Apple car play or XM radio

I have XM and it works everywhere except tunnels. Expensive however. I also like local radio and use the search feature to find a signal when the current station fades.

I’ve used XM in my 2001 Toyota for the last 16 years. I had Best Buy install it. I pay around 9-10/month for it. The big reason for us having it is it allows us to listen all the MLB(Dodgers) games while on extended trips in the mountains. I have the base mounted on the floor of the truck below the radio on the carpet of the transmission hump, right up against the lower dash plastic. There is a magnet antenna on the passenger front corner of the truck, close to the regular antenna. For camping trips, I have a separate portable base for the RV and it has its own separate antenna the I put on top of the camper. I can move the small XM receiver back and forth between the truck and camper as needed. Always having to change stations on a long trip is no fun. Good luck

Many modern mobile stereo's have Bluetooth which can pair&play music from any Bluetooth enabled device.

Weather the content your listening to is on the device itself or simply streaming from elsewhere you can always have music on the road.



- Mark0.

Why would one pay for apple car play when there are thousands of free radio stations already available on the wobbly wide web.


BBC
CBC
NPR

Oh boy, everybody grab their morning glass of Metamucil and listen for a sec.
XM, obviously, is a set of “radio” stations that play whatever you select.
Apple car play is not. It is just an interface to make your car stereo more IPhone “friendly” and a means to operate your iPhone through your car stereo. (Similar to Bluetooth but not with the Apple “apps” appearing on your stereo screen.)
With it you can stream music or play your downloaded music. But Car Play doesn’t have its own music.
Car play doesn’t require phone service to work but it only plays what is already on your phone or streaming music (when you have internet service).
Car Play is either wired or wireless (through Bluetooth) depending on the features of that stereo.
No subscription required for CarPlay.
Bottom line, replacing a 20 year old stereo with features from the last decade is an upgrade if you want to use your phone with your stereo.

pianotuna wrote:
Why would one pay for apple car play when there are thousands of free radio stations already available on the wobbly wide web.


BBC
CBC
NPR

Come out here to the middle of nowhere and see how many of those "free" radio stations, on the web or via antenna, you can pick up. (Your cell phone will be useless most places also.)

I used to have two Sirius/SM subscriptions but gave up on them due to the constant battle over subscription prices. Now all the music I want to hear is on a flash drive so I hear only what I like to listen to.

Actually as a child I would listen to CBC Radio on the am band--it was, at the time available from a quite powerful transmitter. It would drop out somewhere in Nebraska. (about 1000 miles)

I do listen to radio on my cell phone--which has unlimited data. I have a booster, but that has only been used twice in 12 years.

Apple is via the cell phone? If so, your comment applies to it, too.

XM for years both truck & camper. Always get news, sports, comedy, every kind of music etc etc…. Arizona to Newfoundland to Northwest Territories… XM magnetic puck on front hood of truck and route very small wire under hood/ thru door trim to under dash.
Do not use yearly auto renew!….phone every year and negotiate new deal with customer service for best price.

Every time I buy a new truck, it comes with XM radio, but as soon as the free subscription expires I cancel. It's one of those things where you have to listen to what they want to play at the time. And then I would scroll through a hundred channels or so and not find anything I want to listen to.

So now I use my phone to tune into Pandora radio. They have a free version which I listened to for a few years, but now I do pay the subscription fee to get rid of ads, have more power to control what I'm listening to such as rewind, repeat, etc. Plus it has more bandwidth and higher fidelity, as well as the ability to create and listen to offline playlists for when you don't have a signal.

Plus I tune in to YouTube as well. There's a lot of play lists where you can pick one and set it on autoplay and it will just go through the whole list.
Between the two, There is always something to listen to whether it be music of any genre or educational, Bible study, motivational, or just plain entertainment.

Like someone else posted, I used to listen the Canadian stations across the Great Lakes in my youth. I am still close enough to pick up some Canadian stations, but many are getting mixed with local Spanish language stations father south and make my listening sound like I am in the DMZ.

In poor reception areas, radio and cell will be worthless and only satellite in open skies will be a choice. I prefer local programing and pre recorded media where there is no reception. I travel to experience the differences in culture and will not be trying bring in CKLW or WMMS or KISW or KXLE or KSIM when not local.