xradman

I'm making a switch from iPhone to the new Samsung Galaxy S4. Does anyone know of any MMI to micro USB adapter that is known to be compatible with both D4 A8 and Samsung Galaxy line? Looking through listings on Amazon, it seems as if many cables are not compatible with one or both.

xradman

Anyone?

jakematic

4F0051510M
Can't say how it would work with AMI.
If the phone can go into "disk drive" mode it could likely play any music on it.

Had an Android before switching back to iPhone and MMI saw the songs via bluetooth, FWIW.

jlawson10

I purchased the MMI micro USB cable from Audi (part number quoted above) to charge and play music from my Nokia 920 (Windows 8).

I have a 2013 A8L with Bose system and the MMI cable charges the phone (good) but is listed as "device not supported" (bad) in Source section under Media so I have to play music from phone via Bluetooth. I'm not sure if this unsupported state is due to Nokia, Windows 8, or? so I continue the search to fix.

jakematic

Sadly am not surprised it says it's unsupported.

The vehicle is a fairly static platform while the world around it is moving at light speed....

wilfred2k5

About the only manufacturers who have parity between iOS, WP8 and Android-based devices are Ford (Ford Sync) and Toyota/Lexus (Entune). Otherwise, the emphasis on iPhone support is an order of magnitude higher.

This may change in the future, but not while the correlation of iPhone ownership to luxury-brand ownership is so high. My suggestion: Tell all your WP8-loving friends to buy Audi's and write letters to Audi HQ. They won't listen to a few thousand requests, but if it gets into the tens of thousands, they'll pay attention. Until then, expect lackluster support by comparison. The number of customers they'll lose to Ford or Lexus because they don't support WP8 well is tiny...very, very tiny.

wilfred2k5

Lexus: http://a230.g.akamai.net/7/230/2320/...ity%20List.pdf

Toyota: http://a230.g.akamai.net/7/230/2320/...emium_HDD2.PDF

Ford:
http://www.nsapp.fordtechservice.dea...N_iop_2_00.pdf

Audi:
http://microsites.audi.com/ngw_asset...ml?ds=json_en#

Audi and BMW seem to only provide explicit support for the iPhone over AMI.

xradman

Since Android is now the most common smart phone OS out there, it would make sense to support that next.

wilfred2k5

I believe that's beside the point. The issue is that nearly all iPhone owners within the appropriate age group are in the market for luxury cars. Android is more common, and will only become more common, but its typical users are unwilling to pay for apps and, though this may be changing, are far less likely to see high-end luxury cars as a worthwhile value proposition.

I would easily accept that the percentage of Nordstrom/Neiman Marcus shoppers who carry iPhones is at least 80%, approaching the low nineties. I would suspect that at least 60% of JC Penney shoppers carry Android phones

From InvestorPlace: "The average U.S. Mercedes-Benz owner has an income of about $175,000, and 28% of them have a four-year college degree. A 2011 Hunch poll of 15,818 users turned up some interesting clues in the Android vs. iPhone demographics. According to its results, an iPhone owner is 67% more likely to have a $200,000-plus annual household income and 37% more likely to have a graduate degree than someone who owns an Android smartphone."

If I were trying to sell an S class, I would do everything I could to suck up to the iPhone ecosystem, which is exactly what Audi, BMW and Mercedes are doing. Yes, there are a lot more Android users, but if they can't afford my product, it doesn't matter to me. Worse, any incremental effort I can put into the iPhone market is far more likely to get me that next sale than spending a much larger amount to get my Android support up to par. This means Android will continue to lag in features until the target audience more closely identifies with Android, even if there are 10x more Android phones.

Further, while the number of iPhone models is extremely small and I only need to work with one company to get a huge number of potential auto purchasers, the number of Android models is very large, with many OS versions, connectors and feature sets, spread amongst a monstrous number of manufacturers. This is called platform fragmentation. I would be afraid to say "works with Android" only to find that my customer's particular model of phone actually doesn't work well and now I'm being sued or forced to buy back a new car for breech of contract.

I say this as a member of the mobile development community, where nearly all Android contract app development is for free/social applications because (a) it's impossible to test your app on every Android model, (b) piracy of paid apps is near instantaneous, (c) very few Android users buy apps and (d) even with other business models, Android users are difficult to make money from since the Android target demographic tends to be poorer bargain hunters.

I develop for iOS, Android, WP8 and Blackberry, amongst others, so I don't have a horse in this race, and I'm not a fanboy. I'm just trying to provide insight. Depending on how Microsoft plays it, you may see a tightly-integrated WP8 AMI implementation sooner than an Android one. Maybe enough S4's will sell and Audi will invest in doing something special for Samsung...

xradman

Thank you for your insight. But I think that demographic is going to change going forward. I've been a loyal iPhone owner from day 1, but it's becoming clearer to me that S4 is a better phone for the money. I think the smart phone market is becoming analogous to PC market, where Android will dominate like Windows and iPhone will cling to diehards like Macs. I am making a jump to Samsung Galaxy S4 as soon as 32GB models become available and abandoning my iPhone. I'm sure I'm not going to be the only upper demographic user that is going to do the same.