Apple Music Users - UI Limitations

[DB-Cooper]

Brand new owner, my car is now getting tint, chrome delete and others so can't play around with it. During my limited 1 hour with it today, I struggled to get Bluetooth audio to give me enough controls to imagine using Apple Music regularly. On the contrary, I was quite happy with the audio quality and selection of Slacker as far as radio, so I can probably live with that. However, many questions for those who regularly use Apple Music and/or Bluetooth with an iPhone...

I was able to easily play my last played/current playlist. Album art and moving between songs in the playlist worked. That's about where it ended. Seemingly missing were:

1. No way to put random play mode on
2. No way to navigate through playlists
3. No list mode to quickly find a song in the playlist
4. No search option
5. No ability to switch playlists
6. No ability to switch to Apple Music Radio from Playlist

I realize I can do all of this on the phone, but that's quite distracting and requires FaceID, grabbing the phone from the cubby, etc. I imagine I might be able to Siri some of that stuff, but I find that more stressful than grabbing the phone. My Volvo and Cadillac provide pretty comprehensive access to change playlists, look for songs, etc. through both on-screen UIs and steering wheel controls, I couldn't find anything similar. Am I missing anything, I find it barely usable except to start a playlist before driving and just live with it and maybe skip a song or two.

Any tips for a new user?

Thanks

 

[sreams]

...requires FaceID,

To be fair, FaceID is not required. It is something you chose to enable. I agree with everything else, though.

 

[DB-Cooper]

To be fair, FaceID is not required. It is something you chose to enable. I agree with everything else, though.

Well yes and no. For a variety of security reasons more important than music as well as corporate requirements, I do have to have screenlock on (FaceID is technically easier than entering a pin), but yes your point is right although in practice not reality.

Has anyone gotten good at Hey Siri? Are there any tesla voice commands that help here?

 

[adhoc]

I gave up trying to overcome the items you listed,
I just converted my entire apple library to mp3,
exported the mp3’s to usb drive for convenience!

 

[DB-Cooper]

I gave up trying to overcome the items you listed,
I just converted my entire apple library to mp3,
exported the mp3’s to usb drive for convenience!

Reminds me of days of past. We've got a pretty big Apple Family/Music thing going on, my wife routinely adds new music to it. Our music is too fluid for that. Fortunately, I mostly operate off of a single playlist and I tend to use drive time for radio to provide some variety. Historically that's been SiriusXM, so will use Slacker for now.

 

[Xenoilphobe]

I dumped apple and use Spotify instead.

 

[boaterva]

One ‘answer’ is use a wireless charger or replace the lightning plug with a normal cable (which is what we did). I think the included dock plugs are useless since you want to use your phone in your hand or at eye level (and I’ve not found a good ProClip or other mount for the 3).

People will say this isn’t an answer since you need to pick up the phone but like you, I want to use FaceID also and other onscreen apps, etc.

We need a better mount and/or better phone integration.

(Takes ten seconds to remove the built in cables and plug in a black Monoprice lightning cable, BTW; I use the second one for the dashcam USB. Qi charging takes a little longer to install but not a fan of wireless charging in any case. YMMV)

 

[DB-Cooper]

I agree, the charging makes quick access to the phone a pain. Like you, I’ll use the second port for TeslaCam. Has anyone found a simple single charging pad? The Nomad and Jeta are nice but way too expensive, and do yak ohone charging. There must be a cheap but reasonable enough pad that fits?

 

[Jrzapata]

Brand new owner, my car is now getting tint, chrome delete and others so can't play around with it. During my limited 1 hour with it today, I struggled to get Bluetooth audio to give me enough controls to imagine using Apple Music regularly. On the contrary, I was quite happy with the audio quality and selection of Slacker as far as radio, so I can probably live with that. However, many questions for those who regularly use Apple Music and/or Bluetooth with an iPhone...

I was able to easily play my last played/current playlist. Album art and moving between songs in the playlist worked. That's about where it ended. Seemingly missing were:

1. No way to put random play mode on
2. No way to navigate through playlists
3. No list mode to quickly find a song in the playlist
4. No search option
5. No ability to switch playlists
6. No ability to switch to Apple Music Radio from Playlist

I realize I can do all of this on the phone, but that's quite distracting and requires FaceID, grabbing the phone from the cubby, etc. I imagine I might be able to Siri some of that stuff, but I find that more stressful than grabbing the phone. My Volvo and Cadillac provide pretty comprehensive access to change playlists, look for songs, etc. through both on-screen UIs and steering wheel controls, I couldn't find anything similar. Am I missing anything, I find it barely usable except to start a playlist before driving and just live with it and maybe skip a song or two.

Any tips for a new user?

Thanks

Welcome back to 1999. While driving the future. The infotainment is my only complain of the car

 

[Jrzapata]

I dumped apple and use Spotify instead.

Any of the functionality he asked for available on Spotify in the USA?

 

[Stellavator]

Anyone have experience using pandora from an iPhone over Bluetooth? Does it work? Any controllability from the Tesla screen?

 

[clostridium]

This doesn't eliminate the issue but helps a bit - I've mounted a wireless charger with magnetic mount so that the phone is in the vertical position on the upper left side of the screen. It doesn't block the road view at all and the steering wheel only partially covers the phone. This seems to work. It also allows face ID to work surprisingly well even in the mode where you have to be looking at the phone (which I use for increased security).

This thread was very helpful in sorting this out. I was a bit skeptical at first but I've been really satisfied with how this works:
Review: Magnetic Power 2 XVIDA Qi Charger - The perfect Model 3 mount?

It is annoying that they can't do some sort of meaningful integration with the phone. This is not a new problem. I've found "hello siri" to not be super reliable and it was only a sketchy workaround anyways.

Brand new owner, my car is now getting tint, chrome delete and others so can't play around with it. During my limited 1 hour with it today, I struggled to get Bluetooth audio to give me enough controls to imagine using Apple Music regularly. On the contrary, I was quite happy with the audio quality and selection of Slacker as far as radio, so I can probably live with that. However, many questions for those who regularly use Apple Music and/or Bluetooth with an iPhone...

I was able to easily play my last played/current playlist. Album art and moving between songs in the playlist worked. That's about where it ended. Seemingly missing were:

1. No way to put random play mode on
2. No way to navigate through playlists
3. No list mode to quickly find a song in the playlist
4. No search option
5. No ability to switch playlists
6. No ability to switch to Apple Music Radio from Playlist

I realize I can do all of this on the phone, but that's quite distracting and requires FaceID, grabbing the phone from the cubby, etc. I imagine I might be able to Siri some of that stuff, but I find that more stressful than grabbing the phone. My Volvo and Cadillac provide pretty comprehensive access to change playlists, look for songs, etc. through both on-screen UIs and steering wheel controls, I couldn't find anything similar. Am I missing anything, I find it barely usable except to start a playlist before driving and just live with it and maybe skip a song or two.

Any tips for a new user?

Thanks

 

[Peteski]

Yeah iPhone integration is pretty poor. Luckily in the UK we have the built-in Tesla Spotify which is excellent (no idea if Slacker has the same sort of functionality i.e. able to play any music you could possibly imagine on demand). This makes phone based music totally redundant for me, but I can see your point. Better phone integration would keep everyone happy!

Actually a built-in Apple Music app (in place of or as an alternative to Spotify) would be the icing on the cake for me as I'm not a big phone user and prefer fully integrated standalone solutions. I can't see why in this day and age more options are not available. I'm an Apple user at home, so Apple Music would be better than Spotify for me in the car.

 

[Jeffcm3]

Brand new owner, my car is now getting tint, chrome delete and others so can't play around with it. During my limited 1 hour with it today, I struggled to get Bluetooth audio to give me enough controls to imagine using Apple Music regularly. On the contrary, I was quite happy with the audio quality and selection of Slacker as far as radio, so I can probably live with that. However, many questions for those who regularly use Apple Music and/or Bluetooth with an iPhone...

I was able to easily play my last played/current playlist. Album art and moving between songs in the playlist worked. That's about where it ended. Seemingly missing were:

1. No way to put random play mode on
2. No way to navigate through playlists
3. No list mode to quickly find a song in the playlist
4. No search option
5. No ability to switch playlists
6. No ability to switch to Apple Music Radio from Playlist

I realize I can do all of this on the phone, but that's quite distracting and requires FaceID, grabbing the phone from the cubby, etc. I imagine I might be able to Siri some of that stuff, but I find that more stressful than grabbing the phone. My Volvo and Cadillac provide pretty comprehensive access to change playlists, look for songs, etc. through both on-screen UIs and steering wheel controls, I couldn't find anything similar. Am I missing anything, I find it barely usable except to start a playlist before driving and just live with it and maybe skip a song or two.

Any tips for a new user?

Thanks

Does your Cadi have CarPlay?
Or does it do something like read the playlists, etc, some sort of tighter integration? Over Bluetooth?

If CarPlay, well (as you problyknow) CarPlay is a whole level of integration done right.
My understanding is most automotive head units run the same OS - QNX - which allows Apple to create a common CarPlay app for those devices.

Tesla is completely different. Not even close. So we have limited integration. (But I knew that before buying the Model 3)
Fwiw I’m not expecting CarPlay / android auto anytime in the future from Tesla.

I just use a single playlist , shuffle it once, and the car auto plays when I get in.
Sometimes I switched to Tesla or Tunin streaming.

 

[DB-Cooper]

Does your Cadi have CarPlay?
Or does it do something like read the playlists, etc, some sort of tighter integration? Over Bluetooth?

If CarPlay, well (as you problyknow) CarPlay is a whole level of integration done right.
My understanding is most automotive head units run the same OS - QNX - which allows Apple to create a common CarPlay app for those devices.

Tesla is completely different. Not even close. So we have limited integration. (But I knew that before buying the Model 3)
Fwiw I’m not expecting CarPlay / android auto anytime in the future from Tesla.

I just use a single playlist , shuffle it once, and the car auto plays when I get in.
Sometimes I switched to Tesla or Tunin streaming.

The Caddy has both as does the Cadillac. For purposes of my original email I wasn’t speaking about CarPlay as that obviously isnt supported. Also, CarPlay requires cabling so I don’t use it that often. I do regularly use BT audio and do have full control to browse playlists, change playlists, etc. I have that fully integrated on the main display as well as via the steering wheel controls on the mini-displays by the speedometer. I realize the latter isnt possible with the TM3, but I personally feel being able to control audio entirely through steering wheel controls is ideal. Volume obviously, left/right for next song/previous song, click a wheel to bring up a list of playlists and then use wheel to select from a list. I can basically browse a small menu by clicking and scrolling, Playlists, Artists, etc. on the main screen I can press the shuffle button, it’s far from rocket science.

I guess I do need to look into learning the Siri commands for changing playlists. That’d probably suffice. I really just need that for the kiddo, “hey Siri play baby shark right now before we have a meltdown”. Right now I can do that in about five seconds of clicking through steering wheel buttons. That said, hey Siri doesn’t work well during a tantrum

 

[MMBTUS]

Anyone have experience using pandora from an iPhone over Bluetooth? Does it work? Any controllability from the Tesla screen?

Yes, Pandora streams just fine. Audio quality is excellent to my ears. The UI supports skipping tracks and stopping play, but I found no Tesla UI playlist or “station” controls.

I have not tried the media control on the Tesla app when Pandora’s running but that wouldnt solve the problem with device-based controls.

The good news is that I have no need to fuss with Pandora once launched unless I want to skip a song.

 

[jkcheng122]

I've never actually had a car that allowed playlist, shuffle, repeat controls via BT, so I didn't consider it a shortcoming on the Tesla. Would definitely like to see better integration of phone controls on the touchscreen. As another poster had said, that XVIDA magnetic wireless mount is a great option. It's still too expensive for me to spend $60 on a car charger, so I bought a gooseneck suction mount and manually plug in the cable to charge the phone. I mainly did this to put Waze on the phone so I can see police/traffic alerts.

Until Tesla lets us have more controls of our phone via the touchscreen though, I think a gooseneck mount that puts the phone by the touchscreen is the best solution.

 

[Eno Deb]

I gave up trying to overcome the items you listed,
I just converted my entire apple library to mp3,
exported the mp3’s to usb drive for convenience!

Two problems with this: (1) music coming from the Apple Music subscription (as opposed to purchased music) cannot be easily converted due to DRM, and (2) the Tesla USB player sucks.

This is really becoming an embarassment. Spotify for Teslas in the US would alleviate the pain somewhat (assuming it's not just 64kbit/s crap quality like the current streaming service), but I still hope Tesla will eventually see the light and implement Carplay/Android Auto. It's the only good way to let people use the service of their choice as well as other popular phone apps such as podcasts, audiobooks, messaging etc. As much as Tesla wants to, it will never be able to compete with the large variety of apps available for iOS and Android.

 

[DB-Cooper]

Two problems with this: (1) music coming from the Apple Music subscription (as opposed to purchased music) cannot be easily converted due to DRM, and (2) the Tesla USB player sucks.

This is really becoming an embarassment. Spotify for Teslas in the US would alleviate the pain somewhat (assuming it's not just 64kbit/s crap quality like the current streaming service), but I still hope Tesla will eventually see the light and implement Carplay/Android Auto. It's the only good way to let people use the service of their choice as well as other popular phone apps such as podcasts, audiobooks, messaging etc. As much as Tesla wants to, it will never be able to compete with the large variety of apps available for iOS and Android.

Well there's a few things in regards to CarPlay that might make it difficult for Tesla, and having used CarPlay for over three years, it's got it's shortcoming.

Possible Tesla Issues:
1. CarPlay requires some specific technical capabilities, I'm sure Tesla has the horsepower, but who knows since they didn't design their processing for CarPlay specifically.

2. CarPlay in almost all forms today requires cabling in. Only BMW has CarPlay over BlueTooth, not sure the technical requirements for Wireless CarPlay, but I'm astonished more manufacturers don't have it so I'm thinking there might be a technical requirement, again one that maybe Tesla didn't design in. On the wiring in part that everyone seems to support, that sounds easy and we do know the USB ports are more than just charging ports (the front ones at least) as TeslaCam and USB Audio works, but there may be other technical limitations. The datarate for USB may not be high enough, etc.

3. CarPlay is VERY specific about it's display requirements. While it does support three different aspect ratios, that's it, so Tesla is forced to make it fit into their UI. Given Tesla is required to leave the speedometer at play and there are too many controls required on the right pane, CarPlay would have to be crammed in somewhere and they'd need to re-accommodate their ENTIRE UI. For example, if you want to turn your headlights on, do you just take over the screen? CarPlay in any car doesn't do a great job of spawning back after an in-car app takes over, so it'd be very clunky. Ultimately, I think Tesla would have to give basically a permanent lower 25% of screen to CarPlay and make other things work around it, requiring complete re-tooling.

General CarPlay Issues:
Let me start by saying the concept of CarPlay (and Android Auto) is great, but after three years, I've seen such minimal improvement. In fact, if Waze/Google Map didn't start working literally within the last two months, I'd be blowing it up entirely. Here's other issues:

1. CarPlay doesn't do a great job of interacting with car controls and displays. Once a car function needs the screen, CarPlay never comes back on its own and you need to find the CarPlay icon wherever the manufacturer stashed it in their own UI. VERY clunky.

2. If you grab your phone to look up something, even in an App not supported by CarPlay, it immediately goes to the Apple CarPlayHome Screen. You then have to start Waze or Music backup manually (on phone or on CarPlay display). It's SUPER annoying.

3. There are literally only a dozen third party apps that work, notably music and sports streaming apps. It took 4 years to finally get Google Maps and Waze to work, and they still require majority of functions/features to be controlled from the phone. Although I admit, once enroute with Waze, seeing the accidents/cops/re-routes works fairly well

4. In car's like Tesla (Volvo as well), CarPlay doesn't/won't take over the entire screen, it looks really weird. It doesn't integrate well with the other car stuff, it clashes. That helps to make it obviously a different interface, but it looks weird. Volvo's vertical display really amplifies that. Fortunately for Volvo, they have a very dark UI which somewhat matches the color scheme of CarPlay, but the fonts are woefully different and it just sin't aesthetically pleasing. Tesla is bright and white, the exact opposite of CarPlay, it would look very aesthetically displeasing for sure. For Cadillac, it just gives the whole display the CarPlay which makes it more attractive and intuitive, but you lose all other access to controls. So you can't really win here, and with Tesla relying on that screen for so many basic functions like wipers and lights, I think it would be even more annoying.

5. Trying to figure out how to launch Siri against regular car voice controls is always a mystery and not intuitive at all.

I'm not against Tesla's strategy, I think they've proven they can innovate and take more risks. CarPlay is so limited because they're so concerned about distracted driving, etc. While CarPlay would be a quick fix, I don't think it's trivial due to the UI considerations, and it may very well be not technically capable. I think CarPlay has a long way to go before the dream of cars deferring all infotainment to CarPlay. Seeing how it's progressed over the last three years, they're like 30 years away, Apple couldn't be slower on developing this thing out, so much so I've lost hope. I think Tesla needs to jsut provide more apps, they should just partner with Waze, they should try to partner with Apple on Music, but I doubt that would happen. At minimum just a decent wired and bluetooth iPod control interface would be fine. Volvo, Audi, BMW, Cadillac and others have done a fine job with that in their own respective systems. Most services provide APIs to make integrating in your own platform easy, however, I don't see any easy integration with Waze as that kind of app is way beyond just APIs and they'll want to stick with just iOS and Android.

 

[Eno Deb]

2. CarPlay in almost all forms today requires cabling in. Only BMW has CarPlay over BlueTooth, not sure the technical requirements for Wireless CarPlay, but I'm astonished more manufacturers don't have it so I'm thinking there might be a technical requirement, again one that maybe Tesla didn't design in.

Wireless Carplay uses Wifi (Bluetooth is used to establish the session, but doesn't have the bandwidth for screen mirroring). I have no doubt that Tesla's hardware is easily capable of handling both wired and wireless Carplay.

On the wiring in part that everyone seems to support, that sounds easy and we do know the USB ports are more than just charging ports (the front ones at least) as TeslaCam and USB Audio works, but there may be other technical limitations. The datarate for USB may not be high enough, etc.

USB 2.0 datarate is plenty for Carplay.

3. CarPlay is VERY specific about it's display requirements. While it does support three different aspect ratios, that's it, so Tesla is forced to make it fit into their UI. Given Tesla is required to leave the speedometer at play and there are too many controls required on the right pane, CarPlay would have to be crammed in somewhere and they'd need to re-accommodate their ENTIRE UI.

It could be just another V9 app, or a pull-up window like the current music player. Other automakers run it in a windows as well, no problem.

Let me start by saying the concept of CarPlay (and Android Auto) is great, but after three years, I've seen such minimal improvement. In fact, if Waze/Google Map didn't start working literally within the last two months, I'd be blowing it up entirely.

That's because Apple didn't allow 3rd party navigation apps to support Carplay until recently. At least Tesla's navigation was always a viable alternative.

I'm not against Tesla's strategy, I think they've proven they can innovate and take more risks.

But they are not offering any good alternative for music and many other apps. Maybe sometime in the future there will be enough cars out there running the Tesla platform to make a rich app store economically viable for 3rd party developers. But in the present we keep fumbling around awkwardly with our phones while driving.