USB and Samsung Galaxy S3 -- epic fail

[milleron]

I've been terribly disappointed that the upgrade to Android 4.3 broke Pandora's ability to stream track titles and artists' names to the center screen. Pandora via Bluetooth was working great on Android 4.2.1. Its fidelity is still quite good with 4.3, but we no longer get any metadata transmitted.

Pandora tech support suggested uninstalling and reinstalling Pandora. Of course, that accomplished nothing.

 

Looking for a workaround, I connected my S3 by USB rather than Bluetooth. To my great surprise, I was greeted with an audio message stating [to paraphrase] "SYNC prevents the playing of digital-rights-protected media over USB," and, indeed, Pandora will not stream at all from my Galaxy S III to my FFH via USB.

This was shocking because acdii, a moderator here, has stated that he uses USB exclusively because it provides him better fidelity than Bluetooth.

 

What in the world is going on here???

[acdii]

That isnt a problem with Sync, or protected music, its that dang blasted phone of yours. I had the exact same problem with the S4. When I had smashed my Iphone 4, which worked perfectly with MFT both USB and Bluetooth as far as song displays, I needed a replacement quick, and no one had a 4 or 4S, nor were there any 5S, so I got the S4. I ran into this same issue, could not play Pandora over USB, and the BT sound quality was horrid. I also had no clue how to stream on board music, it kept playing the same song over and over again while there were several hundred on it. I have since returned that monster phone and got a 5S 64Gb, that arrived a few days after I got the SGS4. It cost me way too much for that experiment and should have waited a few days, but I needed a phone for work and thought the Droid version would work, but it didn't

 

there were a few things that worked better on it than on the iphone for our Cisco Apps, and then some that did not. It also felt like I was talking to a thin brick, it was so huge. It didn't fit in my pocket very well either.

 

Besides I never would have used the Dick Tracy wrist watch.

Edited January 22, 2014 by acdii

[neod192]

The issue is with the bluetooth stack on 4.3. It was redesigned and it no longer supports streaming track and artist info. This was corrected in 4.4. That's one of the reason I like Nexus phones - Android updates for the phone as soon as they're released! As far as I know, Android never supported playing music over USB - only iPhones did that.

[acdii]

Sice I usually drain my battery throughout the day, I wind up plugging it in to USB to cahrge, so works perfect for me. Thats why I didn't like the SGS4.

[milleron]

The issue is with the bluetooth stack on 4.3. It was redesigned and it no longer supports streaming track and artist info. This was corrected in 4.4. That's one of the reason I like Nexus phones - Android updates for the phone as soon as they're released! As far as I know, Android never supported playing music over USB - only iPhones did that.

 

Are you sure about that? It was my understanding that 4.3 would actually enable AVRCP and that it made some legitimate APIs available to send metadata over Bluetooth. I therefore expected Android 4.3 to solve the problem, NOT make it worse. I believe that in my case it's Verizon's implementation of 4.3 for the S III that is the culprit. We were the very last S III owners to get the 4.3 upgrade, and it now seems that Verizon's delay occurred because they spent extra time to FUBAR it before they released it. Who knows why?

At any rate, while I've liked the Galaxy in all other aspects, this current mess is a deal breaker for me, and I'll solve it by moving to an iPhone when the 6 comes out. It seems unlikely that Android, Samsung, or Verizon will upgrade this device past 4.3, so I don't believe that there will ever be a solution for us. (Of course, it would be unnecessary if Ford hadn't made the lame-brained decision to disable the Pandora Sync app for MFT users.)

[halfelite]

I can confirm android 4.4 corrected the bluetooth. I have an s4 and it would not display track info on 4.3 i just got the 4.4update on my sprint s4 and now track information is back.

[milleron]

I can confirm android 4.4 corrected the bluetooth. I have an s4 and it would not display track info on 4.3 i just got the 4.4update on my sprint s4 and now track information is back.

 

Thanks for that interesting info. What carrier do you have?

[halfelite]

I have sprint is my carrier

[milleron]

As it turns out, each carrier has to implement the new version of Android for their particular model. Verizon is notoriously the last to get upgrades for any particular phone to their customers -- Verizon's implementation of Jelly Bean for the Galaxy S3 is different from AT&T's version for their S3 which is different from T-mobile's and Sprint's. Because Android 4.3 is supposed to come with the functionality to deliver metadata via Bluetooth, I blame Verizon for screwing it up. For example, with Android 4.2, before the upgrade, I actually did get track titles and artist name when Pandora released version 5 of their software. Pandora was able to surmount the deficiencies of Android 4.2. With the 4.3 upgrade, I thought I'd start to get metadata from all the streaming services, not just Pandora; however, Verizon managed to screw up 4.3 so badly that even Pandora 5.0 couldn't transmit metadata any longer. Although you're speaking of a different version (Kit Kat), you should be thankful that Sprint didn't screw it up en route to your phone.

I'm out of hope from Android because I don't believe that either Samsung or Verizon will upgrade the S III any further. Perhaps Pandora's next upgrade will restore Bluetooth metadata for their service, at least. I'm not holding my breath, though. I'm switching to an iPhone when Apple releases their new model.

[MaineFusion]

Having had a unlocked (and now rooted) European version of the Galaxy S2 for over two years now I've come to the conclusion. I'll never buy/get a carrier branded phone again. I'll pay a premium to buy an unlocked phone without any carrier neutering. This helps avoid the way carriers like to break their version of smartphones.

 

As far as playing music goes, I have a large music collection that I just loaded to an SD card and plugged into my FFH's SD card slot (I don't have navigation).