2014 Pioneer car audio line supports Android over USB

(Credit: Pioneer)

Pioneer joins the all too short list of car audio manufacturers to support media playback and browsing on Android phones with the announcement and launch of its 2014 lineup of CD receivers: the DEH-X6600BS, DEH-X6600BT, DEH-X5600HD, DEH-X4600BT, DEH-X3600S, DEH-X3600UI, DEH-X2600UI and FH-X500UI.

All eight models in the new 2014 lineup of Pioneer single-DIN DEH recievers (and the double-DIN FX-X500UI) are able to browse media stored on a USB-connected Android phone with the aid of the media transfer protocol (MTP), which has been adopted by the Android operating system as of version 4.0 to handle all file transfers. (Older Androids made use of the same mass storage protocol that USB drives do.) Once connected, the receivers will be able to browse and playback digital audio files stored locally.