T3’s still roadworthy tech trucker drops off more useful info nuggets
Q CHRIS BROAD, HARLOW
I’m buying an older car, but I rely on Android Auto. What now?
A Ooh, this one’s activated Guru’s spice gland. Not for the older car bit, which we’ll get to, but because of thoughts of newer cars. Specifically, it’s GM announcing it’ll drop support for CarPlay and Android Auto starting in 2024, something which has every chance of starting a trend. History tells us that (for some reason) first-party media and sat-nav controls are always programmed by a drunk lunatic with no concept of interface design; there is no reason to suspect that this will change. At least Apple and Google’s offerings give you the illusion that you’re rolling your own.
Anyway. Upgrading an older car is likely to be a far easier process, lucky for you. Most integrated head units can be ripped out and replaced with newer third-party examples, which will do all the things you want them to do. There are some caveats to this though. Guru really wouldn’t recommend doing it yourself; the sweeping arm motion that GaGu has attempted to affect with his words cleverly leaves out those older cars that cannot be upgraded for whatever reason. And you should absolutely look for a reputable brand, as a £150 AliExpress replacement will be as crap as you imagine.
Grab an Android tablet, install the app Headunit Reloaded, and glue a tablet somewhere on your dashboard
There is another way, if you’re okay with things being a little more rinkydink: grab an Android tablet, install the app Headunit Reloaded, and glue the tablet somewhere on your dashboard. You’ll then be able to connect your phone with a cable or wirelessly, and enjoy all the benefits of Android Auto while keeping everything else stock.
Q R LEWIN, BATH
Why doesn’t my iPhone’s walk tracking make any sense?
A Guru’s esteemed friend ‘R’ – who may or may not be the poor soul responsible for transforming the haphazard smashes of GaGu’s keyboard into actual readable text – writes with a baffling conundrum. His walks into T3 Towers and back home follow the same route, and report similar numbers of steps – but somehow the mileage of the morning walk is always listed as longer than that of the evening, sometimes chopping out about a fifth of the distance.
Without consulting ‘Russell’ L further about his actions, there are a few reasons this might happen. The most likely is that, as Guru understands it, the iPhone Health app’s distance measurement is calculated in a weird way. Rather than constantly using GPS, which would swallow up a whole bunch of battery, the iPhone performs some kind of painstaking calculation to determine your stride length based on your height, weight and whathaveyou. I
