[Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Olywa123:
DriveLink App Experiences

Good point about rain protection. Re having the phone in the recess by the cigarette lighter, you could consider a spiderpodium (just google for images) I had one of them down there for my phone previously moulded into a desk stand style - worked ok.

Back on topic re the Samsung drivelink app (as it may help you and others), thought I'd describe my experiences with it (and reiterate what others have already said) in conjunction with the Sony XAV-601BT headunit:

- The phone display does stay on all the time with drivelink running despite having it mirrored on the headunit which just seems silly (two displays showing the same thing!).

- Phone calls when connected via usb to the headunit are not routed via the car speakers (nor is the handsfree mic used), so even if you call/answer calls via the head unit when running drivelink and connected via usb you are still only using the phone speaker/mic for the call).

-I tried going into ‘Settings—>Accessory—>Audio output’ menu on the phone and checking the box so audio is sent to ‘docked speakers’ thinking this might fix the above but with this checked the headunit will no longer see the phone and keeps telling you to reconnect.

- Bluetooth connection works fine (once paired it connects automatically as expected) and this routes your calls through car speaker/mic perfectly but you cannot have a bluetooth connection to the unit and use mirrorlink features in parallel just one or the other.

- Navigation is limited to one standard app (although the option is there to add more but not working yet so this may mean they are planning on adding them).

- Using drivelink to play music to the stereo works ok but seems a bit pointless (at least to me) since I will be using the features of the headunit itself to store/play music.

- Going into the shortcuts menu on drivelink, you should be able to add contacts/addresses for quick use but this feature does not work and you cannot add anything.

- In the phone menu you can access your message and have drivelink read them to you, works well but god knows how the messages there are sorted since they are all over the place and not ordered as received.

- I have a few times experienced the phone not going to sleep (screen stays on constantly) even when the drivelink app is not running (this is something that never happened before I installed drivelink and I have installed nothing else that could be causing this).

- I’ve not had the problems that some have reported where the location/weather services are not picked up – I would guess this would be down to people using the app in a country it’s not officially released for yet but could be wrong.

- You cannot use the mirrorlink connection without the drivelink app running which in turn means you are limited as to what you can display on your headunit (Music/Nav/Calls from the drivelink menu) so don’t expect to just be able to ‘mirror’ your phones home screen or fav app to the headunits screen (most will know this anyway but worth stating).

My main gripe with the drivelink app is that the above (points 2 and 4) mean that if you are using navigation displayed on your headunit through drivelink you can still use the headunits touchscreen to make/receive a call but it will be going through your phone only not the car speakers, if you are connected by Bluetooth and making calls through the car speakers/mic, you cannot be using navigation. A bit pants really – this is the main thing I hope Samsung fix in the software (either to route the audio/mic through the usb connection or allow Bluetooth and mirrorlink in parallel).

I’m sure I’ve missed some things but these are the main points, hope it helps some who are just getting into this. Come on Sammy – don’t let us down :)

Would be interested to hear if anybody's experience differs (particularly with regards to point 2-4), or from anyone using the Alpine mirrorlink headunits to see how they are finding it.

Olywa