@greynolds Not doubting you, but I'm curious why you think NP is another Android interface? I would like to check it out for myself so I don't spread misinformation
Thanks!
A few things...
1. That person who has/had the early unit that clearly was Android based. He was able to install apps from the Google Play Store. Zero question that one was running Android. I'd be surprised if Naviplus went from that solution to something that wasn't Android based.
2. If you look at the hardware, it looks pretty much 100% identical to the EC Offroad unit - it literally looks like it came off the same assembly line. Even if the hardware is 100% identical, that doesn't guarantee it's running Android, but it seems very likely.
3. It would probably be rather expensive (or likely impossible) for a relatively small business to develop a truly "certified" CarPlay / AA solution and it's also likely that Apple, especially, wouldn't really be interested in or willing to work with such an endeavor. Unlike the car manufacturers who can recover these costs by literally selling hundreds of thousands or millions of cars (even though the Land Cruiser sells in relatively small numbers, Toyota would be able to split the cost across all sales), a company like Naviplus most likely doesn't sell enough volume to recover those development costs.
4. It just kind of makes sense that when someone has already gone to the effort to build CarPlay / AA apps, it would be silly to reinvent the wheel on a product like this.
So I could certainly be wrong, but if I were a gambler, I'd be willing to bet a good sized pile of money on the Naviplus unit being Android based and locked down to pretty much just run the CarPlay / AA app (essentially ZLink or something comparable).
Story time... I was a beta tester for a DVD / Bluray player manufacturer for 5-6 years (Oppo Digital for those who may be in to such things). They wanted to include apps with their product because customers pretty much demand that these days. So on the first few generations of their Bluray players, they had Netflix and a few other apps. This was great at first, but they found it extremely difficult to get updates for those apps because they didn't sell enough volume for Netflix / Amazon, and others to pay attention to them and provide them with updated apps. And since they didn't have a way to run something standard, like native Roku apps, they needed special versions for their platforms. Customers started complaining that the apps didn't have all the whiz bang new features that were showing up on things like AppleTV and Roku. On their last generation of players, they opted to drop apps completely. While I think that was the right move, due to lack of support, it didn't do anything to boost sales of their products. Oppo Digital isn't exactly a small company - they're a division of the same Oppo that's a huge cell phone manufacturer. Oppo Digital is no longer making new products - they remain open only for repairs and customer support at this point and will most likely shut down completely shortly after the warranty runs out on the last product they sold.
So I'm applying some of that same logic here - I just don't think Naviplus would have the ability to get the attention they would need from Apple to develop a truly native / certified / sanctioned CarPlay solution.
