[Connected Car] cstamas:
Hi izsilva,

similar situation here: new Citroen C5 Tourer with SMEG+IV2 (and updated with your R20 firmware, thanks! :) ), and multiple phones: Z5 Compact, Z1 Compact, Z and SGS7 Edge.

Am in similar situation, trying and experimenting with MirrorLink. The technology itself I'd not call "crap", it relies on well proven things, like VNC (yeah, that VNC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing) and other things, so essentially is well grounded. The problem with it, is that despite it calls itself "open", the technology is actually very "closed", is hard to get any stuff working with it in other way than initially designed. But, the reasons for that is, well, law and regulations. MirrorLink must obey US, EU and Japan (three biggest "areas" with different regulations, AFAIK, US is most "relaxed" and Japan is most restrictive, and rest of the world is around EU of strictness: ie. you cannot phone during driving without speakerphone, no driver distractions, etc). Hence, MirrorLink has a very tough criteria to make an android application "MirrorLink certified", it is literally being tested for no distractions (among other things), and then and only then is let to be used. But, we are talking about a lengthy process here, and as we know, time in software development is key, not to mention (and am not aware, maybe it's free) is there any other "fee" to have an app certified. If there is, it is definitely not Open Source friendly either. Me as a person, open source developer am actually shot immediately down.

There are "hacks", like the trick with Samsung MirrorLink server, where Samsung (or whoever implemented their MirrorLink Server) left a "backdoor", a SQLite preferences with "whitelisted" packages + root, see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNzXjX4mSog). Unfortunately (or not, who knows), Sony MirrorLink server app is based on RealVNC MirrorLink Server (I guess Sony bought it and incorporated it or just outsourced the work to RealVNC, whatever), all in all, the "prefs" trick does not work on Sony MirrorLink phones.

To better understand the problem, let me explain how MirrorLink actually works: you have 3 components: the client (runs on SMEG+IV2), the server (runs on phone, it seems it must be an Android System Application AFAIK, unsure, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35456209/implement-mirrorlink-on-custom-rom-android ) and the application (runs on phone). The server uses digital signatures to verify is application MirrorLink certified or not (as part of certification you get a digital signature too I believe). So, there is not much to do here, it is not like "flipping a bit": modding a digitally signed app/payload/something in a way that other (unmodified) component does not detect it's changed (and refuse it as invalid), without having the private key is near to impossible.

Still, there are other possibilities: "development mode" of MirrorLink allows to run "development" software, but, it is instead of a certificate, tied to given IMEI number of the phone it runs on. Am still experimenting with it, not there, but again, this means a) someone needs to code something that suits your need b) you need to have MirrorLink developer account c) the app must run on phone having IMEI you registered with your account. Again, not a "simple case".

Stay in touch, will ping here if anything new crops up.

PS: Any new firmwares lately?

~t~