Wireless Carplay has not yet been able to travel with car makers, BMW (as well as its mini brand) several years ago to support this feature. As we recently covered the wireless -carplay out of its lineup in Porsche, the technology is at least one more significant manufacturer and it is VW’s luxury brand Audi.
The Audi’s latest “MMI Touch Response” Infotainment System replaces the stack controls of almost all the center with one pair of touchscreen that provides the hapattic response when you touch the icon and other user interface elements. I got the opportunity to test a 2019 AD7 at the MMI Touch Response System and how to work together with AR Carplay 1, so read for all the details.
AD MMI is the touch response
The Dual Center Display Setup of the A7 has an 8.8-inch screen that acts as a Traditional Infotainment Display and an 8.6-inch lower screen that supports climate control, some other vehicle functions and customized shortcuts, which is one-to-top access to the favorite info-accessory, and many more.
Premium Plus trim and higher, the above display has been upgraded to 10.1 inch widescreen display, which has decorated my test vehicle. Regardless of the size of the screen, both the top and the below display include the Haptic response system that gives you to know that your touch has been registered.
The Haptic Feedback System is an interesting innovation that will be known to the iPhone users. In the MMI Touch Response System, it means that you need to press a bit stronger on the screen than a simple touch and I would say that the required ball is almost equivalent to 3D Touch press on an iphone.
Eliminating almost all the hardware noobs and buttons from the dashboard of the A7 undoubtedly creates a cleaner appearance and the Haptic reaction helps to duplicate the touchscreen system in some degree, but that means you still need to look at the screen more than you are doing rather than depending on your physical restraint.
It was said that the MMI system has a clean layout that features minimal color except the navigation system. The color used elsewhere in the MMI system is mainly the condition of virtual toggles, a yellow-colored strip for rare highlights, or audio-related functions, green and blue-colored home screen icons for phone-related functions.
It is amazing that it is amazing that the center’s stack is covered with covering, but it is not bad enough to interfere with the operation. It also attracts some fingerprints, so it is a good idea to wipe clean things at once.
Virtual cockpit
As if the center’s two display was not enough, my exam was also equipped with the Audi Virtual Cockpit, a customized 12.3-inch display in front of the driver.
With customization settings you can keep the built -in Audi navigation closer to your line and you can choose a small map window equipped with large digital speedometer and tuometer gauge or let a garious out -of -the -point mapping view to take the entire screen. This is a fascinating outlook to help you guide you on your route, but unfortunately the AR Carplay cannot take advantage of this extra screen real estate.
Carplay
With widescreen setup in higher trims of A7, you will find a widesscreen version of the AR Carplay that shows a 5×2 grid of home screen icons instead of more common 4×2 grid seen on other systems.
Even with the widescreen -carplay, the Audi MMI system retains both the left side of the icons for quick access to domestic functions like radio and navigation, as well as its own narrow status bar at the top, which shows the signal strength, device battery level and wireless charging status. The status bar also provides a small pool-down to allow you to access any notification from the MMI system.
Wireless -carplay is a great feature, because it means you can put your phone in your pocket and still start the carplay as soon as the car starts. It’s great for a short trip where you are not too worried about charging your phone while you drive. Using the carple can burn a bit with the battery, so for a long trip you would like to use a wired connection or wireless charging (which I would talk a little later) to help your phone not keep moving.
Setups for wireless -carplay are extremely easy, using the Bluetooth pair process to get things. Once the pair is established, the phone and the infotinion system communicates via Wi-Fi and I do not feel any lag when interacting with the AR Carplay on the MMI system.
AR Carplay is great on a widescreen display for maps and other navigation applications like Google Maps and Waz, as it gives you a wide view of the area around your route with various information shown on the top of the map. Other applications see less benefits from widescreen treatment, as many already have fairly isolated interfaces that are even seamless even in small display.
Unfortunately, the Haptic Response, which is a key feature of the Native MMI system, does not work with the curlplay, so when you are using that carple, the system will respond to capacitive taps like any other touchscreen.
Charging the wireless
The Center Console of A7 has a shallow storage buggy and a combination of phone storage tray with a wireless charger inside the Audi buggy. The feature is part of the package part of the base premium trim and it comes to the standard on high-level premium plus and the Prestige trim. In contrast to the wireless charger in some other vehicles, one of the A 7 is a common tray that adjusts the size of different phones and hides your device. It only charges a maximum of 5 watts, so don’t expect super fast battery charging from it.
The charger, known as the Audi Phone Box, provides a cellular signal booster to help maintain a strong signal by benefiting an external antenna. This is done seamlessly from the user point of view, so all you have to do is put your phone in the charger in the storage buggy.
The port and connection
Inside the Center Console Storage Bog, if you prefer to use the wired connection for the carplay and charging, you will also find a pair of ports on the USB. Both USB ports are capable of infection.
There is another pair of ports on the USB for the rear passengers on the back of the center console, but these are only charges-ports that cannot be used to supply wired-carp, for example.
Up to wrap
Wireless -carplay has been limited to luxury brands so far and it will be great to see it entering more mainstream vehicles soon than the next time. Apple shows the rumor of its first “full wireless” iPhone without electricity port.
Although I still prefer to plug in a USB port to keep my phone’s battery on a long trip, it is still convenient for short travel to pop up with my phone in my pocket. And if I just want some extra juice, the wireless charger can supply it without the need to deal with cables.
From a broader point of view, I am less fond of Audi’s touchscreen-heavy interface. Yes, it gives a very clear look for dashes and the screen allows for some customize and flexibility that you can’t get from hardware buttons, but I still prefer to manage many functions by feeling and touchscreen makes it difficult.
Nevertheless, Audi’s MMI touch response is a powerful infotaining system, especially upgraded models that include three large screen in total. The AR Carplay is well integrated with the stack screen at the main center, still provides a wide view of the carplay interface by maintaining access to domestic activities. And if you are ready to use the navigation system, the beautiful virtual cockpit provides some great effectiveness.
Not all of them come cheaply, of course, the Base 2019 ADD at 7 Quatro $ 68,000 stickers started at the price of $ 68,000 and the recently launched 2020 model is coming to $ 1000 height with a few additional standard features. My test car naturally came out with a lot of excess, which contains $ 8,300 Prestige Packages, which add phone boxes and more to the larger 10.1-inch original screen, virtual cockpit, premiums bang and aloufson sound, wireless charging and antenna boost.
Toss the driver assistance package, upgraded seats and wheels and a few additional tosses and my examiner came over $ 85,000. This is obviously beyond reaching the buyer of many good cars, but for those who can afford it, it can be a lot of things and hope that innovation is just like some people available in the A 7, the innovation will enter cheap vehicles over time because there is a tendency to do technology.
