^ agree with this and with George's points. CarPlay should be an option not a replacement.

Going back to the OT: I tried Aha on my RLX and experienced the following:

1. Sound quality was LESS than Pandora. Sounded like it rounded off at around 25-33Khz. Yes, I'm also an audio engineer (producing music for over 20+ years)

2. Very expansive list of stations. Will explore this some more, but looks good.

3. Like Pandora, there is obviously an element of the additional cost impact these types of streaming services create on your mobile phone data usage plans. Unless you have an unlimited usage plan, or flat out can afford to just consume with no care for the additional costs, then having your own library of music on a USB/bluetooth connected device is still going to be a mainstay for many drivers. This is where things like CarPlay become an important evolutionary step to continue providing various integration options based on what different customers can afford.

 

Agreed

 

It turns out that yes, there is, at least on iOS 8.x.

I looked at the Bluetooth configuration for the HandsFreeLink, and turned on "Show Notifications". It was disabled by default.

All the other options associated with syncing contacts were enabled by default.

 

Dammit. I forgot about that. How stupid of me. Maybe I can get the texts now.

Thanks so much for reminding us. Somebody told me to do that with an older phone and an older car, and I forgot about it.

 

Just a note of thanks for reminding us about this.

The car now reads iMessages just like it should.

 

I asume no one has figured out how to get the car to send text message responses? It seems that iOS does not support that yet.

 

Nope, I haven't.

I just use Hey SIRI!

 

Thanks. I verified this and am now receiving texts from my iPhone on the info screen. That is a nice feature! Just for completion, anyone know the procedure for Android phones? I don't have one but others might be appreciative.

 

I've been playing around with Aha here and there as I have time, and I'm impressed with all of the choices that are available, and impressed that it sounds so much better than Pandora.

However, there continue to be some glitches, as mentioned in the thread already.

I'm posting again because I'm wondering if anybody else has noticed something, or has a definitive answer to what I think I am seeing with an Aha glitchiness.

Sometimes Aha seems to lose connections. It must cache less than Pandora does, or perhaps Aha is more sensitive. But let me suggest something that I believe I'm noticing: I believe that Aha has trouble with "xfinitywifi" when it runs across this system even though I stay logged into xfinitywifi all of the time.

In parts of the world with relatively high speed Internet (125 Mbps), Xfinity will by default open up an extra radio if you have one of the Technicolor routers. So you might have your own house broadcasting its WiFi signal(s), but there's a signal you're sending out that is called "xfinitywifi" and anybody who has a Comcast account just automatically camps onto your signal as he's walking by or driving by.

It looks to me like what is happening to Aha is that if I'm driving in an area saturated with these xfinitywifi signals, the iPhone is having trouble switching from one xfinitywifi signal to another one, and/or moving from LTE to xfinitywifi and back again.

If I remember to turn off WiFi when I get in the car, the phenomenon is reduced and Aha works better.

But this is all anecdotal and personal, so I'm wondering if by any chance anybody else has noticed that.

Aha has a lot of potential, maybe more than Pandora One, but we clearly need for it to be working all of the time. It seems to me this is a valuable added content feature of AcuraLink, when it's working right.

Once you've configured your favorite stations so that they show up on the bottom screen, you might perceive that it is easier to change stations with Aha by using the bottom screen. :-)

I dunno....I think when you have your personal favorites saved on your iPhone and they show up on the bottom screen, you're going to like that better.

Unfortunately, it's up to Aha and Pandora to tell AcuraLink how they want to interface. We could lobby ACR, I guess.

To your point of using the top screen to do this or that, it's especially easy if you've configured your system to read back the highlighted menu item.

There are little problems with that, of course, like the car saying "Hang Up!" every time you answer a phone call and the person on the other end can hear it.

:-)