Fiscon + iPhone + RCD510 Muting Query

[spenny_b]

Hi folks,

Not sure whether it was Rich or somebody else @ Kufatec this morning re the issue I have with the use of my iPhone 3GS and the RCD510.

Essentially, every system beep, interruption, email alert, sat nav instruction, etc, results in the temporary muting of the radio/media being played. Very annoying.

Have disabled A2DP in the Fiscon menu; not done anything. Incidentally, streaming music/WunderRadio from iphone to rcd510 worked v well.

Kufatec's thoughts were that this is an issue "kindly" introduced by Apple with v3.0 of the phone OS; v2.1 was okay.

My Blackberry 8900 works great, only muting the radio for making/receiving a call. On the BB, you can enable various Bluetooth services like handsfree, streaming, and so on. No such option on the iPhone, it seems.

Have done a search on here and PistonHeads, and not found anything. I can't believe more people haven't come across this if it's as generic as I'm being told?

Reluctant to regress the phones OS back to v2.1 and risk introducing all sorts of other issues.

Any suggestions welcome,

Cheers
S

[AlanH]

Same here with iPhone 3GS, Fiscon and RCD510 - get a momentary muting when receiving a text message, plus the touchscreen keypad doesn't work during a call. I certainly wouldn't recommend Fiscon + iPhone to anyone. For what Fiscon charge, they should be investing a little more money in updating their firmware to keep pace with the rest of the world.

[stu79]

Had mine since August of last year with Fiscon kit, can't stop the bluetooth audio and persistent telephone muting problem which, only started when I upgraded to iphone OS3.

There's a firmware update thing on the fiscon menu, tried to do this once but it seriously messed up my RCD510 as it tries to dial out using the phone which soon after crashed and it got stuck in a perpetual phone call on the display which I then couldn't end/quit for a long time which rendered the 510 useless (it was OK again the next day) I think there's a way of updating the firmware using a laptop with bluetooth but haven't worked it out yet.

iphone OS3 has been out for a while now so would have expected fiscon to address any compatibility issues / bugs by now even though I don't believe it's their product that's at fault; it's unlikely that Apple will do anything about it.........Being able to completely disable the BT audio would be a start.......

[AlanH]

Given that there are tens of thousands of apps and accessories out there that work perfectly well with the iPhone, I can't really see why Fiscon can't get this sorted. Fiscon advertise their product as being compatible with the iPhone - it's up to them to make it work, not Apple. Won't prevent me from buying the new iPhone when it's released soon, but I'll never buy Fiscon again.

[spenny_b]

Okay, thanks guys...time for the [bang-head-against-wall] "smiley".

I've got another car with a Becker Cascade BT/Nav headunit, so will try with that tomorrow. As you say, I also feel it's Fiscons duty to work around whatever Apple release, Apple now being the most popular model of handset on the market by far...."might has right", if you will.

Maybe OS4 will change it again in July - possibly a reason why Fiscon haven't addressed it, i.e., holding-off.

Interesting comment about putting the phone in silent mode - this may well be a tolerable workaround for me, albeit I lose the spoken instructions of the sat nav app...but in fairness, I generally mute it on my standalone TomTom anyway....hmmm

[spenny_b]

Just hooked up the iPhone to my Becker Cascade, which has BT integrated in the headunit.

Works absolutely perfectly. Mutes the radio exactly as you'd expect when a call comes in, returns when call ended.

Numerous folk on another forum are also saying Parott 3100 and 3200 works fine, as well as Dension being ok too (albeit with another issue, unrelated)

Have spoken to Rich @ Fiscon UK again, who is re-raising it with Fiscon HQ in Germany - but it didn't sound hopeful, if I'm honest.

Not happy, especially as it's 3X the cost of an off the shelf HF kit from Halfords/A N Other retailer. 

[p3asa]

That's pretty poor service from Fiscon if they don't bring out a patch for it. Although to be fair it is Apple that broke the thing in the first place.
You'd imagine Fiscon trying everything to get it to work as that could really cripple them with it not being compatible with the iPhone. Its a shame really as when I used the iphone for a bit with the Fiscon it worked seamlessly and really put the VW offering to shame.

[AlanH]

Based on Fiscon's current offering that barely works with an iPhone running OS3.x, the chances of it working with OS 4.0 are negligible. As for Apple breaking it, the onus is on the 3rd party manufacturer to make their product work with the Apple product, not the other way round. Every week I receive several free updates for iPhone apps fixing bugs from developers who want their product to work flawlessly with the iPhone. Shame Fiscon don't have a similar philosophy.

[gossa]

Bloody hell, you lot are fussy. I have Fiscon/3GS and RCD510 and don't have any complaints, love it! Yes when you get a text the phone it beeps on the headunit but really guys, is that a problem for you?

[spenny_b]

Bloody hell, you lot are fussy. I have Fiscon/3GS and RCD510 and don't have any complaints, love it! Yes when you get a text the phone it beeps on the headunit but really guys, is that a problem for you?

Erm, yes, otherwise I wouldn't be posting about it! 

Seriously though, the occasional text message beep alert isn't a prob...*in fact* it's probably better than what happened before with my BB, where if I were driving for a few hours and not hear anything come through, I'd quite often forget to even check once I got wherever I was going...often got into hot water with the Mrs about not responding  ...now, at least I know to check once I park.

What IS really bloody annoying is using a sat nav app. For every road instruction, you get 3 pieces of commentary as you approach it. After each instruction finishes, you then get 3-4 secs of "dead air" before the radio cuts back in. Not too bad with music, but you try listening to the news, a talk programme or (most importantly to me) a traffic report on the radio. You miss most/all of it.

Despite being a bloke, I can actually multi-task and listen to the radio AND a sat nav instruction in parallel. Just! That's what I want to get back to.

(more than anything else, its the principle of it...a £100 Parrot HF unit that apparently uses the same chipset as the Fiscon (!!) works fine, and a Fiscon costing thrice as much doesn't. Coding & testing laziness. Hate that. If you're going to charge a premium, bloody well make sure it performs in a premium fashion. Rant over.