Volkswagen has announced that its 2016 line-up of vehicles with Apple’s CarPlay support will be arriving in dealerships this week. The new MIB-II system will be installed in most of VW’s 2016 suite of cars, with entry-level vehicles being exempt from CarPlay enabled systems – yet Bluetooth and USB connectivity will be possible.
The MIB-II system will not only been limited to Apple’s CarPlay, it will also have support for Google’s Android Auto and MirrorLink technologies. VW’s new MIB-II system will bring 5.0 to 8.0-inch high resolution touch-screen displays, faster processing speeds, and most models will contain a capacitive display. The MIB-II will also feature a proximity sensor, which will sense when a hand is nearby and automatically switch its display to allow for easier selection of specific features.
On closer inspection there is a catch though, potential new VW fans. There will be four flavours of MIB-II systems going into the 2016 VW line. These are:
Entry-level – A composition colour touchscreen radio with a 5.0-inch resistive 400 x 240 colour display and a host of standard features including AUX-in, SD card slots, and a USB multimedia interface with Apple iPhone® and iPod® compatibility, reverse camera display, and Bluetooth® technology.
Composition Media – Available on select trims across the Volkswagen line. Incorporating the features from the Composition Colour unit, the Composition Media unit adds an 800×480 capacitive color touch display with proximity sensor, with either a 6.5-inch screen for the Golf family or a 6.3-inch screen for all other Volkswagen models. Other standard features include industry-leading App-Connect smartphone integration, Bluetooth with the ability to send and receive SMS text messages with compatible phones, sync two phones simultaneously, enhanced electric vehicle functions, two SD card slots, and a JPEG viewer, SiriusXM Radio, HD Radio and support for lossless audio file format (Free Lossless Audio Codec FLAC).
Discover Media – Higher trim levels will capture the features available in the previous two units and adds 2.5D Navigation, one-shot voice destination entry, additional electric vehicle functions, predicts possible destinations based on often used routes, and Destination Entry with Quick Search and Auto-complete, and Car-Net Guide & Inform.
Discover Pro – For 2016, the e-Golf SEL Premium model will add an 8.0-inch color capacitive touch display, one-shot Point-Of-Interest (POI) entry, 3D SSD navigation, Jukebox music storage with approximately 10GB of available storage, wireless connectivity, even more electric vehicle functions such as range check and range view in the map, DVD drive, and a simplified route editing features for the navigation which allows the user to drag and drop waypoints directly on the display.
So it will be the last three systems (above) that will feature VW’s App-Connect technology – that will give the ability to enable CarPlay on its new MIB-II system and a capacitive display. One key feature of interest goes to the Discover Pro unit, which mentions the user of ‘wireless connectivity’, so could this be Apple’s Wireless CarPlay, or at least to future proof the unit with the technology needed to enable Wireless CarPlay? Only time will tell…
The new 2016 VW link looks hopeful for potential new purchasers. If you’re looking into picking up a new VW vehicle, be sure it is part of the 2016 line and it has at least one of the last three systems mentioned above to enable support with your smartphone.
