Your Suggestion for iphone friendly HU
 

My Friend wants to upgrade the HU on her 2003 mini cooper. She is fairly tech un-savy but would like to either play music directly from her iphone or upload a bunch of songs to the HU.

Of course I'm concerned for safety so any unit that has the least amount of fiddling with the iphone while driving would be preferable.

So far I have scouted :

Kenwood Excelon KDC-X794

and

Alpnie iDA-X305S


Does anyone have any experience with these or could you suggest a better one?


Many thanks

T

Hey T.
I would suggest the Kenwood Excelon KDC-x696. I recently installed the deck in both my 2012 Sonata, and my wife's 2008 Accent.

Mind you, neither one of us have an iPhone (use Android phones). The unit is Blu-tooth enabled so she can drive hands-free. There's a mic that gets plugged into the back of the unit, and gets routed through the dash so she'll be able to talk to her caller, and hear them through the car's speakers.

Crutchfield: Kenwood Excelon KDC-X696 display and controls demo - YouTube

I really like the deck. Sounds superb. Enough controls and fuctions to make the most of any speaker configuration. Paid $200 CDN from an audio shop in town.

I don't think she'd be disappointed with this unit at all.

Thank you TragicMagic,

This deck looks like a great solution!! Thanks so Much!


T

I think Pioneer is the leader in iPod integration right now (that's not my opinion, that's a statement based on the industry).

I like Kenwood as well but I think they've got Kenwood beat for compatibility ...
You have to find out how it runs the iPod and which method you like better.

I would check the Pioneer website as well as the Kenwood website before you decide.

You need to drag her into a store and have her play with the decks with her iPhone connected to them. Some have simple controls and others make you jump though hoops to perform basic functions. Sometimes what might seem like a simple operational step to you may seem bizarre to her.

If she like to catagorize songs into playlists and play them back that way, definitely get a blutooth deck so you can talk to it - and make sure to try that out in the store too.

Finally, be very clear with whomever you buy from that the deck is to be used on an iphone and if she can't get comfortable with operating it in a week or two, it will be returned for another option.

Thanks so Much Guys!!

She is currently in Japan, so I have advised her to go into Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo to try out some of the decks they have there (good selection). Hopefully she won't just pick the one that looks the coolest ;)


T

Um, wait a minute, isn't that the criteria for picking audio equipment???

Seriously though, I hope she gets what she needs.

I was in the market for a friend who just bought a Ford F150 and lives and dies by Apple products and his iPod. I'm telling you what I found, the end.
Different units have different types of integrations. Some use the iPod, some don't. Some use it for volume control, some don't. Some use it for track selection, some don't.
These are the things you need to check out ... YouTube videos are good too for this.