App Suite discontinued?

The app suite was never great but I did enjoy Pandora before they took it away, and then Alexa for the few months it worked for me years ago until one day it stopped working. I tried on-and-off for a few years to see if I could get it to work again, but today I found this. Most of the stuff in the headunit is going to stop working on Monday, even for a bunch of 2023 models.

https://support.toyota.com/s/article/Toyota-App-Suite-Retirement?language=en_US

 

I never used any of the apps but just learned I can delete personal data to get rid of the apps on the head unit.
I think they were added when I synced with entune the one and only time before deleting it from my phone? It will be nice to not have to cycle through unused apps when selecting a source with the steering wheel controls.
Thanks for sharing! Sorry Alexa and the other apps won’t work for you anymore

 

The scout app stunk I took to a iPhone holder and google maps, Bluetooth connection just for speakers, I have my own music. So finally something Toyota took away that doesn’t matter

 

I don't know how much money companies put into developing these things, but it's clearly all frivolous.
They should just focus on improving (or maintaining) the Apple CarPlay / Android Auto experience and their integration into the vehicle (ie. upcoming turns show up in dash cluster as well as the center stack like the new Highlanders).

Our phones are literally *always connected* - they get map updates every single time one is available. They sit there all night getting security updates or whatever else. We're already familiar with the user interface...we probably already have subscriptions to our "cloud" providers of choice, and our music source of choice...there's just no reason to waste time and money on antiquated app packages in the car that are far-surpassed by the already-existing CarPlay / Android Auto technologies.

 

The Entune app stopped being supported about a year ago in favor of the Toyota app. Perhaps you could try that if you want your apps to work.

Personally I found it all to be pretty clunky and absolutely hated the new Toyota app so I make do without using any of it. The only apps I really use on my truck are weather and navigation. And navigation I usually only use if I don't have cell service or for longer trips where I want to save my phone.

 

Was the old App retired so the new Toyota App can charge a monthly subscription? This link says anywhere from $15 to $25 dollars per month.

https://www.toyota.com/connected-services/toyota-app/

 

Will the built-in navigation continue to work?

 

Wait hold on. They are getting rid of the Toyota owners app too?

 

“How does this impact Toyota vehicles with App Suite?

Depending on the vehicle, the following services will be affected - Alexa®, NPR One®, iHeartRadio®, LiveXLive®, Scout® GPS Link, Destination Search, Saved Destinations, H2 Station Finder (where applicable), Fuel, Sports, Stocks, Traffic, Weather.

Wi-fi, multimedia display notifications, Remote Authorization, HD Traffic and HD Weather (where applicable) will not be impacted for vehicles that support these features. Certain Bluetooth® apps will also continue to function, and you will still be able to pair your app store apps via a Bluetooth® connection for use in the vehicle.”

 

Sorry, I'm not 100% clear. Where does the built-in navigation fall into this?

 

To be honest I’m not exactly sure, especially because I don’t use nav on the HU, but destination search and saved destinations being disabled doesn’t sound promising

 

It doesn't. This affects all 3rd party apps like Alexa and iHeart Radio. On the flip side, the built in nav will still suck and not improve.

 

On android the entune app was retired while a while ago. It's been at least 2 years now. My stuff worked decently with the entune app and then briefly with the toyota app. I think the older cars are compatible with the newer monthly subscription model. If I could start the car, lock or unlock the door, check gas level from anywhere it'd be worth some dollars a month.

The built-in nav should keep working because the maps are on the SD card. I believe the older head units like mine use HD traffic so I think most of the functionality should work. I like that it has the red/yellow/green traffic info - not that it's really accurate or anything but when I see too much red on my route I can check google maps. LOL.

100% agree. But some of the coolest areas they worked on (I used to work for a 3rd party software supplier to a major automaker) was some of the inter-car connectivity that they were working on. I believe Tesla has some of the beginning of this already. They wanted to collect driving/vehicle data to improve the driving experience - like if X cars swerved, changed lanes, suddenly slowed down, stability control, or ABS kicked in at one spot on the freeway, you could infer something about road and then alert other cars coming up to that spot in real time. Or if at a particular spot on the road, if X cars registered a suspension jolt, it could either warn you of a pothole or if your car was equipped would adjust your shocks or air springs for that. Cool stuff. Obviously if all makes/models reported that back to Google they could probably do a better job across car brands. But there's no benefit to one automaker if those features were available to everybody so that's why that won't happen.

 

Well, now a day into the new normal, the only thing missing from my app is the drive report and parked vehicle location.

I pay for the remote connect and that still works for remote locking and remote starting.

I may discontinue the app though if Toyota doesn’t bring back the drive report. I actually use that function because I have teenage kids and I like to keep an eye on their driving habits. I’m disappointed to lose that feature.

 

My Toyota connect app stopped working, I assume that’s with this update. Are you remote starting using the Toyota app?

 

I never use any of that stuff so i'm not affected by this.