stop changing back to radio when I disconnect my phone.

[James Sentman]

It must be obvious how much I love the rest of the car if I’m posting about such minor annoyances as this ;) So you’re listening to an audiobook on your phone and you stop the car and turn off the engine. You unplug your phone and go to get out of the car only to have the radio realize that you unplugged that source and switch to the previous source you used, for example the FM radio starts playing. Then when you get back in the car you plug in the phone and yet the radio is still playing the radio and not the phone. If you do remember to turn the radio off before you disconnect the phone, which seems the only way to make the USB selection stick, then you have to plug the phone in and wait until the radio says “usb detected” before you turn it on, otherwise it will also switch to playing you the radio or something else. So the sequence of events gets rather complicated. turn off car, turn off radio, disconnect phone. Turn on car, connect phone, wait for usb detected message, power on radio.

 

Why can’t it stay on USB audio and just wait for me to plug another one in? Switching to radio when I disconnect my phone is actually the one option for what to do that I would never want.

 

I see the setting for media player autoplay, and I’ve got this turned off. But I’m going to try turning it on and then perhaps it will at least return to USB when I plug the phone in. But really this is a UI decision that I think is flawed. my unplugging the phone is not an indication that I wanted to listen to something else, it should wait for me to either select radio or re-plug in a USB device.

 

 

[hybridbear]

Interesting idea. I'm not sure that I would have the same feelings as you do though. I would think that if you unplug your USB device without turning the audio system off first then that means that you want to listen to something else, otherwise you would have turned off the audio system first. Also, it doesn't allow you to select USB if nothing is plugged in so it is designed to not allow you to play nothing through the speakers with the audio system turned on.

[Terps]

Can you use bluetooth to connect the phone? I know it will stay selected and most Android programs and music players will stop when disconnect and resume upon entering the car again. Not sure about iPhone though but I would guess the behavior is similar.

[Easy Rider]

Interesting idea. I'm not sure that I would have the same feelings as you do though.

I'm sure that I don't have the same feeling as he does......and would not want the system to stay "ON" a source that wasn't plugged in anymore.

 

I wonder what happens if you manually select the USB source first, when there is nothing plugged in yet ?

Does it flop back to something else after a few seconds or stay there ??

 

You may have to alter your habit just a bit.

How about:

Turn car off.

Open door so that things really go OFF.

THEN unplug your phone.

 

If this is really important to you, you might have to alter your default habits just a little bit.

[hybridbear]

I'm sure that I don't have the same feeling as he does......and would not want the system to stay "ON" a source that wasn't plugged in anymore.

 

I wonder what happens if you manually select the USB source first, when there is nothing plugged in yet ?

Does it flop back to something else after a few seconds or stay there ??

 

You may have to alter your habit just a bit.

How about:

Turn car off.

Open door so that things really go OFF.

THEN unplug your phone.

 

If this is really important to you, you might have to alter your default habits just a little bit.

I believe you cannot select USB if nothing is plugged in. The option will disappear from the steering wheel control options and is grayed out on the MFT screen.

[corncobs]

Can you use bluetooth to connect the phone? I know it will stay selected and most Android programs and music players will stop when disconnect and resume upon entering the car again. Not sure about iPhone though but I would guess the behavior is similar.

iPhone works pretty well with BT but for some the sound quality isn't as good as USB.

[acdii]

My pet peeve too. Just turn OFF when the USB is unplugged. I got into the habit of turning the radio off when I shut the car off, but sometimes press the Auto button for climate instead.

[LASooner]

Bluetooth doesn't have this problem, your audio is available as soon as you connect and usually picks up right where you left off. Save for the occaision where Pandora suddenly decides to fire up when you were listening to audible. But it never goes back to the radio.

[James Sentman]

I really can’t imagine a scenario where unplugging my phone should startup the previously selected input. And certainly not one that would be more important than all the reasons not to. The behavior should be if you unplug the USB then it should sit on that input and do nothing until another USB device is plugged in or until you purposefully change the input.

 

If you’re just thinking like a developer, then it makes perfect sense ;) Why, there is no USB device anymore, the radio is still on therefore we shall just play from the next available input. But thats totally wrong from a UI standpoint, it’s internal computer logic thinking, not usable human interface thinking.

[Easy Rider]

Well I'm sorry but I think it is YOU who is totally off base here.

 

What you are complaining about is pretty much the industry standard now.......for a LOT of things.

If I am watching a DVD on my TV and turn the DVD player off, it reverts to HDMI 1 and plays the last selected TV channel from the cable box.

Pretty much the same thing........and I think that pretty much ALL of the cars and brands of audio heads are going to work that way too.

 

I believe that much of the reason is that having the head unit ON and the volume turned up but nothing coming out of it could be confusing to a LOT more people.

 

Anyhow, you are fighting a losing battle. Maybe you should design your own system......then it can work the way YOU want it to. :)

[acdii]

None of my TV's revert to HDMI1 if the source goes offline. Of the 4 flat screens we have, not one does that. I would prefer if it went to the other USB device instead of the radio. Where I live there are very few radio stations, and none that I would listen to since I dont speak spanish, so its all static. I just made it a habit to turn it off when I turn off the ignition.

[corncobs]

I agree with James the previously used input should be kept even if no USB can be found. I also can't think of any device in my house that defaults to the basic / first input if the previously used input is longer enabled. For the TV there is just no picture if the receiver or DVD isn't on.

 

I'm just glad my SD card works perfectly for my music needs ;)

Edited May 12, 2014 by corncobs

[hybridbear]

Where I live there are very few radio stations, and none that I would listen to since I dont speak spanish, so its all static.

I speak Spanish & I wish we had more Spanish radio stations around the Twin Cities. Most of them have weak signals and lots of static so they're hard to listen to. Thus I'm stuck listening to English radio and thus end up almost always listening to Sirius.

 

Now back to topic! ;)

Edited May 12, 2014 by hybridbear

[SteveB_TX]

The aftermarket Pioneer head unit in my Sport Trac auto switches to the USB input when I plug in my iPod, and auto switches back to the previous source when I unplug the iPod... either before or after turning off the truck. That is the purpose of Plug and Play! If there is no device connected to the USB port, why would the system want to waste time on an non-existent source? My PC does the same thing... I plug in my USB headphones, the computer switches off the desktop speakers and switches on the USB headphones. I unplug the USB headphones, and the computer switches back to the default desktop speakers. If the computer didn't switch back to the desktop speakers, and just kept waiting for me to decide to plug something else into the USB port, I wouldn't be able to hear the cute dog and cat videos on YouTube! ;) Just remember to unplug your phone AFTER you turn off the car, and plug it in BEFORE you start the car. That way the system will "remember" the source. :)

[taullinis]

as mentioned with Bluetooth you don't have this problem until you get out of the car with the phone in your pocket to pick up the paper that was thrown halfway across the yard and your phone gets out of range. Wish it would go back when the phone reconnects in this situation as well...

 

With regards to my TV the only time this happens is when i turn off the PS3/Xbox and have the other system on because they are both hooked up to a "Smart" HDMI switch which will revert active inputs this system will switch to what ever "new" input becomes active

[LASooner]

I can see both sides of the argument, the answer is that it's just programming, and there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to choose this behavior or at the very least define what the default input is. Because I live in an area with lots of hills, and when it switches to radio it scares the crap out of me, because it's usually static and usually loud.

[James Sentman]

The way to think about it is not as a USB source that comes and goes like a USB drive on your computer. This may be what it actually is to the MFT system, but this is not a useful way of thinking for the user, just the computer. Think of it instead like an AUX input cable. If I disconnect a player from an AUX input cable the radio doesn’t know that the device is disconnected and it is just not getting any signal from it. The radio stays quiet until I plug the cable back in. The USB cable is nothing but a fancy AUX input and they have made it too fancy. It should preserve my input selection unless I actually change it.

 

If I had just paused the playback with a button on the phone you wouldn’t expect it to switch to another input, you’d expect it to wait till you pressed play again. That is all unplugging it in the car is.

Edited May 14, 2014 by James Sentman

[acdii]

That is way too much logic for a Microsoft device! :)

[tr7driver]

The USB is a 2 way communication device by design, while anything plugged into the Aux input is one way only. When the computer can no longer talk to the usb device It considers it non-existent, closes the driver and goes on with computing.

[James Sentman]

yes, thats correct. But thats the computer forcing it’s internal design upon the users and that is almost always wrong from a user interface standpoint. There is no reason that it HAS to change inputs and can’t just sit quietly. I know that the computer in there can’t really keep playing from the USB when there is no usb, but there is exactly zero reasons that the programmers couldn’t make it sit happily there waiting for a new USB connection to be made. We’re too used to adapting our thinking to the underlying computer. Proper UI design means giving me a useful overlay on top of the vagaries and vulgarities of low level computer function ;) They made the wrong choice here.

[tr7driver]

But, if it stayed on the USB, people would be complaining about having to switch it back to radio once they unplugged their USB device.

[James Sentman]

they can start their own competing pet peeve thread then ;)