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My car (Lexus) and my iPhone X: The car detects iPhone presence, like, 50% of the time. If it does detect it, it shows me a couple of half-naked shaved guys hu

My car (Lexus) and my iPhone X: The car detects iPhone presence, like, 50% of the time. If it does detect it, it shows me a couple of half-naked shaved guys hugging each other and begins playing "Songs of Innocence" the moment I turn the ignition on. I tried deleting this song from the iPhone, but it auto-magically restores itself somehow, as if it is in the telephone's firmware. The image of men hugging in shade is baked into my mind forever at this point. As I want to set my plans in silence, I press stop on the dashboard. I set my Google Maps navigation, turn the knob to increase the volume so I could hear instructions, and this triggers "Songs of Innocence" to continue playing and the second burst of outrage in my cardiovascular system. I press the stop the second time, and at this point can continue on my journey - but should I try to increase the volume again, I have to remember the hugging men are always there. Once (or twice), the phone just went berserk and couldn't stop playing them. I tried everything, but the Songs were playing, and the men were hugging while I was doing 70 mph on the motorway. I had to reboot the phone, but after the reboot, the car was unable to pair with it. I don't know if it's a Lexus problem, or an Apple problem, but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2.

chaosite 4y ago
The image you're taking about is the cover art for that album, right?
- blackhaz 4y ago
  Yes...
  - jknutson 4y ago
    A likely story. This is a safe place pal, we’re all friends here..
- mort96 4y ago
  It's album art for an album he never wanted though. Apple did a stunt some years back where they celebrated the launch of a new U2 album by automatically putting that album on everyone's iPhones. For many people, it's the only music they have in the stock Music app, so it's what gets played when nothing else is currently playing.
crb 4y ago
FWIW, the men are father and son; the lower man is U2's drummer Larry Mullen Jr.
- blackhaz 4y ago
  I don't know if it's for much better or much worse, but this allows me some freedom of thought now. Thank you, sir.
rjzzleep 4y ago
There used to be a link to remove the album[1] but it seems like they shut it down. So the only way for you to remove the album from your account is to contact apple support. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29208540#:~:text=Apple%20has%20released%20a%20tool,their%20devices%20without%20their%20permission https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29208540#:~:text=Apple%2....
- blackhaz 4y ago
  I also have an alarm set up I cannot delete. It says "pick up Matt from school." It migrated all the way from iPhone 7 to this X. But he has grown up since and I don't need to pick him up anymore. I'll include this in my request.
  - cnity 4y ago
    You have a gift for writing humorously.
    - SilasX 4y ago
      Sorry, what was the humorous writing there? Seemed like a pretty direct statement of the facts of their case. The fact that underlying events are funny doesn't say anything about the style of writing, and I don't see any stylistic choices that were going for "deliberately humorous writing", let alone ones that show a gift (though of course the poster might show it in other contexts!).
      - xeromal 4y ago
        Woah. This comment is hilarious, but it's not the writing. But to explain the humorous aspects of the poster's story, it's the naked men that he sprinkles throughout the story. Mentioning it multiple times is what makes it funny among funny bits.
        SilasX 4y ago
        > Woah. This comment is hilarious, but it's not the writing. Hence my confusion at the compliment. And now, at people who find it, in any way objectionable, to express such confusion.
saiya-jin 4y ago
what the hell did I just read... but yes Apple's implementation of Bluetooth is quite subpar compared to most peers, even though not sure if Lexus is 100% innocent here
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  If you consider Apples to be sub par. What’s your standard for decent? I’ve never had any BT issues with Apple stuff. And most of the other things I own have terrible BT implementations. But maybe because I can’t tell how to check for a good implementation?
  - ben-schaaf 4y ago
    Devil's advocate: Couldn't Apple's BT implementation be bad but still work well with itself?
- criddell 4y ago
  I think the blame has to lie with Lexus. My current phone is an iPhone and my previous phone was a Pixel and both work perfectly in my Subaru, although the head unit was replaced 3 times because it was triggering some type of SOS signal to Subaru. Frankly, I've had fewer BT issues with my iPhone than I had with my Android phone, but the Android was from three years ago and I think things have probably improved since then.
  - hellweaver666 4y ago
    I haven't driven for a few years but my iPhone 4 always used to connect and work with my Peugeot 307 perfectly.
    - dmix 4y ago
      Everyone in this thread who is complaining has either a Lexus or a Toyota (who owns Lexus) so it’s obviously a problem with some version of their infotainment system. The U2 thing was obviously an Apple issue. Not sure why they don’t use CarPlay but maybe some people prefer Bluetooth.
iasay 4y ago
It's definitely a Lexus problem. The BT connection on my Citroen is absolutely 100% flawless. Works every time reliably. But it's literally just a dumb audio and telephony connection. Anything more complicated than that is guaranteed to be absolutely a universally huge fucking shit show.
- worthless-trash 4y ago
  Its funny as I have the toyota rav4 2021 hybrid, (toyota owns lexus) and have none of these problems. My money is on the shitty 'interpretation' of 'resume last song' between the car and the phone.
jwhite 4y ago
Reading your comment made me feel like someone had been spying on me in my car. I go through this same thing in my Lexus every time I drive it as well. It is such a relief to know I am not the only one.
- blackhaz 4y ago
  Amen, brother.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
Haha, sorry, reminds me - my wife hates U2 with violent passion. Eventually I asked her what caused such burning rage, and she said her car starts playing a specific U2 song every time she turns it on. For years! Eventually I traced it to a promotional album U2 and apple and iTunes pushed to her devices without her knowledge. Man can these things backfire! But yeah we have a 2019 Honda and iPhones xr (not my choice; iPhone is work mandated) and there's just no telling what'll happen any given time when we start the car. Especially annoying since modern infotainment units make you wait 3 to 5 seconds to display crucial legal information before you can mute the darn thing. And let's not start if you have more than one Bluetooth headphone and more than one device at home :( (Yes I'm now the grouch that misses 3.5mm on modern phones and uses my old Note 8 and wired Sennheiser to listen to music hassle free :D)
- blackhaz 4y ago
  We should start a club! My son just bought a 3.5 mm adapter for the phone. Turns out the younger generation prefers wired too.
  - ricardobayes 4y ago
    I sometimes wonder what the world would be like without FAANG. I'm lead to believe the world would be a better place if all companies would have a max company size of Bose, or Sennheiser. Then no stupid decisions could be pushed through by force, like the removal of the 3.5 mm jack. If the market really wants it, they will eventually vote with their wallet. Same goes with social media, fb killed off local country-specific social media, which sometimes had much better features and less agressivity/conspiracy theories/scams.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      The market wants what the other segment of the market has, that's the purpose of marketing. Phones with no jacks, like laptops with no i/o, is something impractical that people self-justify because of the logo and the clout it affords. You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. Airpods are just about the worst headphones money can buy and people fight over them, despite there being headphones sold for <$100 that blow them out of the water. I have in-ear-monitors that cost a fraction of what an airpod does, has detachable cords AND bluetooth to each ear, and they sound much better and balanced. Whoever took away the audio port on modern phones should be dragged outside and beaten like an unruly fax machine.
heavenlyblue 4y ago
I have exactly he same issue with U2 on Apple Music. Exactly the same song. I think it’s because you get it for free.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
For what is worth, the same is for android. Whoever thought that changing volume should trigger "play" didn't actually test it. I thought Audible was a virus, I can't shut it down or stop it and whatever I do, it starts playing
- fuzzy2 4y ago
  That’s not actually Android, or iOS. It’s the car audio system sending the Play command.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    Oh I see, that's terrible
    - worthless-trash 4y ago
      In the Audible settings (and i think in your OS) "continue playback after connecting headphones". Or just uninstall the app if you dont use it.
- blackhaz 4y ago
  Oh, I am sure they did test it alright. With a Grinch smile.
dr-detroit 4y ago
john61 4y ago
Thank God that I have a car from 1981.
jefe_ 4y ago
Similar thing would happen in my Toyota, the song 'Afraid' by Yellowcard would play every time I turned on the car. Realized it was playing the first song in my library. In Apple Music there is a song called 'A a a a a Very Good Song (Silent Track)' by artist Samir Mezrahi, that contains 10 minutes of silence. I added that to my library and now that song plays when I turn on my car (although this autoplay only happens occasionally since some Toyota update). The album art simply says: 'have a wonderful day.' The song: https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-a-a-a-a-very-good-song-silent-track-single/1268932999 https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-a-a-a-a-very-good-song-si...
- jtbayly 4y ago
  I created a one-hour long silent MP3 and named it similarly and added it to my phone. I've sent it to a friend who uses it as well.
  - marbu 4y ago
    I have a script (simple ffmpeg wrapper) to generate silent mp3 files: https://github.com/marbu/scriptpile/blob/master/silence.sh https://github.com/marbu/scriptpile/blob/master/silence.sh I'm not quite sure what I needed that for anymore, but I find it interesting that there are such weird use cases for this.
  - a9h74j 4y ago
    Call it Subliminal productivity silence and you can make a fortune.
- focusedone 4y ago
  Modern problems require modern solutions. Nice work.
  - yakak 4y ago
    Modem problems require AT solutions, but I guess I need a font problem solution.
- 4y ago
cphoover 4y ago
Same thing happens in my GFs Prius... So annoying we refer to it as an "aural assault". I can't help but think U2's release strategy was really negative publicity for them in the long run.
seer 4y ago
The general idea I think is that once you start the car, it just send a play command the moment it detects the connection. And in theory it _can_ provide a really nice experience. For example I'm walking to my car listening to an audio book, the moment I start the car, BT is connecting to the phone and moves the audio playback from my AirPods to my car speaker without skipping a beat, its really impressive. Additionally since I'm an Apple Music user, whenever I start the car, it just defaults to whatever's I've been listening to there, unless there was a book / podcast or even YouTube video playing before. Which is very often quite nice. Now why apple just defaults to Apple Music, and not "your music player of choice a.k.a. Spotify" is questionable, and why the automatic play is also not configurable is beyond me. Just wanted to give my 2c how this can lead to a good XP.
- Workaccount2 4y ago
  My car (mazda 3) does this where it just sends the play command as soon as the phone (pixel) connects. But it just continues playing whatever I was last listening to, so it's always something different. Kinda nice.
- ycombinete 4y ago
  My fathers android does the same thing with YouTube music
- meibo 4y ago
  > Now why apple just defaults to Apple Music, and not "your music player of choice I think this should be obvious, they want you further into the ecosystem. If every morning when you get into your car your iPhone starts playing Apple Music, you're more likely to switch to Apple Music for all of your listening than to get another phone.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > …since I'm an Apple Music user, whenever I start the car, it just defaults to whatever's I've been listening to there… […] Now why apple just defaults to Apple Music, and not "your music player of choice a.k.a. Spotify" is questionable… As you noted, it continues playing whatever you were playing in whatever app you were using, with no preference for Apple Music (I'm also a Music subscriber). If you were playing something with Spotify, that's what will continue to play. I do wish it were configurable with contextual defaults. Too often, I start my car and my sleep sounds app continues to play "Airplane Interior".
GoToRO 4y ago
I also had similar problems with iPhone and BT. Before it worked very good with an Android. What I've learned over time is that apple seems ti sabotage anything that is not apple. I had connection problems with my car, with my Sony BT headphones, with portable speaker. Alk that went away as I switched back to android.
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  I guess you're right. My bluetooth experience is Macbook, iPhone, Apple keyboard, Apple mouse and Apple headphones. Everything works extremely well. The thing that I like most is power indicator integrated with iOS and macOS. Allows me to charge those things before they run out of power. As long as you stay in the garden, things are smooth.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    That's just... the BLE battery level service? AFAICT Windows does the same thing when you connect a BLE device that reports a battery.
    - vbezhenar 4y ago
      I have no idea, I've read reviews from some bluetooth mouse and reviewer mentioned that macOS does not display its battery level. I thought that it's proprietary.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  It is kinda funny, it was this behavior among others that made me switch from android to an iphone. I got so tired of BT shenanigans. I do feel sympathy for the people still having trouble, but mine has been flawless. I do not, however, drive a Lexus.
  - fullstop 4y ago
    My cars are all older, but my Android pairs up with a Kia Sportage almost immediately after starting the car. My wife's iPhone 11 sometimes takes several minutes. She ended up getting an adapter to connect audio to the 3.5mm jack.
ajdude 4y ago
Similar happens in my Mazda. No matter what I do, unless the source was actively changed to something like the radio before I shut my car off, as soon as I turn on the ignition it starts force playing a random song on my iPhone , Usually at a painfully high volume. Apple has bloomed Mazda and Mazda have found Apple. It always tends to be a race between the Bluetooth connection in my ability to turn the volume down before it plays; even when it’s stopped, the moment I take a phone call it starts playing at maximum volume again after ending the call.
- themaninthedark 4y ago
  Not sure which version of the entertainment system you have but on my 2016 Mazda 3, it will try and play the last song you had playing on your phone. If it can't get the song to play it will then default to the other last audio device i.e. radio, XM, CD. You should have separate volumes for music, navigation and hands-free in the entertainment system. Also, you can mute the sound using the volume knob while the warning text is displayed during key on. My current solution is to make sure my CD player is the other last used device so that if the BT connection fails, I get sweet sweet Baroque music instead of FM blaring.
j3th9n 4y ago
I have an iPhone SE (1st gen) and a 50 dollar bluetooth enabled radio in my car. It works flawlessly every time, I turn on ignition, the radio connects with my phone and I can hit play. When I turn off ignition the current song is paused and the radio disconnects.
2-718-281-828 4y ago
That's an iPhone problem. All our Androids (OnePlus, Google, Samsung, LG) have been connecting perfectly well to my TomTom navigator. Only my iPhone Xs refuses to connect. It's a well documented problem with iPhones and TomTom for many years. Similar story with my AirPods which won't connect to my Thinkpad running Linux - while all other BT headphones (Bose, Sony, Anker) do connect. Also the article seems to primarily refer to Apple products.
- corrral 4y ago
  My iPhone doesn't have these problems with my nearly-a-decade-old Honda Odyssey's BT stereo system. Neither does my wife's iPhone, nor the couple others we've owned while owning this van. That thing (the stereo / "smart" entertainment system) has got plenty of "how the shit did this pass QC?" quirks, but none relating to its interaction with my phone. It's the car's fault.
  - 2-718-281-828 4y ago
    Apple's entire interfacing be those digital or physical are intentionally designed for incompatibility with devices from the not-Apple universe.
    - corrral 4y ago
      I... have not found that to be the case at all (my van's certainly not made by Apple, nor is its stock entertainment system—my BT headphones aren't Apple, my BT keyboards and mice aren't Apple, my monitor and electric piano aren't apple, et c.) but it could be I've just been lucky.
- Izkata 4y ago
  It's possible it's neither: > but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. Back around 2010/2011, AT&T pushed a U2 album to Android phones in an OTA update as a system install, it couldn't be deleted.
dingleberry420 4y ago
- epsteinisntdead 4y ago
  Out of that whole post, you landed on homophobia as a reasonable thing to call out?
- kortex 4y ago
  I don't think it's intended to be homophobic. The album art is just really cringey. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Innocence_(U2_album) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Innocence_(U2_album...
  - dingleberry420 4y ago
    Alright, having seen it, fair enough.
  - tpush 4y ago
    What's 'cringey' about it?
    - Keyframe 4y ago
      The way it is.
jader201 4y ago
You’ve been able to delete the Music app for a while. If the U2 album is the first thing to play, it sounds like you may not use the Music app anyway. Just delete it and problem solved (though agree with the general rage caused by this promotion).
klyrs 4y ago
My girlfriend's phone automatically resumes in the middle of a podcast. Same spot, same podcast, every time. I had no idea how lucky we are.
- Loughla 4y ago
  Right? I thought it was annoying that No Such Thing as a Fish kicked on into the exact same spot every time I went for a drive. But that's a million times better than anything by U2 or whatever Songs of Innocence is.
Nathanael_M 4y ago
James Keelaghan will take priority over U2. Ever time I step into my 2014 Hyundai Elantra I am greeted with Canadian folk music. Definitely a step up.
treeman79 4y ago
Would love if CarPlay would just work constantly. On my Ford remote start results in it not working 50% of the time. Regular start fails 10% of the time. Solution is turn car off for 10 minutes or so. I assume some capacitor has to drain fully. This is apparently just a known bug.
- nucleardog 4y ago
  Not quite as bad, but my Subaru is similar. If I'm in the car with my phone when it turns on it connects immediately almost every time. If I remote start the car and then go out to it it probably connects about 1/5 times. Another 1/5 I can go into the bluetooth settings and manually initiate the connection and it'll work. But a full 60% of the time I have to turn the entire car off and on again for the bluetooth to finally sort its shit out. Thankfully no 10 minute wait necessary.
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    My mom's Subaru... has that god awful 15 inch monitor in the middle of the dash. Every time a phone call comes in, the music starts playing WHILE ON THE PHONE CALL. And I thought, wow, this huge-ass monitor will be awesome for Android Auto and CarPlay. NOPE, only like 1/3 of the screen gets used for CarPlay. This little tiny 7 inch section of the screen. Total joke these infotainment systems are. Give me back my goddamn double-din hole in the dashboard!
LetsGetTechnicl 4y ago
I have a Honda and if I plug my iPhone into it's USB port it will auto-play the first song in my Apple Music/iTunes library which for a long time was "A-YO" by Lady Gaga. The opening lyric of "heeerreee we gooo" was amusing and appropriate for a while until it got incredibly annoying once I switched to Spotify. I think the issue lies somewhere between Honda's implementation of the iPod standard and some weird backwards compatibility the iPhone is providing. When in this "iPod-like" mode I lost functionality like queuing songs via the Play Next option. It just disappeared from the long-press menu on songs. Anyways I just bought a Bluetooth adapter from Amazon and plugged that into the aux input. Waaaay better
fullstop 4y ago
You may enjoy this episode of Reply All: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76hel39 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76hel39
duffyjp 4y ago
I thought your anecdote was satire until the very last word. That was a great ride.
FredPret 4y ago
That’s a hilarious writeup. My car starts blasting the FM radio if I don’t plug my iPhone in. I have never and will never willingly listen to FM radio, and yet, Ford has decided that it must be played at full volume an uncertain interval after the car is started. It’s caused me enough anxiety that I’ll be buying a different car next time.
throwaway2037 4y ago
- s3p 4y ago
  what?
wollsmoth 4y ago
It's definitely a Lexus problem. In a ford I think it just continues playing whatever the last played song was. I also put songs on my iphone instead of using apple music, so I suppose it could be an issue with that service although idk why it would behave way differently from playing local files.
- asdf98 4y ago
  Only in fords with sync 3 or later. sync 2 is garbage
asdf98 4y ago
My car does this too when I plug my phone into USB, it starts playing the first song alphabetically no matter what. I became so sick of this I just have a long empty track with tildes in the name in my library. I would assume bluetooth would do the same but my car's bluetooth has been off since it came out of the facotory and I will never turn it on. Another obnoxious design is if i want to start a playlist I can't just start playing it - It gives me the playlist sorted alphatically. Once i start playing a track it then sorts them by playlist order. Literally the point of a playlist is the order which you choose your songs to be in. Same solution works, put a short empty file with a tilde, 0 or underscore. So when I pick a playlist I just have to press enter twice and not deal with the alphabetically sorted list. This trick also works when i try to navigate with google maps and my phone is plugged into usb. I wont get the navigation voice if a music track is NOT playing - again I go to my silent track and play it in order to get the navigation voice when my phone plugged into USB
commandlinefan 4y ago
> it shows me a couple of half-naked shaved guys hugging each other Well, since nobody has ever read the spec in its entirety, it's completely possible that those guys are actually part of the specification, somewhere around page 5000 or so.
Der_Einzige 4y ago
This is a weird one. I also have a Lexus, but from the year before they put carplay in. I did an aftermarket carplay upgrade, and I've never had any sort of issue like this with Bluetooth on my wife's iphone before...
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
That sucks. For what it's worth, "old-school" Toyota headunits with Bluetooth seem to work quite well (for Bluetooth). The ones that came with graphics/more complex CPUs seem to have gone downhill. You can try to install an older model OEM headunit in your car to see if that fixes your Bluetooth. Certain models had really decent sound, are cheap when found used online, and should have the same connectors in the back (depending on speaker options). Here's an example of replacing your headunit: https://thetrackahead.com/projects/2003-toyota-4runner/the-ultimate-scion-head-unit-t10015-4th-gen-toyota-4runner/ https://thetrackahead.com/projects/2003-toyota-4runner/the-u... Also, I think Auto-play is a setting in the headunit, in mine anyway. If not, your phone may have a setting for it.
nomy99 4y ago
I'm not sure if comedy was the intent here, but I laughed a lot.
dllthomas 4y ago
I guess you've gotta ask yourself... cui Bono?
denimnerd42 4y ago
this EXACT thing happens on my toyota but it's even more annoying because i'll be using my phone and we stop for gas and then when we turn the car back on U2 starts playing from my wife's phone
nobleach 4y ago
Oh my gosh, I didn't know where this was going with the half-naked shaved guys until you said, "Songs of Innocence"... and immediately it became a shared experience. If I could somehow tell my phone, "NEVER play Apple Music, always defer to Spotify if you have to auto-play anything", I'd do it in a heartbeat.
- conductr 4y ago
  This is the real issue. Apple Music being a firm default. The U2 thing can be deleted from Apple Music. It exists because it was released that way a decade or so ago. It got pushed into everyone’s playlist as a purchased album, but can be deleted. I have no music at all in Apple Music for this reason. I prefer silence over this. My problem is that I have to turn off BT on my phone for various reasons. Yet, no matter what, when I start my car it turns back on my phones BT setting and reconnects. (Eg. If my wife is playing her phone, then we stop for an errand, and get back in it always goes back to my phone.)
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    You can delete Apple Music from your phone, but that can break BT Audio playback on some devices.
    - conductr 4y ago
      Nice, thanks! I'm going to try that. I feel like I tried once and it used to be undeletable; probably long time ago.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    It's why I have NO music on iTunes. Did you hear that, Apple? I will never give you money for music, ever ever, as long as connecting to a car == play iTunes.
- calt 4y ago
  You can uninstall Apple Music. At least there's that saving grace.
darthrupert 4y ago
An Apple problem. Their car connectivity follows the idea that configuration is evil and there's only one way to do a thing.
- nostromo 4y ago
  This isn't correct. Apple Car Play does not play anything automatically on start. It's the Lexus that is telling the device to begin playing music. If you don't use Apple Music, it'll pick the only album you have -- which for many people is the U2 album Apple added to everyone's library for free many years ago.
  - darthrupert 4y ago
    I stand corrected but also want to note that I've seen many car models do this.
roody15 4y ago
Apple has done this for years and my take is they are tying to increase usage and relevance of Apple Music. For example I only use Spotify in my car but it will not connect correctly unless I download and have Apple Music installed. Just bad move by apple in my opinion. Just connect by bluetooth and let me use any app want. Super dumb that you have to put a song labeled A in your song library that is just silence to get around this.
- thetinguy 4y ago
  It’s the car that auto plays the first thing. My old car used to do the same thing. New car no longer does this.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
The first song in my library was a song by Killswitch Engage. A very loud song with lots of screaming. Ultimately I deleted the Music app from my iPhone to solve the auto play problem. I used Spotify for music at the time (now VLC). Deleting the app to solve the problem definitely feels like an extreme solution to a problem which shouldn’t be a problem at all! But I have worse Bluetooth problems. My favorite Bluetooth headphones never want to connect the first few times. Trying to connect in this error state turns them off, for some reason. So I have this horrible dance where I turn them on and attempt to connect. My connecting device spins for a while. The headphones have silently turned off. I turn them back in and repeat. After about four times, they will usually connect. But sometimes I have to delete the connection and re-pair. Sometimes I have to turn off Bluetooth on other nearby devices to get it to work. And sometimes when connected, even near my source, the connection just goes silent. I wish Bluetooth could behave a bit more like FM radio. A source is streaming out audio and my headphones can tune to that secure channel and get the stream. Headphones can tune between channels easily. This would solve my connection woes.
- anonair 4y ago
  Unfortunately, deleting Music app turns off iPod integration, and now I’m unable to use other media players on my car over USB
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    Oh no! Didn’t happen to me in my Honda with my iPhone 7, but I guess every car is different.
0x00000000 4y ago
If you use Apple Music, it has the additional benefit of wasting all of your data and battery every time you turn your car on since it streams your entire library on shuffle. I thought I was clever and could fix this problem by using the iPhone’s “Shortcuts” app “Automation” feature to pause after connecting to the car’s Bluetooth. But for some reason the thing called “automation” requires manual fucking interaction every time. Yes, that’s right you have to click on a prompt to run the “automation” shortcut. Turns out it’s a limitation of the “on connect to Bluetooth” trigger for “security” yet this isn’t explained anywhere. Because if someone stole my phone and car they might be able to... pause the music? Thanks Apple.
jamal-kumar 4y ago
That's so hilarious considering you've probably been putting up with that for years and years while there's a ton of solutions. Here's a fun fact about U2: If Bono himself is in his own car driving around and it comes on he has to change the channel. Doesn't like hearing his own voice (Not macho enough), nor the band name. [1] I also heard the same thing about Phil Collins. [1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/bono-says-he-switches-the-radio-station-when-he-hears-u2-songs https://www.thedailybeast.com/bono-says-he-switches-the-radi...
JohnBooty 4y ago
I generally hate Bluetooth. But, your post is golden. I'm sorry you are dealing with it. I don't know if it's a Lexus problem, or an Apple problem, but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. My best understanding is that this is a Lexus problem, because on the occasions I have connected wireless speakers to my iPhones this has never happened. CarPlay solves some of these problems and is maybe not perfect, but generally a far saner UX experience than what car companies have managed to cook up over the years. I would assume similar things are true for Android Auto. Like, not perfect, but far saner than whatever the heck the UX wizards at Toyota brewed up.
swamp40 4y ago
The iPhone forces Apple Music to self-start if nothing else is using the speaker when you auto-connect with a car Bluetooth system. Kind of like how Windows 10 forces you to use Microsoft Edge as a pdf viewer no matter how many times you switch to Adobe or how many settings you change. Apple doesn't want you to forget about Apple Music. > auto-magically restores itself somehow iCloud. Apple Music needs something to play.
francisofascii 4y ago
This continues to happen in our 2012 Toyota Prius. U2 song “California” from the Sounds of Innocence soundtrack. Don’t remember ever downloading it.
ianceicys 4y ago
Tip: remove the Apple Music app from your iPhone and it won't play anything.
- kn0where 4y ago
  On my old car, deleting the music app prevented the shitty radio from detecting that my “iPod” (aka iPhone) was even connected, so I had to have the Music app installed even if I wanted to play Spotify.
moralestapia 4y ago
>but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. We can agree on that!
nostromo 4y ago
This is primarily a problem with car manufacturers designing terrible user interfaces. Audi does a reasonably good job. I wouldn’t buy a Toyota or Ford because they tend to be terrible. At this point, if a car doesn’t let me default to Car Play automatically, I’m not buying it. And if every time I turn on the car it lectures me about driving safely, I’m really not buying it.
xyst 4y ago
infotainment systems built by car manufacturers are just absolutely dreadful from an end user perspective. I have had a similar experience in the past (albeit much less of an annoyance) but was fixed 3 years later in a firmware update while randomly visiting the dealership for warranty items. android auto/apple car play are an absolute dream to use on the other hand. If I buy another car, it will be a must have (rather than an aftermarket accessory)
faebi 4y ago
It‘s nearly as good as my story. I‘m walking with airpods past my car. The car detects my keys and turns on bluetooth, iPhone connects and thinks it's better to send audio to my car instead of the airpods in my ears. A long and painful connection loss is the result while I walk away and hope that my airpods reconnect. There is no way to set a presedence or similar. These days it‘s even better, the iPhone also switches to car mode and forces me to disable it first.
flanbiscuit 4y ago
Can you turn BT off and connect via a chord? That's what I do with my car. Sure it's a little annoying to use a chord rather than using BT but at least you wouldn't have it auto-playing when you start the car. I have an Android and when we had the BT on the radio on, it would auto-connect to my phone and start playing whatever the last thing I was listening to on Spotify. If I stopped Spotify, my phone's audio output would still remain connected to the radio, even if my gf was connected with her iPhone and the system had switched to iOS CarPlay (the radio had both Android Auto and iOS CarPlay) We finally figured out we could disable BT via the radio's setting and that solved our problem. We actually prefer connecting via a cable anyways.
pbreit 4y ago
I have never, not once ever, wanted something to autoplay when a bluetooth device connected.
cryptonector 4y ago
Nowadays you can delete (really, hide), the U2 album. If you delete all remaining music in iTunes, then the U2 album gets restored, and you have to re-delete it. Other problems: - the darned thing is eager to connect My wife gets in the car to go somewhere, turns it on, my phone connects, and I lose audio / she steals my audio. - the darned thing connects even if the car's audio is off get in, use a maps app, can't hear anything, ohhh, right! - carplay uses wifi, iphone fails to route properly can't use carplay - anyways, carplay is super sensitive to EM noise be me, be driving w/ navigation on, go through high-traffic, EM noisy area, lose navigation -- distracting! dangerous! Solution: - refuse to connect to the car's wifi - that means no carplay - that means no distractions - delete the U2 album - delete it harder - turn off bluetooth every morning - that means no more stolen audio when someone drives the family cars > but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. I can't imagine not hating U2.
cryptonector 4y ago
> but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. I bet your comment has hundreds of upvotes already.
calt 4y ago
I ended up uninstalling Apple Music because it would similarly play the same song (I forget what it was) at surprising times. Spotify doesn't give me the same problem.
Robotbeat 4y ago
I had to laugh so hard at this as I’m literally sitting in my Tesla listening to Songs of Innocence that autoplayed on my iPhone without my explicit consent for exactly the reason you mention. I swear I have Stockholm Syndrome because the album that Apple forced my to download is slowly growing on me.
t3e 4y ago
We had the same problem in our 2016 Outback until the head unit died. The only thing we really miss about it is the backup camera; but we can live without that, and apparently the stereo, as a fair price for being free of bluetooth audio hell.
- worthless-trash 4y ago
  Not sure if it matters, but many aftermarket head units can have the reversing camera connected to restore factory functionality, I believe the average HN reader could do this. Edit: https://motoristcare.com/how-to-connect-backup-camera-to-head-unit/ https://motoristcare.com/how-to-connect-backup-camera-to-hea... Is a pretty good example on how to complete this.
  - t3e 4y ago
    Thanks for the tip!
tarunkotia 4y ago
This happens to me every time I enter my car while on a Zoom call; the bluetooth or even the hardwired headset would switch to the car speakers and the call gets unmuted. I need to scramble to mute the call while my daughter is screaming at the back. Can't get it to work.
alexfromapex 4y ago
This is one of those stories you read where you thought it was just you but then realize it’s happening to a bunch of people
rewgs 4y ago
I ended up just uninstalling Apple Music so that music wouldn't autoplay in my Prius. Absolutely ridiculous that that was the only way.
exabrial 4y ago
My android didn’t have this problem. When i switched to iPhone it did. A quick Google search will give you similar results. I believe this is in Apple problem.
rcv 4y ago
I have a 2010 Toyota Prius, and I've intermittently had the exact same problem. Except my song was "Oogum Boogum" - fortunately it was the Alex Chilton version which I still like. My latest struggle is that my phone now plays audio at 50% speed through my cars bluetooth. Spotify, Youtube, etc - it doesn't matter. It seems to play 50% speed super low pitch for about a second and then skip forward in the audio stream about a second. The only thing that remedies this is to reboot my car.
pxmpxm 4y ago
Wow definitely bringing back repressed memories for me - my audi s8 for whatever reason would refuse to stream via a2dp unless I had some music actually on the phone, in which case it would auto play said music after some random delay. So my brilliant solution was a 5 second silent mp3 loaded on my phone - it would keep the bt gods happy and i could switch to a2dp at my leisure. This was perfect, until someone decided to force deploy the same half naked men on my phone.
webinvest 4y ago
Buy or load a $0.99 silent song that starts with the letter A and you won’t have this problem any more.

chaosite 4y ago

The image you're taking about is the cover art for that album, right?

blackhaz 4y ago
Yes...
- jknutson 4y ago
  A likely story. This is a safe place pal, we’re all friends here..
mort96 4y ago
It's album art for an album he never wanted though. Apple did a stunt some years back where they celebrated the launch of a new U2 album by automatically putting that album on everyone's iPhones. For many people, it's the only music they have in the stock Music app, so it's what gets played when nothing else is currently playing.

crb 4y ago

FWIW, the men are father and son; the lower man is U2's drummer Larry Mullen Jr.

blackhaz 4y ago
I don't know if it's for much better or much worse, but this allows me some freedom of thought now. Thank you, sir.

rjzzleep 4y ago

There used to be a link to remove the album[1] but it seems like they shut it down. So the only way for you to remove the album from your account is to contact apple support. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29208540#:~:text=Apple%20has%20released%20a%20tool,their%20devices%20without%20their%20permission https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29208540#:~:text=Apple%2....

blackhaz 4y ago
I also have an alarm set up I cannot delete. It says "pick up Matt from school." It migrated all the way from iPhone 7 to this X. But he has grown up since and I don't need to pick him up anymore. I'll include this in my request.
- cnity 4y ago
  You have a gift for writing humorously.
  - SilasX 4y ago
    Sorry, what was the humorous writing there? Seemed like a pretty direct statement of the facts of their case. The fact that underlying events are funny doesn't say anything about the style of writing, and I don't see any stylistic choices that were going for "deliberately humorous writing", let alone ones that show a gift (though of course the poster might show it in other contexts!).
    - xeromal 4y ago
      Woah. This comment is hilarious, but it's not the writing. But to explain the humorous aspects of the poster's story, it's the naked men that he sprinkles throughout the story. Mentioning it multiple times is what makes it funny among funny bits.
      - SilasX 4y ago
        > Woah. This comment is hilarious, but it's not the writing. Hence my confusion at the compliment. And now, at people who find it, in any way objectionable, to express such confusion.

saiya-jin 4y ago

what the hell did I just read... but yes Apple's implementation of Bluetooth is quite subpar compared to most peers, even though not sure if Lexus is 100% innocent here

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
If you consider Apples to be sub par. What’s your standard for decent? I’ve never had any BT issues with Apple stuff. And most of the other things I own have terrible BT implementations. But maybe because I can’t tell how to check for a good implementation?
- ben-schaaf 4y ago
  Devil's advocate: Couldn't Apple's BT implementation be bad but still work well with itself?
criddell 4y ago
I think the blame has to lie with Lexus. My current phone is an iPhone and my previous phone was a Pixel and both work perfectly in my Subaru, although the head unit was replaced 3 times because it was triggering some type of SOS signal to Subaru. Frankly, I've had fewer BT issues with my iPhone than I had with my Android phone, but the Android was from three years ago and I think things have probably improved since then.
- hellweaver666 4y ago
  I haven't driven for a few years but my iPhone 4 always used to connect and work with my Peugeot 307 perfectly.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Everyone in this thread who is complaining has either a Lexus or a Toyota (who owns Lexus) so it’s obviously a problem with some version of their infotainment system. The U2 thing was obviously an Apple issue. Not sure why they don’t use CarPlay but maybe some people prefer Bluetooth.

iasay 4y ago

It's definitely a Lexus problem. The BT connection on my Citroen is absolutely 100% flawless. Works every time reliably. But it's literally just a dumb audio and telephony connection. Anything more complicated than that is guaranteed to be absolutely a universally huge fucking shit show.

worthless-trash 4y ago
Its funny as I have the toyota rav4 2021 hybrid, (toyota owns lexus) and have none of these problems. My money is on the shitty 'interpretation' of 'resume last song' between the car and the phone.

jwhite 4y ago

Reading your comment made me feel like someone had been spying on me in my car. I go through this same thing in my Lexus every time I drive it as well. It is such a relief to know I am not the only one.

blackhaz 4y ago
Amen, brother.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

Haha, sorry, reminds me - my wife hates U2 with violent passion. Eventually I asked her what caused such burning rage, and she said her car starts playing a specific U2 song every time she turns it on. For years! Eventually I traced it to a promotional album U2 and apple and iTunes pushed to her devices without her knowledge. Man can these things backfire! But yeah we have a 2019 Honda and iPhones xr (not my choice; iPhone is work mandated) and there's just no telling what'll happen any given time when we start the car. Especially annoying since modern infotainment units make you wait 3 to 5 seconds to display crucial legal information before you can mute the darn thing. And let's not start if you have more than one Bluetooth headphone and more than one device at home :( (Yes I'm now the grouch that misses 3.5mm on modern phones and uses my old Note 8 and wired Sennheiser to listen to music hassle free :D)

blackhaz 4y ago
We should start a club! My son just bought a 3.5 mm adapter for the phone. Turns out the younger generation prefers wired too.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  I sometimes wonder what the world would be like without FAANG. I'm lead to believe the world would be a better place if all companies would have a max company size of Bose, or Sennheiser. Then no stupid decisions could be pushed through by force, like the removal of the 3.5 mm jack. If the market really wants it, they will eventually vote with their wallet. Same goes with social media, fb killed off local country-specific social media, which sometimes had much better features and less agressivity/conspiracy theories/scams.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    The market wants what the other segment of the market has, that's the purpose of marketing. Phones with no jacks, like laptops with no i/o, is something impractical that people self-justify because of the logo and the clout it affords. You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. Airpods are just about the worst headphones money can buy and people fight over them, despite there being headphones sold for <$100 that blow them out of the water. I have in-ear-monitors that cost a fraction of what an airpod does, has detachable cords AND bluetooth to each ear, and they sound much better and balanced. Whoever took away the audio port on modern phones should be dragged outside and beaten like an unruly fax machine.

heavenlyblue 4y ago

I have exactly he same issue with U2 on Apple Music. Exactly the same song. I think it’s because you get it for free.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago

For what is worth, the same is for android. Whoever thought that changing volume should trigger "play" didn't actually test it. I thought Audible was a virus, I can't shut it down or stop it and whatever I do, it starts playing

fuzzy2 4y ago
That’s not actually Android, or iOS. It’s the car audio system sending the Play command.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  Oh I see, that's terrible
  - worthless-trash 4y ago
    In the Audible settings (and i think in your OS) "continue playback after connecting headphones". Or just uninstall the app if you dont use it.
blackhaz 4y ago
Oh, I am sure they did test it alright. With a Grinch smile.

dr-detroit 4y ago

john61 4y ago

Thank God that I have a car from 1981.

jefe_ 4y ago

Similar thing would happen in my Toyota, the song 'Afraid' by Yellowcard would play every time I turned on the car. Realized it was playing the first song in my library. In Apple Music there is a song called 'A a a a a Very Good Song (Silent Track)' by artist Samir Mezrahi, that contains 10 minutes of silence. I added that to my library and now that song plays when I turn on my car (although this autoplay only happens occasionally since some Toyota update). The album art simply says: 'have a wonderful day.' The song: https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-a-a-a-a-very-good-song-silent-track-single/1268932999 https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-a-a-a-a-very-good-song-si...

jtbayly 4y ago
I created a one-hour long silent MP3 and named it similarly and added it to my phone. I've sent it to a friend who uses it as well.
- marbu 4y ago
  I have a script (simple ffmpeg wrapper) to generate silent mp3 files: https://github.com/marbu/scriptpile/blob/master/silence.sh https://github.com/marbu/scriptpile/blob/master/silence.sh I'm not quite sure what I needed that for anymore, but I find it interesting that there are such weird use cases for this.
- a9h74j 4y ago
  Call it Subliminal productivity silence and you can make a fortune.
focusedone 4y ago
Modern problems require modern solutions. Nice work.
- yakak 4y ago
  Modem problems require AT solutions, but I guess I need a font problem solution.
4y ago

cphoover 4y ago

Same thing happens in my GFs Prius... So annoying we refer to it as an "aural assault". I can't help but think U2's release strategy was really negative publicity for them in the long run.

seer 4y ago

The general idea I think is that once you start the car, it just send a play command the moment it detects the connection. And in theory it _can_ provide a really nice experience. For example I'm walking to my car listening to an audio book, the moment I start the car, BT is connecting to the phone and moves the audio playback from my AirPods to my car speaker without skipping a beat, its really impressive. Additionally since I'm an Apple Music user, whenever I start the car, it just defaults to whatever's I've been listening to there, unless there was a book / podcast or even YouTube video playing before. Which is very often quite nice. Now why apple just defaults to Apple Music, and not "your music player of choice a.k.a. Spotify" is questionable, and why the automatic play is also not configurable is beyond me. Just wanted to give my 2c how this can lead to a good XP.

Workaccount2 4y ago
My car (mazda 3) does this where it just sends the play command as soon as the phone (pixel) connects. But it just continues playing whatever I was last listening to, so it's always something different. Kinda nice.
ycombinete 4y ago
My fathers android does the same thing with YouTube music
meibo 4y ago
> Now why apple just defaults to Apple Music, and not "your music player of choice I think this should be obvious, they want you further into the ecosystem. If every morning when you get into your car your iPhone starts playing Apple Music, you're more likely to switch to Apple Music for all of your listening than to get another phone.
CharlesW 4y ago
> …since I'm an Apple Music user, whenever I start the car, it just defaults to whatever's I've been listening to there… […] Now why apple just defaults to Apple Music, and not "your music player of choice a.k.a. Spotify" is questionable… As you noted, it continues playing whatever you were playing in whatever app you were using, with no preference for Apple Music (I'm also a Music subscriber). If you were playing something with Spotify, that's what will continue to play. I do wish it were configurable with contextual defaults. Too often, I start my car and my sleep sounds app continues to play "Airplane Interior".

GoToRO 4y ago

I also had similar problems with iPhone and BT. Before it worked very good with an Android. What I've learned over time is that apple seems ti sabotage anything that is not apple. I had connection problems with my car, with my Sony BT headphones, with portable speaker. Alk that went away as I switched back to android.

vbezhenar 4y ago
I guess you're right. My bluetooth experience is Macbook, iPhone, Apple keyboard, Apple mouse and Apple headphones. Everything works extremely well. The thing that I like most is power indicator integrated with iOS and macOS. Allows me to charge those things before they run out of power. As long as you stay in the garden, things are smooth.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  That's just... the BLE battery level service? AFAICT Windows does the same thing when you connect a BLE device that reports a battery.
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    I have no idea, I've read reviews from some bluetooth mouse and reviewer mentioned that macOS does not display its battery level. I thought that it's proprietary.
rootusrootus 4y ago
It is kinda funny, it was this behavior among others that made me switch from android to an iphone. I got so tired of BT shenanigans. I do feel sympathy for the people still having trouble, but mine has been flawless. I do not, however, drive a Lexus.
- fullstop 4y ago
  My cars are all older, but my Android pairs up with a Kia Sportage almost immediately after starting the car. My wife's iPhone 11 sometimes takes several minutes. She ended up getting an adapter to connect audio to the 3.5mm jack.

ajdude 4y ago

Similar happens in my Mazda. No matter what I do, unless the source was actively changed to something like the radio before I shut my car off, as soon as I turn on the ignition it starts force playing a random song on my iPhone , Usually at a painfully high volume. Apple has bloomed Mazda and Mazda have found Apple. It always tends to be a race between the Bluetooth connection in my ability to turn the volume down before it plays; even when it’s stopped, the moment I take a phone call it starts playing at maximum volume again after ending the call.

themaninthedark 4y ago
Not sure which version of the entertainment system you have but on my 2016 Mazda 3, it will try and play the last song you had playing on your phone. If it can't get the song to play it will then default to the other last audio device i.e. radio, XM, CD. You should have separate volumes for music, navigation and hands-free in the entertainment system. Also, you can mute the sound using the volume knob while the warning text is displayed during key on. My current solution is to make sure my CD player is the other last used device so that if the BT connection fails, I get sweet sweet Baroque music instead of FM blaring.

j3th9n 4y ago

I have an iPhone SE (1st gen) and a 50 dollar bluetooth enabled radio in my car. It works flawlessly every time, I turn on ignition, the radio connects with my phone and I can hit play. When I turn off ignition the current song is paused and the radio disconnects.

2-718-281-828 4y ago

That's an iPhone problem. All our Androids (OnePlus, Google, Samsung, LG) have been connecting perfectly well to my TomTom navigator. Only my iPhone Xs refuses to connect. It's a well documented problem with iPhones and TomTom for many years. Similar story with my AirPods which won't connect to my Thinkpad running Linux - while all other BT headphones (Bose, Sony, Anker) do connect. Also the article seems to primarily refer to Apple products.

corrral 4y ago
My iPhone doesn't have these problems with my nearly-a-decade-old Honda Odyssey's BT stereo system. Neither does my wife's iPhone, nor the couple others we've owned while owning this van. That thing (the stereo / "smart" entertainment system) has got plenty of "how the shit did this pass QC?" quirks, but none relating to its interaction with my phone. It's the car's fault.
- 2-718-281-828 4y ago
  Apple's entire interfacing be those digital or physical are intentionally designed for incompatibility with devices from the not-Apple universe.
  - corrral 4y ago
    I... have not found that to be the case at all (my van's certainly not made by Apple, nor is its stock entertainment system—my BT headphones aren't Apple, my BT keyboards and mice aren't Apple, my monitor and electric piano aren't apple, et c.) but it could be I've just been lucky.
Izkata 4y ago
It's possible it's neither: > but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. Back around 2010/2011, AT&T pushed a U2 album to Android phones in an OTA update as a system install, it couldn't be deleted.

dingleberry420 4y ago

epsteinisntdead 4y ago
Out of that whole post, you landed on homophobia as a reasonable thing to call out?
kortex 4y ago
I don't think it's intended to be homophobic. The album art is just really cringey. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Innocence_(U2_album) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Innocence_(U2_album...
- dingleberry420 4y ago
  Alright, having seen it, fair enough.
- tpush 4y ago
  What's 'cringey' about it?
  - Keyframe 4y ago
    The way it is.

jader201 4y ago

You’ve been able to delete the Music app for a while. If the U2 album is the first thing to play, it sounds like you may not use the Music app anyway. Just delete it and problem solved (though agree with the general rage caused by this promotion).

klyrs 4y ago

My girlfriend's phone automatically resumes in the middle of a podcast. Same spot, same podcast, every time. I had no idea how lucky we are.

Loughla 4y ago
Right? I thought it was annoying that No Such Thing as a Fish kicked on into the exact same spot every time I went for a drive. But that's a million times better than anything by U2 or whatever Songs of Innocence is.

Nathanael_M 4y ago

James Keelaghan will take priority over U2. Ever time I step into my 2014 Hyundai Elantra I am greeted with Canadian folk music. Definitely a step up.

treeman79 4y ago

Would love if CarPlay would just work constantly. On my Ford remote start results in it not working 50% of the time. Regular start fails 10% of the time. Solution is turn car off for 10 minutes or so. I assume some capacitor has to drain fully. This is apparently just a known bug.

nucleardog 4y ago
Not quite as bad, but my Subaru is similar. If I'm in the car with my phone when it turns on it connects immediately almost every time. If I remote start the car and then go out to it it probably connects about 1/5 times. Another 1/5 I can go into the bluetooth settings and manually initiate the connection and it'll work. But a full 60% of the time I have to turn the entire car off and on again for the bluetooth to finally sort its shit out. Thankfully no 10 minute wait necessary.
- olyjohn 4y ago
  My mom's Subaru... has that god awful 15 inch monitor in the middle of the dash. Every time a phone call comes in, the music starts playing WHILE ON THE PHONE CALL. And I thought, wow, this huge-ass monitor will be awesome for Android Auto and CarPlay. NOPE, only like 1/3 of the screen gets used for CarPlay. This little tiny 7 inch section of the screen. Total joke these infotainment systems are. Give me back my goddamn double-din hole in the dashboard!

LetsGetTechnicl 4y ago

I have a Honda and if I plug my iPhone into it's USB port it will auto-play the first song in my Apple Music/iTunes library which for a long time was "A-YO" by Lady Gaga. The opening lyric of "heeerreee we gooo" was amusing and appropriate for a while until it got incredibly annoying once I switched to Spotify. I think the issue lies somewhere between Honda's implementation of the iPod standard and some weird backwards compatibility the iPhone is providing. When in this "iPod-like" mode I lost functionality like queuing songs via the Play Next option. It just disappeared from the long-press menu on songs. Anyways I just bought a Bluetooth adapter from Amazon and plugged that into the aux input. Waaaay better

fullstop 4y ago

You may enjoy this episode of Reply All: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76hel39 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76hel39

duffyjp 4y ago

I thought your anecdote was satire until the very last word. That was a great ride.

FredPret 4y ago

That’s a hilarious writeup. My car starts blasting the FM radio if I don’t plug my iPhone in. I have never and will never willingly listen to FM radio, and yet, Ford has decided that it must be played at full volume an uncertain interval after the car is started. It’s caused me enough anxiety that I’ll be buying a different car next time.

throwaway2037 4y ago

s3p 4y ago
what?

wollsmoth 4y ago

It's definitely a Lexus problem. In a ford I think it just continues playing whatever the last played song was. I also put songs on my iphone instead of using apple music, so I suppose it could be an issue with that service although idk why it would behave way differently from playing local files.

asdf98 4y ago
Only in fords with sync 3 or later. sync 2 is garbage

asdf98 4y ago

My car does this too when I plug my phone into USB, it starts playing the first song alphabetically no matter what. I became so sick of this I just have a long empty track with tildes in the name in my library. I would assume bluetooth would do the same but my car's bluetooth has been off since it came out of the facotory and I will never turn it on. Another obnoxious design is if i want to start a playlist I can't just start playing it - It gives me the playlist sorted alphatically. Once i start playing a track it then sorts them by playlist order. Literally the point of a playlist is the order which you choose your songs to be in. Same solution works, put a short empty file with a tilde, 0 or underscore. So when I pick a playlist I just have to press enter twice and not deal with the alphabetically sorted list. This trick also works when i try to navigate with google maps and my phone is plugged into usb. I wont get the navigation voice if a music track is NOT playing - again I go to my silent track and play it in order to get the navigation voice when my phone plugged into USB

commandlinefan 4y ago

> it shows me a couple of half-naked shaved guys hugging each other Well, since nobody has ever read the spec in its entirety, it's completely possible that those guys are actually part of the specification, somewhere around page 5000 or so.

Der_Einzige 4y ago

This is a weird one. I also have a Lexus, but from the year before they put carplay in. I did an aftermarket carplay upgrade, and I've never had any sort of issue like this with Bluetooth on my wife's iphone before...

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

That sucks. For what it's worth, "old-school" Toyota headunits with Bluetooth seem to work quite well (for Bluetooth). The ones that came with graphics/more complex CPUs seem to have gone downhill. You can try to install an older model OEM headunit in your car to see if that fixes your Bluetooth. Certain models had really decent sound, are cheap when found used online, and should have the same connectors in the back (depending on speaker options). Here's an example of replacing your headunit: https://thetrackahead.com/projects/2003-toyota-4runner/the-ultimate-scion-head-unit-t10015-4th-gen-toyota-4runner/ https://thetrackahead.com/projects/2003-toyota-4runner/the-u... Also, I think Auto-play is a setting in the headunit, in mine anyway. If not, your phone may have a setting for it.

nomy99 4y ago

I'm not sure if comedy was the intent here, but I laughed a lot.

dllthomas 4y ago

I guess you've gotta ask yourself... cui Bono?

denimnerd42 4y ago

this EXACT thing happens on my toyota but it's even more annoying because i'll be using my phone and we stop for gas and then when we turn the car back on U2 starts playing from my wife's phone

nobleach 4y ago

Oh my gosh, I didn't know where this was going with the half-naked shaved guys until you said, "Songs of Innocence"... and immediately it became a shared experience. If I could somehow tell my phone, "NEVER play Apple Music, always defer to Spotify if you have to auto-play anything", I'd do it in a heartbeat.

conductr 4y ago
This is the real issue. Apple Music being a firm default. The U2 thing can be deleted from Apple Music. It exists because it was released that way a decade or so ago. It got pushed into everyone’s playlist as a purchased album, but can be deleted. I have no music at all in Apple Music for this reason. I prefer silence over this. My problem is that I have to turn off BT on my phone for various reasons. Yet, no matter what, when I start my car it turns back on my phones BT setting and reconnects. (Eg. If my wife is playing her phone, then we stop for an errand, and get back in it always goes back to my phone.)
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  You can delete Apple Music from your phone, but that can break BT Audio playback on some devices.
  - conductr 4y ago
    Nice, thanks! I'm going to try that. I feel like I tried once and it used to be undeletable; probably long time ago.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  It's why I have NO music on iTunes. Did you hear that, Apple? I will never give you money for music, ever ever, as long as connecting to a car == play iTunes.
calt 4y ago
You can uninstall Apple Music. At least there's that saving grace.

darthrupert 4y ago

An Apple problem. Their car connectivity follows the idea that configuration is evil and there's only one way to do a thing.

nostromo 4y ago
This isn't correct. Apple Car Play does not play anything automatically on start. It's the Lexus that is telling the device to begin playing music. If you don't use Apple Music, it'll pick the only album you have -- which for many people is the U2 album Apple added to everyone's library for free many years ago.
- darthrupert 4y ago
  I stand corrected but also want to note that I've seen many car models do this.

roody15 4y ago

Apple has done this for years and my take is they are tying to increase usage and relevance of Apple Music. For example I only use Spotify in my car but it will not connect correctly unless I download and have Apple Music installed. Just bad move by apple in my opinion. Just connect by bluetooth and let me use any app want. Super dumb that you have to put a song labeled A in your song library that is just silence to get around this.

thetinguy 4y ago
It’s the car that auto plays the first thing. My old car used to do the same thing. New car no longer does this.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

The first song in my library was a song by Killswitch Engage. A very loud song with lots of screaming. Ultimately I deleted the Music app from my iPhone to solve the auto play problem. I used Spotify for music at the time (now VLC). Deleting the app to solve the problem definitely feels like an extreme solution to a problem which shouldn’t be a problem at all! But I have worse Bluetooth problems. My favorite Bluetooth headphones never want to connect the first few times. Trying to connect in this error state turns them off, for some reason. So I have this horrible dance where I turn them on and attempt to connect. My connecting device spins for a while. The headphones have silently turned off. I turn them back in and repeat. After about four times, they will usually connect. But sometimes I have to delete the connection and re-pair. Sometimes I have to turn off Bluetooth on other nearby devices to get it to work. And sometimes when connected, even near my source, the connection just goes silent. I wish Bluetooth could behave a bit more like FM radio. A source is streaming out audio and my headphones can tune to that secure channel and get the stream. Headphones can tune between channels easily. This would solve my connection woes.

anonair 4y ago
Unfortunately, deleting Music app turns off iPod integration, and now I’m unable to use other media players on my car over USB
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Oh no! Didn’t happen to me in my Honda with my iPhone 7, but I guess every car is different.

0x00000000 4y ago

If you use Apple Music, it has the additional benefit of wasting all of your data and battery every time you turn your car on since it streams your entire library on shuffle. I thought I was clever and could fix this problem by using the iPhone’s “Shortcuts” app “Automation” feature to pause after connecting to the car’s Bluetooth. But for some reason the thing called “automation” requires manual fucking interaction every time. Yes, that’s right you have to click on a prompt to run the “automation” shortcut. Turns out it’s a limitation of the “on connect to Bluetooth” trigger for “security” yet this isn’t explained anywhere. Because if someone stole my phone and car they might be able to... pause the music? Thanks Apple.

jamal-kumar 4y ago

That's so hilarious considering you've probably been putting up with that for years and years while there's a ton of solutions. Here's a fun fact about U2: If Bono himself is in his own car driving around and it comes on he has to change the channel. Doesn't like hearing his own voice (Not macho enough), nor the band name. [1] I also heard the same thing about Phil Collins. [1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/bono-says-he-switches-the-radio-station-when-he-hears-u2-songs https://www.thedailybeast.com/bono-says-he-switches-the-radi...

JohnBooty 4y ago

I generally hate Bluetooth. But, your post is golden. I'm sorry you are dealing with it. I don't know if it's a Lexus problem, or an Apple problem, but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. My best understanding is that this is a Lexus problem, because on the occasions I have connected wireless speakers to my iPhones this has never happened. CarPlay solves some of these problems and is maybe not perfect, but generally a far saner UX experience than what car companies have managed to cook up over the years. I would assume similar things are true for Android Auto. Like, not perfect, but far saner than whatever the heck the UX wizards at Toyota brewed up.

swamp40 4y ago

The iPhone forces Apple Music to self-start if nothing else is using the speaker when you auto-connect with a car Bluetooth system. Kind of like how Windows 10 forces you to use Microsoft Edge as a pdf viewer no matter how many times you switch to Adobe or how many settings you change. Apple doesn't want you to forget about Apple Music. > auto-magically restores itself somehow iCloud. Apple Music needs something to play.

francisofascii 4y ago

This continues to happen in our 2012 Toyota Prius. U2 song “California” from the Sounds of Innocence soundtrack. Don’t remember ever downloading it.

ianceicys 4y ago

Tip: remove the Apple Music app from your iPhone and it won't play anything.

kn0where 4y ago
On my old car, deleting the music app prevented the shitty radio from detecting that my “iPod” (aka iPhone) was even connected, so I had to have the Music app installed even if I wanted to play Spotify.

moralestapia 4y ago

>but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. We can agree on that!

nostromo 4y ago

This is primarily a problem with car manufacturers designing terrible user interfaces. Audi does a reasonably good job. I wouldn’t buy a Toyota or Ford because they tend to be terrible. At this point, if a car doesn’t let me default to Car Play automatically, I’m not buying it. And if every time I turn on the car it lectures me about driving safely, I’m really not buying it.

xyst 4y ago

infotainment systems built by car manufacturers are just absolutely dreadful from an end user perspective. I have had a similar experience in the past (albeit much less of an annoyance) but was fixed 3 years later in a firmware update while randomly visiting the dealership for warranty items. android auto/apple car play are an absolute dream to use on the other hand. If I buy another car, it will be a must have (rather than an aftermarket accessory)

faebi 4y ago

It‘s nearly as good as my story. I‘m walking with airpods past my car. The car detects my keys and turns on bluetooth, iPhone connects and thinks it's better to send audio to my car instead of the airpods in my ears. A long and painful connection loss is the result while I walk away and hope that my airpods reconnect. There is no way to set a presedence or similar. These days it‘s even better, the iPhone also switches to car mode and forces me to disable it first.

flanbiscuit 4y ago

Can you turn BT off and connect via a chord? That's what I do with my car. Sure it's a little annoying to use a chord rather than using BT but at least you wouldn't have it auto-playing when you start the car. I have an Android and when we had the BT on the radio on, it would auto-connect to my phone and start playing whatever the last thing I was listening to on Spotify. If I stopped Spotify, my phone's audio output would still remain connected to the radio, even if my gf was connected with her iPhone and the system had switched to iOS CarPlay (the radio had both Android Auto and iOS CarPlay) We finally figured out we could disable BT via the radio's setting and that solved our problem. We actually prefer connecting via a cable anyways.

pbreit 4y ago

I have never, not once ever, wanted something to autoplay when a bluetooth device connected.

cryptonector 4y ago

Nowadays you can delete (really, hide), the U2 album. If you delete all remaining music in iTunes, then the U2 album gets restored, and you have to re-delete it. Other problems: - the darned thing is eager to connect My wife gets in the car to go somewhere, turns it on, my phone connects, and I lose audio / she steals my audio. - the darned thing connects even if the car's audio is off get in, use a maps app, can't hear anything, ohhh, right! - carplay uses wifi, iphone fails to route properly can't use carplay - anyways, carplay is super sensitive to EM noise be me, be driving w/ navigation on, go through high-traffic, EM noisy area, lose navigation -- distracting! dangerous! Solution: - refuse to connect to the car's wifi - that means no carplay - that means no distractions - delete the U2 album - delete it harder - turn off bluetooth every morning - that means no more stolen audio when someone drives the family cars > but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. I can't imagine not hating U2.

cryptonector 4y ago

> but what I know is that I really fucking hate U2. I bet your comment has hundreds of upvotes already.

calt 4y ago

I ended up uninstalling Apple Music because it would similarly play the same song (I forget what it was) at surprising times. Spotify doesn't give me the same problem.

Robotbeat 4y ago

I had to laugh so hard at this as I’m literally sitting in my Tesla listening to Songs of Innocence that autoplayed on my iPhone without my explicit consent for exactly the reason you mention. I swear I have Stockholm Syndrome because the album that Apple forced my to download is slowly growing on me.

t3e 4y ago

We had the same problem in our 2016 Outback until the head unit died. The only thing we really miss about it is the backup camera; but we can live without that, and apparently the stereo, as a fair price for being free of bluetooth audio hell.

worthless-trash 4y ago
Not sure if it matters, but many aftermarket head units can have the reversing camera connected to restore factory functionality, I believe the average HN reader could do this. Edit: https://motoristcare.com/how-to-connect-backup-camera-to-head-unit/ https://motoristcare.com/how-to-connect-backup-camera-to-hea... Is a pretty good example on how to complete this.
- t3e 4y ago
  Thanks for the tip!

tarunkotia 4y ago

This happens to me every time I enter my car while on a Zoom call; the bluetooth or even the hardwired headset would switch to the car speakers and the call gets unmuted. I need to scramble to mute the call while my daughter is screaming at the back. Can't get it to work.

alexfromapex 4y ago

This is one of those stories you read where you thought it was just you but then realize it’s happening to a bunch of people

rewgs 4y ago

I ended up just uninstalling Apple Music so that music wouldn't autoplay in my Prius. Absolutely ridiculous that that was the only way.

exabrial 4y ago

My android didn’t have this problem. When i switched to iPhone it did. A quick Google search will give you similar results. I believe this is in Apple problem.

rcv 4y ago

I have a 2010 Toyota Prius, and I've intermittently had the exact same problem. Except my song was "Oogum Boogum" - fortunately it was the Alex Chilton version which I still like. My latest struggle is that my phone now plays audio at 50% speed through my cars bluetooth. Spotify, Youtube, etc - it doesn't matter. It seems to play 50% speed super low pitch for about a second and then skip forward in the audio stream about a second. The only thing that remedies this is to reboot my car.

pxmpxm 4y ago

Wow definitely bringing back repressed memories for me - my audi s8 for whatever reason would refuse to stream via a2dp unless I had some music actually on the phone, in which case it would auto play said music after some random delay. So my brilliant solution was a 5 second silent mp3 loaded on my phone - it would keep the bt gods happy and i could switch to a2dp at my leisure. This was perfect, until someone decided to force deploy the same half naked men on my phone.

webinvest 4y ago

Buy or load a $0.99 silent song that starts with the letter A and you won’t have this problem any more.