You have to make copious use of Siri to use these apps, since touch-functionality is limited for safety. There is no keyboard input, everything is done through voice. You can have Siri compose messages, or read out unread messages from your iPhone (it only “reads” out, and no text is displayed, again for safety – to avoid your visual focus shifting from driving.)

After pairing, proceed to connect the iPhone to the lightning connection on the Digital AV Adapter. Connect the phone using a CD-MU200 Mirrorlink cable, connected to USB port 2 (bottom) on the rear of the unit. Pioneer’s AppRadio® 4 revolutionizes the driver’s experience by bringing compatible phone apps to the dash for the ultimate in-vehicle smartphone experience. With AppRadio, you can access your phone's Calendar, Maps, Photos and other compatible apps directly on the Pioneer touchscreen right in your dashboard. Whether you connect your phone via a USB connector or not, this head unit does have some basic Bluetooth support for actions like hands-free calling, wireless song search and audio streaming, and audio control. This is built-in to ensure driver safety in accordance with local driving laws. Works with your iPod Without a CD/DVD drive, you’re limited to radio and media over USB or HDMI, but by simply connecting your smartphone to the AppRadio 4, it will bring new life into the headunit, with the possibility of feeding it a variety of your own content, not only through Apple’s CarPlay platform or MirrorLInk, but with your device connected, applications such as Apple Music, Spotify or Pandora can be played through the receivers own audio player. This is great if you find CarPlay’s crashing a real burden from time to time, and it’s a nice way to have something a bit more stable to use until Apple iron out all the niggles that its CarPlay platform can bring! Wireless Bluetooth AudioBut the only problem is – even though most car manufacturers are all licensing CarPlay in their latest models, many older models do not have CarPlay support.

Pioneer provides high quality computer accessories. Products from SATA and USB Blu-ray and DVD burners, to on-ear or earbud headphones and USB powered computer speakers. So yes, even though we have been ranting about the system’s CarPlay support, it doesn’t take away from the fact that it also has Android support.Connect compatible mirrorlink device into USB port 2 (bottom port) on the rear of the SPH-DA120 with CD-MU200 cable A: Make sure you are using a mirrorlink compatible device such as the Sony Xperia Z or Galaxy S3 (requires drivelink app installed from samsung apps). CarPlay on the Pioneer AppRadio 4 is as it is on most enabled receivers. The capacitive screen helps with scrolling and interaction with the CarPlay interface is fairly responsive and on par with the Alpine, and like the Alpine, changing the location of the CarPlay side bar is done via the settings menu. One major criticism I have, is when connecting the iPhone you always get a disclaimer screen that you have to interact with to start using CarPlay. You don’t get this with the Alpine and it is unknown why Pioneer has to put you through this jarring process, every time you fire up Apple’s in-car platform. If you simply want to connect your Android phone to listen to music, you can do that without an app too. A push notification will appear on the iPhone asking to launch AppRadio. Select 'Yes' and AppRadio will now launch.