[Android Head-Units] DragonFlye:
Issues and recommendations

I'm a long time Android Car Head Unit user (currently using the Newsmy NU-3001 running KitKat 4.4.2) and fairly critical when it comes to Car Front-ends. I've tried just about every front-end available and they all have their pros and cons. CarWebGuru certainly looks very nice and is highly configurable but a do have some issues and recommendations:

Stability - issue

There's one thing a Front-end absolutely has to be: stable for obvious safety reasons. You can't have an app crash or stop on you while driving, itching you to fix it. And in my experience CarWebGuru crashes.......a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean it's CarWebGuru fault. It could also be the android firmware or another app that's running. I just think there needs to be more field testing done before releasing a stable version.

Built in audio player - issue

I've got all my music (albums) organized in folders, properly tagged and have embedded album-art. There are no single tracks in the root folder. Using the music browser I can only select one folder to be played. I cannot (as most music players can) choose the entire music content (all folders) to be played subsequently or, if I choose to, all tracks from within those folder in random order. Luckily the user can choose another default player. I use PowerAmp

PowerAmp as player - issue

As said, all music is properly tagged and has embedded album-art. However, CWG seems to have issues displaying the album-art. Though art is present in every track, CWG often displays nothing. Skipping back and forth sometimes resolves the issue but most of the time an app restart is needed to display the correct album-art.

Using my current front-end (CarDashDroid) in conjunction with PowerAmp, music playback nicely resumes where it left off when resuming from sleep (or when the car is restarted within the grace period). Using CWB, I have to manually start playback again.

Launcher integration - issue

Even if both options (set as launcher and launch at boot) are ticked, the operating system keeps asking at reboot and every once in a while if the user wants CWG as its default launcher. This also happens when resuming from sleep (i.e. car is restarted, NO lock-screen used). It seems if CWG's does not register itself properly as a launcher (or is not allowed to). Perhaps launcher behavior is different on a Car head-unit compared to a normal phone. This might not be such a problem when used on a phone, but in car car this is very annoying and doesn't help with the seamless integration. Again, this could be an issue of the android firmware CWG is running on.

Also, when CWB is set as launcher, it's difficult to do anything once CWB has crashed. There's no way to start the default launcher to restart the program or to start anything else. Most front-ends have the ability to (re)start default launcher

if needed

. In my case the associated apk (launcher3.apk) does not appear in the app-drawer

Interface - recommendations

CWB has a nice interface, but sometimes it can be a bit cluttered. Less is more......

Please have an option to discard the icon titles (CWG-wide). Just displaying an icon should be enough information for the user (like the app-drawer icon). The interface would look a lot 'cleaner'

On the main skin, please have an

option

to fade the music controls and time/date. You have beautifully integrated album art, but the controls and time/date overlay often hide some valuable album-art information. Show the controls for a short period of time, hide them and let them reappear with a touch on the screen or some other event (set by user). I know widgets can be deleted, but fading seems a nice option.

If no player controls are added at all, maybe add gestures like a tap on the album art to play/pause and swipe left/right (on the album art) to go to the previous and next track. When driving (and if no SWC is present), it would also be much saver to tap the relatively large screen area of the album-art instead of clicking on the tiny player controls. Also maybe add voice commands in the future.

An option to rearrange the skins. I've spent a considerable time configuring skins, but when ready, I found out I'd really would like skin number x left from the main screen and skin number y on the right. In order to do so now I had to begin all over.

An option to add, delete or edit multiple widgets at once. When a widget is added, the interface immediately shows the result. When more widgets are needed, especially on a blank form, the user has to start the configuration process all over again. It would be nice to add and place multiple widgets (like play, next, previous etc) first and after confirmation show the end result.

Please forgive me if some of the issues/recommendations are already fixed or are just related to the user. I haven't found a really good "how-to" of all CWG features