BOOM you got 3g on you ipad mini... youtube, pandora, gps nav, email yea you only got 16 gigs of music and videos...but thats plenty for me. Gonna do this in my 05 coupe, gut the gps nav system and gut the dvd cd rom spot for the nav system and turn it into another glove compartment.
#30
10-04-2013, 06:55 PM
I actually considered (am still considering) doing a Nexus 7 install. The way I have it planned out, most (If not all) of the problems with the Ipad install will be moot.
I'm pretty tech savvy (As well as being in 3rd year engineering) I think I can work it out. The way I have it planned out the tablet would be removable, have offline turn-by-turn GPS (no need for internet connection), can connect to my phone, crossover boosts audio signal as well as any equalizer issues. Matte screen protector removes glare, custom widgets makes it usable while driving.
Only two things are holding me back, one is I gotta figure out how to utilize steering controls with the tablet (I know of one way but it's a PITA to implement), other is the $300 JDM double din cost. Other than my total parts list is around $200 (Not including the tablet which I already have).
I'm pretty tech savvy (As well as being in 3rd year engineering) I think I can work it out. The way I have it planned out the tablet would be removable, have offline turn-by-turn GPS (no need for internet connection), can connect to my phone, crossover boosts audio signal as well as any equalizer issues. Matte screen protector removes glare, custom widgets makes it usable while driving.
Only two things are holding me back, one is I gotta figure out how to utilize steering controls with the tablet (I know of one way but it's a PITA to implement), other is the $300 JDM double din cost. Other than my total parts list is around $200 (Not including the tablet which I already have).