Pioneer has release version 2.0 of the firmware in their AVIC-F series of headunits (F90BT, F900BT, F700BT). The new firmware is available here and has the following improvements as documented by the AVIC forums:

1. 1. Boot time is a lot faster, its tolerable now. I am so used to waiting the original time it comes up and im like wowa, nice. 30 seconds exactly to music from ipod and screen. 72 seconds from bootup till vr update complete. 102 Seconds from boot for Bluetooth connection and loading complete.
   
2. The screens respond as fast as you touch them there is no lag now, great improved.
   
3. The blue boxes are now gone from the idle no route input map screen. Amazing what a difference this makes in the viewable area. The destination ins deleted now once arrived.
   
4. The screen bright max before is what 7 is now, at 10 its almost blinding! However this isn’t in effect until the unit completes boot up, you suddenly see when it reads the settings the screen comes up much brighter all of a sudden.
5. The contact screen is useful now! It lists them by mobile/office/home now.

I’ve been evaluating a few different options for Double-DIN car decks for my car. At first glance, the Pioneer F series look like a sure winner. Not only do they have out-of-the-box bluetooth support, but it comes with navigation, SD media support, ipod support (with adaptor), and speech recognition similar to Ford’s SYNC. The F700-BT offers all this and the F900-BT adds DVD support. Moreover, all the models can change the deck illumination to match your car’s dash.

However, there have been MANY reported problems with all the F-series models. Problems that Pioneer does not seem to acknowledge nor intend to address. Amoung them:

1. Bluetooth compatibility issues causing lots of staticy connections

2. Very slow startup times – made even worse when connecting an iPod as your initial playback device.

3. iPod playback is only alphabetical and does not follow the playlist order

Because of all these problems, I’ll likely get an Alpine unit.