ASTEROID Smart?

Parrot seems to kill support for the ASTEROID slowly...the forum moderators are not even announcing new software versions anymore. E-Mail notifications don't get sent in time and we're left here with our slowly outdating units.

THIS is what Parrot developers are doing now.

The ASTEROID Smart....a "go cry ASTEROID Classic users here is the next 550€ Car Stereo you have to buy to be happy"

Should existing ASTEROID owners get the new one? I've got a 2DIN slot in my car and would like to fill the whole space with an Android device. But Parrots idea of support and Android (the Smart ships with 2.3) just is nothing I want to deal with for my next device. I want support, documentation and hackability! If this is not given by Parrot I'm going to build my own Android Car Stereo...the Nexus 7 fits in the hole quite nice...;)

ASTEROID support by me will not be dropped in the near future, when not in my car the unit will reside indoors and be used as a home stereo.

Please comment...

eXpansys: worst ASTEROID support to talk with

eXpansys: lost the game...after a phone call with eXpansys support explaining my problems with the ASTEROID (I near to completely fixed it myself by cleaning the connector). I have been assured to be sent an E-Mail with repair-shipment-instructions until 5pm...The call has been on the day of my last post at about 2pm...and I have not received any E-Mail until today...

eXpansys: You have lost a customer! And hopefully many ASTEROID owners will follow...

Repair of my ASTEROID

Since quite some time now I'm experiencing problems with the keys and jogwheel of my ASTEROID. After sending an e-mail to Parrot support describing my problem I've been told to contact the reseller I've bought it from.
My ASTEROID device is from eXpansys. The shop that got the ASTEROID as one of the first ones in Europe in stock.
I sent an e-mail to eXpansys support and got no reply for hours (Parrot replied within minutes)...so i called eXpansys support (German landline: +49 69...). A friendly voice greeted me: "Bonjour" was the only thing I understood and after introducing myself in german she told me in english that the german support team is having lunch right now and is not available.
I've been ordered to call again in one hour...

Parrot: +1
eXpansys: -1

For the first time I had a good experience with Parrots support!

Let's see whats next..in one hour!

Released preview downloads of custom launcher and Cloud Connect UI demo

http://code.google.com/p/customasteroid/downloads/list

Have a lot of fun!

New video online

First commit in GIT repository of the custom ASTEROID project on Google Code contains first version of custom launcher.

Find us on Google+

Parrot ASTEROID Firmware Version 1.5 de_DE available

The new Firmware Version 1.5 is now available for download at Parrots homepage.

Public Tasks

The ASTEROID Custom firmware project needs your help.
To see what you can do to help the project have a look at the issues tab at our Google Project and watch for the type "PublicTask".
Thanks for any help.

Custom firmware project started

Everybody who is interested may participate in the custom firmware project. Any idea, feature request and everything else should be posted in the (now active) Google Code Project at:

http://code.google.com/p/customasteroid/

Non-Programmers may post their ideas with the issue type "Idea". Attach files, drawings etc. as you whish. Please contribute!

Navit on Android just sucks...what they call an Android port is nothing but their native libraries wrapped with some really crappy gui and nobody cared about how that pile should work. I'll try to find another code base.

Hi everyone,
As i got some spare time and don't want to stop developing for Android i just decided to port Navit (navit-project.org) to the ASTEROID. I'll keep this Thread updated and try to work as fast as I can If I got any requests (Translations, Graphics etc.) I'll post here too.

ASTEROID Software Version 1.4.3 German available

http://www.parrot.com/de/kundenkontakt/onlinehelpfiles/parrot_asteroid/software-update
Parrot finally released the 1.4.3 Software in german.

Asteroid US apps for download!

Parrot finally released the Asteroid in the US and a first user was so kind to provide us with the US apps.

Thanks to stock1232! (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=19138787&postcount=36)

You find the apps zipped as one file over at our forums:

http://www.gforums.de/asteroid/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=96

The apps aren't fully working yet but maybe we can get them to work soon or see them within the next EU updates as well.

More infos within the forum thread.

-gforums

Update 1.2.1 available

Parrot released the Update to Version 1.2.2 with only minor fixes (Maps routing problem).

Version 1.2.0 Available in more languages

German, Spanish and Dutch have been added by Parrot.
I didn't get the usual E-Mail notification.....
Just for information.
Jonas

Update: LastFM Scrobbler coming to ASTEROID

New Layout, improved functionality. Testing starts today. Still Now Playing Notifications only.

First community driven project

The ASTEROID Voice All Titles feature App received the first contribution by community member Alexnew88. He did the translation for the spanish language. Until now the first community driven project especially for the ASTEROID.
Can't wait to see more projects growing up in our forums.

LastFM Scrobbler coming to asteroid

Hey ASTEROID....I finally found a pretty reliable (reliably enough for me) way to access metadata from parrots player (even without root). More about this to come....
For all the LastFM useres out there: Scrobbling will come to the ASTEROID soon. Just need to finish my implementation (now playing notifications work, scrobbling requires caching etc....) so just stay tuned for more info. In the future, radio support may come too. For now as i see myself as beeing attracted by pictures more than by words:

Feel free to comment :D (not many comments in this blog for now...)

Jonas

How to enter the Bootloader to recover a broken device

Thanks Parrot for that hint. It is not described in the manual, but it works as expected:

It is easy to brick the radio when modifiying system files!
Rooting the radio therefore is dangerous if you don't know what to do.

However there is a way to recover the radio, as long as the bootloader is still working.
Parrot's support gave me that nice hint, so I'll share it with you:

In case your car stereo is no longer booting normally, so that you can't access the "update" menu, you can reflash a firmware file with this method:

1. Turn your car stereo off.
2. Plug in an usb key containing the *.plf Update file
3. While powering the radio on, press and hold both the voice recognition button and the big parrot button.
4. The update utility will start and flash the plf-Update from your usb key.
5. After a reboot, you have a factory fresh car stereo.
All data will be deleted.

That's it!
-Christian

All Titles feature for Voice Recognition

I developed a solution to play all titles on the SD-Card by simply saying "All Titles" in Voice Recognition. Until now you had to go to the menu, select SD-Card, select Titles and select any title. Now you just push the Voice Recognition button and say "All Titles".
Working for german and english, all non-supported languages will default to english.
Users willing to implement their own language may download the strings.xml file and send me a localized copy as PM.The SD-Scanning requires you to remove and plug in the SD-Card until now. Hope to find a solution to this soon.

Have fun,
Jonas
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