iPhone 3GS and Pioneer car deck not playing nice.

I recently had a Pioneer Premier DEH-P310UB installed in my Jeep. The reason I went with this model was because it seemed to do exactly what I wanted, charge the 3GS and allow me to control the iPhone from either the unit or the phone. The Pioneer is labeled as "Made for iPhone" and tagged as compatible with the iPhone 3G (and therefore, according to Apple, the 3GS).

So, here is my problem: the charging is erratic. For instance, I was coming home today, about a 35 minute drive, and the iPhone was charging as expected until about 30 minutes into the drive. At that point it just stops charging. If I unplug the USB (either from the iPhone or the Pioneer) it usually fixes and starts charging again. However, sometimes it takes a few pulls of the USB before it finally takes, and even then, many times it will only charge for a minute or two before going back to not charging. While this goes on, the iPhone displays the "Charging Not Supported" message, even though it is.

I have tried two cables, the one supplied from Pioneer and one supplied by Apple, I have reformatted the iPhone without restoring a backup, and my wife's 2nd gen iPod Touch seems to be charging fine, though she has not closely watched.

Could this be a bug in the 3.0 software? A hardware change? A hardware issue with either the phone or the radio? I am really stumped with this one.

iPhone 3GS 32GB, iPhone OS 3.0

Posted on Jul 9, 2009 7:04 PM

34 replies

hokie87

Level 1

0 points

Sep 19, 2009 10:04 AM in response to hokie87

I too contacted Pioneer about this issue. Their response was, "They (Apple) changed something on their end as far as the iPhone 3Gs connection. We have no plans to make an updated cable." Not the answer I was hoping for!!

Sep 19, 2009 11:16 AM in response to hokie87

While they decide who's fault this is, we get no proper support. I'm not sure if it was apple that screw the support up or if pioneer just doesn't want to update to latest specifications, but this shouldent be our problem to figure it out... :/

Juz

Level 1

0 points

Oct 2, 2009 5:01 PM in response to Cashmonee

Sadly, I am in the same boat. My Pioneer DEH-P700BT worked pretty much flawlessly with my iPhone 3G and then my iPhone 3GS via USB for 6 months. Occasionally I would get the ERROR -19 message on the head unit, source switch would find the iPhone again. And I had seen a few spontaneous resets, but infrequent enough to not annoy.

This week I synced for the first time in a month or so, and although I don't recall getting any warnings, I must have had a firmware update "loaded and waiting". The Phone is at 3.1 now.

Now when plugged into receiver via USB, iPhone drops in and out every 30 seconds or so. Head unit just turns off, then turns on again as though it just remembered the USB signal, get a little music play, then off again.. etc. Unusable now.

Sometimes the iPhone, when displaying its mandatory "not compatible, airplane mode?" message, will not form the pop message properly, with the buttons outline showing, but the text message appearing as dark text on white background.

Very frustrating, for what was a carefully shopped $300+ unit.

I imagine I have two options here:
-- try to connect using stereo bluetooth, no charging.
-- revert back to 3.0?

Oct 27, 2009 3:01 AM in response to Juz

We need an update on this, Apple.

My 3.1 phone's bluetooth stereo on my car kit still stutters for stereo audio (phone calls are fine) and USB connection fails to register even though the kit is marketed for the iPod AND the iPhone.

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iPhone 3GS and Pioneer car deck not playing nice.