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Car Mode (not "driving mode") - what does it do?

M

MidLman

Lurker
Hey folks,

I've had my S3 for about a month now and I'm really enjoying it.

I just got an iBolt car dock for it, and it's raised a few questions.
When I put the phone in dock it activates "Car Mode". There's a pop-up in the notifications that shows me in car mode, and says "tap here to exit".

What does car mode actually do? Are there settings for car mode that I can access and change somehow? Where might I find them?

Please note: I'm referring to "car mode", which only seems to activate while the phone is in the dock. This isn't the same thing as "driving mode", which is a setting toggle available in the notification bar. As far as I can tell, the only way to get to "car mode" is by putting the phone into the dock.
 
Thanks for the link. I had seen that thread before, but you'll note that everybody in that thread except one is talking about "driving mode", not "car mode", although they seem to be using the terms interchangeably. As I noted in my post, they're not the same thing.

The only poster in that thread that mentions the car mode I'm referring to is user Scrabbley, who says this:

"I can put it in Car mode using an NFC tag, this does - turns off screen timeout, makes buttons bigger so you can press stuff on the screen easier. No voice control as far as I can tell, apart from launching Svoice."

So what I'm trying to find out is if car mode does anything else, or if it has any settings options that can be accessed and changed without needing to be plugged into the dock? From what I can tell it seems to be a largely undocumented feature of the phone.
 
Quick update on this:
Car mode *should* launch the car mode dock app. It's basically a driving-friendly launcher interface with huge buttons.

But that assumes you have the app installed.
My S3 did not, so I had to obtain the .apk from elsewhere and install it.

Hope that helps clear things up for anybody else who runs into this.
 
All, I'm with iBOLT.co, the manufacturer of the car-docks for S III. The car-mode is absolutely great if correctly implemented. The Samsung (and HTC) handset supports that developers create apps that automatically start when the phone is inserted into a "car-dock" (or "desktop dock"). However, for reasons unknown to us Samsung choose to make their "sVoice" the default car-mode start up app, something that's acceptable if you prefer to use voice activation for everything you do. Unfortunately this seldom works in the car-environment considering the background noise etc.

The real solution for Samsung users, regardless which type of phone holder they prefer to use, is to install a dedicated "car dock" app like CarHome Ultra. See this short YouTube video demo how cool this works. The dedicated car panel starts automatically if you are using a Samsung OEM car-dock or an aftermarket with this function, type iBOLT. On the app itself you have a very accurate speedometer, compass, traffic report and on the top of the display you have the exact address where you are at any given moment. The app itself has 30 "tiles" that you can fill with links to apps, contacts or whatever you prefer to have within fingertip reach when driving. We are not the developer of this but I just wanted to share what the "car-mode" is really worth when working properly...
 
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