Carplay is buggy

[debsidian]

I set up Pinepods this weekend, looking to move away from audiobookshelf for podcasts. I'm on a docker setup, behind traefik. I spend a lot of time in the car, so iOS + Carplay is my go-to. I wanted to share my experience in the hopes of giving some user feedback. I'd also like to determine which parts are user error so I can fix my usage if appropriate. So here goes (link to all media is at the bottom):

1. I was unable to launch Pinepods from Carplay itself. When I tried, I just get a blank screen. "Video 1" is me documenting this behavior. Instead, while driving, I needed to open Pinepods from my iOS device to get it to register in Carplay.
2. Timekeeping is inaccuate. Time listened and time remaining on podcasts are both unreliable. The time I've already listened would periodically stop and then just start up again randomly. And as far as time remaining, I have no words for what is there. So an image will have to do. Please see "Image 1". It shows the time left for the single podcast as -233:35:38. I don't know what that means. On "Video Two" it shows -473:xx:xx. "Video 3" documents this behavior as well.
3. Five podcast episodes had previously been downloaded to my server. I was expecting to stream these podcasts already downloaded to my server, to my iOS device via https://pinepods.mydomain.com. However, when attempting this through Carplay, the first 3:00-3:30 of the podcast just repeated over and over again and eventually just stopped playing altogether. That behavior is documented in "Video 2" (You can skip to 1:20 in the video. I wasn't sure when it was going to bug out and it took a little while.). This was probably the most frustrating issue because it meant that I was unable to actually listen to any podcast in its entirety in a single session.
4. When using navigation with iOS, navigation directions take priority over other audio. Normally the podcast would just stop and maybe back up a couple seconds so we don't miss anything. Instead, the podcast stops and never restarts. This is documented in "Video 3." At the end you can see the Play/Pause button change.
5. So since the Carplay functionality wasn't great, I thought that I would just control everything from my phone. But it turns out that didn't work either. "Image 2" is showing the podcast with 0:00 on both sides of the counter, rendering iOS itself unable to control the podcast whilst connected to Carplay.
6. Alright, I thought, let me download the episode locally and try to play it. I could download the episode but then couldn't play it. It just showed as having been played, even though it hadn't been. This is documented in "Video 4".
7. I was a little frustrated by this time and hit the "Download" button a couple of times (I guess 5 times). Then, after I realize this wasn't working either, I deleted this single episode from my local iOS device (not the server). The app let me know it deleted 5 local episodes (how I realized it downloaded a new copy of the episode every time lol). "Image 3" shows the confirmation of the 5 episode deletion, even though it was just the same single episode, 5 times. Image 3 is just a screenshot from Video 4.

Anyway, I hope this is taken in the helpful spirit in which it is offered. I'm grateful that people like you want to make the podcast experience better. If there is any additional information I can give, I'm happy to help. Just let me know.

All media is available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fYBOp2Fakbgt5Fnuwx35EDgV0M4z4wV1?usp=sharing. No sign-in necessary. Apologies for the bumpy video, I was driving.