mshumack

My iPhone 4S stopped communicating through the NAV system last week. I could still call out using voice commands but I could not be heard or hear the other person.

Went to Dealership yesterday thinking something in the car broke and after an hour of testing was told that the phone was too old. Apparently Apple updates the phone's OS from time to time, and this time it broke the Lexus NAV system to phone link.

So I went out and upgraded the 4S to a 6. Now it works again, so Lexus Tech was right, it was an Apple OS upgrade that must have happened a week ago.

I didn't really want to spend $450 on an upgrade for a phone that worked fine last week - but it needs to work inside the car. (And the 4s would not work inside the car on its own - you would have to stop the car and get out to make or answer a call).

So if anyone else has an older model iPhone, be aware.

BTW - I wonder if Lexus will now remove the 4s from its "compatibility" list.

kitlz

mshumack, you can check compatibility here. Just plug in some information and it'll give you a list. I don't have a 4S to confirm any issues with the upgrade. Maybe other owners can chime in.

BertL

Sorry to hear you had to upgrade your phone (would be useful to others if you would post what the iOS release was that broke Lexus communication with your 4s), but since the 4s came out in October 2011, that's a pretty good lifespan for a smartphone under your care -- compared to many others.

IMHO, Lexus does not go back and change "what's supported" in their documentation. It's a moving target for both companies like Apple (or any of the Droid makers for that matter) as well as those using those products to maintain compatibility with the complexity that can occur as tweaks are made over time on both sides of the equation. Testing is likely done at the time a vehicle is first created and when major subsystems are revamped, but not over-and-over as subtle iterations and combinations are created.

e.g. an iPod Classic is clearly listed as being supported in the 2013 RX User's Guide. Mine has sporadic problems as reported elsewhere in this forum. I was even able to recreate the failure with a Lexus Technology Specialist in the RX with me, but in the end all I got was essentially a shrug as the problem didn't show up in the national database he had access to ...and last year Apple withdrew the Classic from Marketing, and does not manufacture it any more, so, well, such is life I suppose with my hoping my Classic will ever work in my Lexus, even though the same cable and device has always worked flawlessly in my MBZ. Frustrates me, but I just moved on.

Enjoy that iPhone 6!

lili43

Did you try synching the 4S again? Meaning... remove the car from your 4S bluetooth and re-add it? I'm shocked that it would just stop working. My guess is that it had nothing to do with iOS but your phone was simply having hardware issues. In phone technology world, the 4S is a pretty old phone. (Its a whole 2 generations behind.) Come this fall, Apple will no longer provide updates for it when the 6S is released.

TechNut

I agree, the 4S is an ancient phone so you definitely got your money's worth. Sadly, Apple keeps screwing with IOS operating system and yet they still don't support all the functions the Lexus hardware is capable of. Sadly, you would need a Blackberry to get the full functionality, but the Blackberry isn't a viable phone any longer.

I loved the Blackberry integration and was really disappointed when I moved to an iPhone. For all the marketing noise, one would expect the iPhone to be better but hey, it's got apps so all other flaws are forgiven.

NickTee

What are you expecting it to do? It can make calls, go on the internet, take amazing photos, text, act as a flashlight, Siri is far better than anything offered by Google or Blackberry, you can turn on vibration and use it as a massager, and more.
I feel like people have these ridiculously unrealistic expectations of a smart phone. Especially when the BlackBerry was not anything special, either.

klwagoner

I kind of had the opposite situation with the Clarion in my Mustang. I had an iPhone 4 and 5 paired with it and it worked just fine. When I tried to pair the 6 Plus, no dice. But honestly, I think it's the radio. I can't get to the screen where you'd pair. I contacted everyone I could think of for help but nothing. Girl at a Clarion repair center said she was surprised the 5 paired - allegedly it wasn't compatible. Fortunately I don't drive the Mustang a whole lot so I guess I can live with it.

TechNut

I lost functionality when moving from the Blackberry to the iPhone. It performed all the duties you described above just fine, plus in the Lexus it would read my emails out loud or display the text of the message on the screen. It was a nice feature and disappointing that the iPhone, which has much greater marketing hype as well as fan hype, was a step backwards in terms of automotive integration. I always prefer not to look at my messages (not just texts) while driving down the road. The blackberry integration handled this and the Apple does not. Just telling it like it is.

lili43

...that's because the on board computer is actually a Blackberry (RIM) OS. Almost all cars with NAV are actually running their OS. Ever wonder how RIM/Blackberry hasn't gone belly up?

Now you know.

TechNut

Are you serious, or is this just speculation? It seems like they would license this to the other phone manufacturers. They have to know they have lost most all market creditibility in the mobile handset market so one would think they would be looking for other opportunities - especially if they have such a strong presence in the automotive industry.

Someone on this board explained it is all about the MAP protocol, and the Blackberry just does a more complete implementation of that protocol. If they have the inside scoop on which pieces of the MAP protocol the car is looking for, it isn't any wonder the communication between car and handset is more thorough.

TechNut

Perhaps that also explains why there is so much criticism of many on-board Nav systems

Droid13

The OS in question is called QNX, and to clarify, yes, Blackberry owns QNX, but they did not create it, it is a recent purchase. The newest Blackberry 10 OS was built on top of QNX, at the core at least. QNX has been around since the days of the original IBM PC and was originally designed to run on the same CPU, the Intel 8088. And, it has been running in automotive applications before Blackberry got their hands on it. It is not designed as a smartphone OS, it's simply designed as an embedded OS, which means it can be used on handsets, on vehicle systems, on industrial machines, etc. Blackberry had to build all the smartphone functions and UI on top of QNX for it's devices, which don't carry over to automotive applications. Even Apple's foray into vehicle entertainment systems is built on top of QNX. Regardless of manufacturer of any newer vehicle, the odds are decent that there's QNX in their somewhere.

mshumack

When I was shopping for a phone, I used the phone compatibility list you linked too. That is why I commented "I wonder if Lexus will remove this phone from the list".

The IOS that the phone was on when it stopped working is 8.3.

The new iPhone 6 (replacement) iPhone is also on the same 8.3 iOS and it works so it is not the IOS but the iPhone (4)+IOS that is the problem.


PS. My wife took car to Lexus when the phone stopped working - so they checked/tried everything (re-pairing, removing/reinstalling, Tech even connected his iPhone to test). It was Lexus who said it was the phone - not car.

HarryFrank

The problem I've encountered is the opposite:

The iPhone 4s running iOS 7 would always reconnect automatically when my 2015 RX350 was started. And it would resume playing whatever playlist the phone was last playing. Every time.

But my new iPhone 6 with iOS 8.3 sadly reconnects automatically about 20% of the time when the car is started; and it never remembers the playlist. If/when it reconnects, it starts with a song seemingly at random from the entire library of music on the iPhone.

The workaround (to manually reconnect) is to turn on my iPhone 6 and then press the Media button on the console. PITA with the iPhone 6 buried in my pocket.

So, for me the iPhone 4s worked perfectly with the 350RX. The new iPhone 6 does not.

TechNut

My iPhone 5 with IOS versions 6 & 7 always connected fine and worked as expected. Likewise with the iPhone 6 with IOS 8.x. Makes me wonder why the difference between our configuration and yours. It isn't the phone per se, or I would have seen the same kind of erratic behavior. I wonder if you need to just reset and reinstall the phone, then reconnect it to the car. I suppose it could be some sort of failure with the bluetooth either on the phone or the car, something that recently failed perhaps? Not much help but I can verify that it should work and does reliably for me - but on a 2013 model year. Any chance a Nav equipped car could account for the difference? I have Nav, do you? Just thinking out loud.