CarPlay doesn't prevent car makers from tracking vehicle activity.
In the end, consumers don't give a shit about the in-vehicle infotainment. It sucks, or it's AA/CarPlay. The first generation of iDrive showed that rich people people will buy cars in spite of the in-car stuff. In fact, most car infotainment sucks, yet people still buy cars.
Let's turn the question around: why would car makers want to spend millions of dollars a year rolling their own infotainment system? So they can make incremental revenue selling ads and user data? So they have control? Control over what, exactly?
There's an interesting (and apparently often misunderstood) article called "IT Doesn't Matter" [0]. In it, Carr is largely arguing that IT, as a business differentiator, was over for many of the things people thought were differentiators. That is, things that helped a company (say American Airlines) get a lead on their competitors in the 1960s had become commoditized. Now every airline was offering flight search and booking online (directly and through aggregators). The IT edge had become table stakes, you didn't do it to beat out a competitor but just to stay in the game. And, even more importantly, many of the things that used to be IT differentiators became commoditized.
Car infotainment was once a differentiator for car manufacturers or for classes of vehicles within the same manufacturer. Today, it's table stakes. Not all the manufacturers have figured that out (have any?).
[0] https://hbr.org/2003/05/it-doesnt-matter and https://www.nicholascarr.com/?page_id=99
Imagine if car manufacturers started offering cars with no infotainment OS, and as users having a choice of open source OS distros to install on them..
Japanese road network is a disorganized weighted node graph and absolutely not a grid, and a bulletproof navigation unit has been a must for a car in Japan since its inception around 1990. It is also preferred that they are 2DIN compatible so it can be later upgraded. AFAIK, those are not high priority checkbox items elsewhere, but all cars nevertheless follow the Japanese manufacturer layout because of manufacturers' collective dominance. Cars before 2DIN navigation units seem to have had 1DIN AM/FM radio units with radio buttons[1], by the way.
That dominance leaves a 4:3 8" diagonal hole in immediate view of driver for all cars globally that must be filled with something of value. That doesn't have to be a touchscreen but usually are, and it ends up being a navigation-audio combo unit, and it's outsourced to the lowest bidder. It is not the primary interaction point for cars by overwhelming global demands or principles of automotive product design. That leads to jarring subpar experience that appear to be but are perhaps not intended to be part of core UX of the whole car. I think.
1: https://www.alamy.com/1956-mercedes-benz-190-sl-steering-whe...
What Japan lacks are addresses that can be found easily without using a map. Apart from Kyoto, roads in Japanese cities don't have names (or number), so addresses within cities are not "{number} {name of street}". Cities are cut in areas smaller and smaller all the way down to a block. The last number will be the house on that block. So addresses within cities are "{name of area} {sub-area number} {block number} {house number}", with some variations from city to city.
An address might be "Nantokacho 11-16-8", which means the 8th house around the 16th block of the 11th sub-area of the Nantoka area. Good luck figuring that out without a map!
With back up cameras being mandated in the US (and other jurisdictions?):
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/02/backup-cameras-now-required-...
There needs to be a screen: I'm not sure what the incremental cost is of it being touch-sensitive. And I think a lot of designers (or cost cutters) may have figured that since they have to have software anyway, it may easier/cheaper to deal with software buttons than with moving parts like physical buttons and dials.
This is addressed in the article:
> There used to be a big difference in driving characteristics and technology between premium and budget brands. Compared to a Volkswagen, a BMW used to have a more powerful engine, better handling, and comfort features like seat-heating and cruise control. However, a Volkswagen Golf now has similar tech as a BMW and with the transition to EVs, drivetrains and handling won't be the same differentiator as before.
> Now, the focus has moved to the interior. Infotainment systems have become a central part of that, so carmakers are coming up with unusual concepts to set them apart, both in hardware and software. CarPlay 2 is going exactly in the opposite direction, more towards standardizing the in-car software.
But I think a great differentiator for upmarket brands would be to offer as few screens as possible and as many buttons as possible. Electronics are a plague. Some features are very useful: mainly, route planning and the ability to play music in the car. But the rest is a nightmare.
I don't want to talk to my car; certainly not when passengers are sleeping during a trip, and even not when I'm alone. There's a subtle humiliation associated with talking to a machine. More importantly, I don't want to randomly target zones on screens to set up things, and I don't want to look at the screens because I don't want to take my eyes off the road. Give me buttons that have a fixed location, and that I can feel without looking.
Basically, their goal in life is to be a worthless middleman who takes peoples money while providing no real value to society.
Toyota should also plan to expand their manufacturing capacity to pickup GMs lost sales to anyone under the age of 60.
Lol
Planned obsolesence. Without proper CarPlay/AA integration, car manufacturers get to decide when those whiz-bang infotainment features stop working. You'd have to replace the whole car to get those features back instead of just buying a new phone.
Without constant updates, software that is part a a larger ecosystem will eventually breakdown.
This isn't "we're going to deprecate your car, buy a new one". People will buy them anyway.
It is "You're going to pay for AOL, even though we have the internet"
And when you sell your car, some other dumb schmuck will buy it used and sign up for AOL-of-cars.
I think a key thing to consider is that there are in fact three separate questions at play here:
1 - Does infotainment/software UI differentiation matter in the car market? Is there a significant enough market advantage for having better UI that anyone should care?
2 - If there is an advantage for better UI, is it enough of an edge that would compel you to build your own? Or is it the case where it simply has to be good enough?
3 - If there is enough differentiation to be worth building your own, is your company good enough at software to pull it off?
Personally I think the answer to #1 is YES. I think cars with better UIs - while not sufficient in and of itself - have a market advantage.
Where car makers start veering off from each other is the answer to #2. If you believe that you just need a "good enough" experience to not be actively awful, then you buy off-the-shelf. You see this with Volvo/Polestar and Google Automotive. The "skin" around the stock experience is minimal at best, with only minor customizations.
If you believe that being excellent at it confers some advantage, you'd try to roll your own. This would include folks like BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Now, where the latter strategy really goes off the rails is question #3. That said, if you believe the answer to the first two questions compels you to roll your own - would you easily surrender to a third-party? Or would you at least try to level up your software orgs to make a serious play?
I might be unusual in my preference but I really expect people to have preferences as strong.
So unless it costs a lot of money to integrate, not picking AA isn't about building your own that's better, but it has to be about control. Or at least independance from a big tech, which I can understand.
Disney's "The Magic Highway" might be dystopian to some but the relaxing vehicle seems pretty cool to me
Every time I rent a car it's a HELLSCAPE of figuring out whatever crappy UI this brand of car created for that year ... until I get my phone hooked up. Man I just want to get to my hotel not futz with some garbage UI in the garage forever.
obviously i rather have carplay if i could but i am worry about security implication, plugging to a car i don't know
The tech giants are not component suppliers you can symbiotically partner with to add value to your product. They are predatory and parasitic goliaths. They are wolves more powerful than governments with designs on your hen-house. It is frankly insane to let them own the primary interface to your customer and auto will likely regret letting them get this far.
Google/Apple infotainment ventures cannot even be called trojan horses given how open they are in their investments and desires to seize the auto industry the moment tech/profit makes it feasible. Unattractive low-margin manufacturing keeps them at bay but they are gambling on "software eats the world" long-term. For now, they will drain every available high margin service for themselves.
My ideal "infotainment" is a button that lets me pair bluetooth and volume/skip controls on my steering wheel. I have a phone mount, like almost everyone does. I don't need a display on my dashboard.
AA/CarPlay (and everything else) are genuinely just distracting annoyances that take up space. Especially in newer cars where the screens are for some reason, no longer matte and often angled upwards so that they just blast reflected sun into your eyes.
IMO it's more about control over the user experience. You don't want your customers' UX to be dependent on the whims of Apple or Google, because now you're implicitly building a long-term dependency with a third party that may not be acting in your interests in the future. You're moving closer toward a future where the vehicle becomes commoditized, and now you have more trouble differentiating from competitors. And keep in mind: it's only very recently that the "Apple car" project was cancelled.
That said, traditional automakers are also famous (or infamous?) for sourcing tons of components (including infotainment systems) from the same parts manufacturers. But I guess at least that retains the ability to pivot and use it as a point of differentiation in the future.
If it was user-focused, they wouldn't make unnecessary changes to the UI every release. If it was user-focused, they would put more effort into refinement and fixing bugs.
No, CarPlay is Apple-focused.
Good. It works.
I use Apple rather than Google as I try to avoid Google as much as possible but it’s the same principle. I want long term stability in software, not new changes put in to earn a PM a promotion.
Drivers don't car, but I think car buyers actually do. Remember that many people are not buying cars for themselves but for other people, usually family. They fall into the trap of thinking that those other people might want such features, if not now then in the future. Look at automatic transmissions. I know many people who much prefer manuals, but they always end up buying an automatic because they believe that other people will want the automatic. And a few years later, all the cars are automatics. The same is happening with in-car entertainment systems. We buy them not because we ant them but because we think other people do.
Can you explain this? I guess maybe the devil is in "many"?
Cars from the 90s up until about 2013 can be easily fitted with a $500 head unit upgrade, and support carplay quite well. With the right tools, it can be done in about two hours right in your driveway.
Cars from 2018 and up pretty universally support carplay, and it's generally quite well integrated into the car's infotainment system.
But, between 2013 and 2017, things were a complete mess. In-car systems were too integrated to be replaceable with a third party 2-DIN unit, but too primitive to run carplay/AA. People who have cars from this era either sell them (for less than they're worth, since only 21% of people will buy a car without carplay!) or put up with it for another 8 years or so until the car's wound out.
For example, my rustbucket '06 Toyota has a great sounding stereo with carplay but my sibling's 2017 Nissan is stuck with flaky and poorly integrated bluetooth.
Or, if you do want to upgrade your 2013-2017 car, you end up replacing half of the in-dash components with ones from a couple model years up, tapping into the car's CAN bus to recognize the new controller, and then running some sketchy scripts to patch the firmware to remove component protection since the VIN's don't match up anymore. Not for the faint of heart.
Mazda sells a retrofit kit for their 2014 (Mazda 3) / 2016 (other models) and newer cars that didn't come with native CP/AA. It's about $200 and DIY if you're the least bit handy:
https://mazdaparts.org/mazda-3-smartphone-mirroring-kit.html
Something I found interesting when I was hacking my VW to add Carplay (without paying £300) was that a ton of manufacturers in the ~2016 era use the exact same head unit and OS but with a different front fascia, different button layout and a relatively advanced UI skinning system. If you can be bothered you can add e.g. Audi track G-sensors to your VW or use a different skin.
https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Receivers-Display-Stereo-Blu...
By contrast, my 98 Jeep and '08 sedan were both easy upgrades to modern head units with standard DINs.
Not having CarPlay/AA was actually a massive reason I wanted to get rid of that car.
Wow, I'm impressed. I wouldn't have thought manufacturers nowadays would be forthcoming enough to allow that.
Do you know if it is something specific to (some?) Japanese manufacturers, or is it a form of info-display standard that would also make it possible with other brands?
I don't know what cars you drive, but they are not budget or Chinese. I recently rented a bottom-of-the-line Nissan '24 and just getting audio from my iPhone was a struggle - and there was absolutely no Carplay in sight. Most Chinese cars I've rented (all 23 or 24 models) have advertised Carplay, but what they really have is a half-baked phone mirroring, which maybe worked on ios11 or something, but definetely doesn't today.
Occasionally I’ve had something like a D or so, or a van, but even the last van I had had CarPlay.
I realize I will not be able to buy a car with no screens due to the backup camera rules. But there is actual safety value in that for me so I’m ok with it.
For example, I wouldn't buy a new car without android auto, because cars with it are readily available and hardly cost anything extra.
But if I had say $6k to spend on a used car instead of $20k+ on a new car? Your options are much more limited and the tradeoffs unpalatable. I know I can still put a phone holder in any vehicle and I'm off to the races.
I sold cars up til a few years ago. Countless cars got sold where Bluetooth itself barely works, and people are basically fine with it.
People buying used cars will take Bluetooth as a nice perk, but to think they make major decisions based on carplay in a 2015 Chevy Volt is funny.
That was my position until we bought our last car. We got it second hand, so we did not really have a definite set of required features and CarPlay was just nice to have. After having used it over the last 4 years, it completely changed though, and I can guarantee I won’t consider a car without it for my next one. It helps that around here all non-garbage car have had it for quite a few years now.
That statistic is complete bullshit.
Anyway it's pretty much moot because besides Tesla, all new cars support both Carplay and AA.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/05/carplay-popularity-iphone-tes...
A non statistically relevant random poll of Apple fanboys
...is there a handy list of which models these are? I'm in the market for a used car, and I'm perfectly happy to pay less for something without CarPlay.
Once you're in used territory, all bets are off and you'd have to poke around.
As the article itself says, CarPlay Original Flavor is a massive success, I'm in the "79% of drivers only consider a car if it has CarPlay" (bye-bye GM!)
1: “original” CarPlay. Shows up on your head unit
2: enhanced “original” CarPlay. Some cars can show the map or turn by turn instructions behind the steering wheel on a screen there
3: “new” CarPlay. This is where CarPlay fully takes over every screen. Nothing has been released, I think only one very expensive model has even said they’re going it.
Today e dry one has #1 or #2. The article is about a mix of #3 and maybe a version of #3 run on the car not the phone, like Android Automotive.
The lack of distinct names for things on both the Apple side and Google side (auto vs automotive) just makes this all very hard to discuss at times.
Dual screen CarPlay was released in 2019 https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20875604/apple-carplay-io...
To be fair, at this point only the Ultium EV-based models won't have CarPlay, and they are struggling to build them anyway. Even if they do figure out the production issues and achieve the targets of their wildest dreams, they will still only account for around 6% of all the vehicles GM produces. They're not exactly betting the farm on it.
Does the author have no experience with Android Auto? The same happens there, if the app is on my phone and it supports Android Auto then it will automatically be available in the car, along with all media on my phone. This isn't a CarPlay only functionalitiy, it's just how phone mirroring works on both platforms. Author seems to think there is an extra step involved on Android. Perhaps by "Play Store" they mean the car manufacturer's own app store?
Source: I use Android Auto constantly in my own vehicle and in the 15+ rental cars I have every year.
Auto is driven from your phone whereas Automotive is running on your car directly.
I know this isn't the highest value comment in the world, but god Google's product naming/differentiation is terrible. I can't imagine a more guaranteed-to-confuse (or worse, more guaranteed to lead to misleading second-party marketing) nomenclature.
They lost a capitalization which makes it a bit ambiguous but their scenario is this:
There are two app stores being discussed: iOS (for CarPlay), and Android Automotive (the infotainment system's play store).
If you have Android Automotive on an infotainment system and an iPhone and can't connect your iPhone to the infotainment system, you have to download the app twice: iOS App Store and Android Automotive Play Store.
I don't know the numbers, but Android Automotive infotainment systems don't universally support CarPlay. Some only got it via updates over the last couple years (that's also a selling point of them, though, that they could do it via software updates and not a whole hardware refresh).
If it doesn’t, that’s a choice the automaker made. Either to disable it or to not write that part of the software.
I know Android Automotive already has all the code to support it. So for an android automotive car to not support CarPlay is 100% a decision.
The author seems to blame everyone but Apple for this, though. Apparently it's Google's fault that his preferred podcast app isn't available on Android. What about the app developer, who has decided not to support Android? And it's the auto manufacturer's fault for deciding to go with Android Automotive as the infotainment OS. What about Apple, for refusing to license any of their OS offerings to third parties? (Let alone not having an automotive-suitable version of any of their OSes anyway.)
Instead, Apple wants auto manufacturers to implement a complex, proprietary Apple protocol to give iPhones the ability to control most aspects of the car's infotainment functions. Why would auto manufacturers want to do this? Not only would the auto manufacturer have to develop their own infotainment system (perhaps even using Android Automotive, but perhaps something else), but then they have to do all this extra work to essentially allow drivers to not use their own system. (And while I agree that most auto manufacturer software is weak or outright garbage, that point of fact isn't really relevant here.)
I don't agree with the author that some car makers are not excited about CarPlay 2 primarily because they want to own the automotive experience. It's because of all the extra work they need to do to support CarPlay 2 (probably an order of magnitude what it takes to support CarPlay 1 or Android Auto), and doing so isn't really in their interests, outside of Apple users who might refuse to consider their cars without CarPlay 2 support. But this is a chicken-and-egg problem: CP2 doesn't exist yet in any car, so customers don't know what they're potentially missing.
I am still amazed that some people see it as a brain-free non-decision to buy into a status symbol.
I have an iPhone. It has things that I like and things that I hate. I have a brain that can process nuance, and it’s entirely possible to say nice things about some features and rant against others.
I bought my current phone knowing what I can do and cannot do with it. It is an informed decision and a compromise by necessity. I bought it expecting it to integrate with my car via CarPlay, and I would definitely complain if it either stopped working or if car manufacturers dropped it.
(I don’t care about CarPlay 2 at all)
I would be interested in CarPlay 2 if I were buying a new car when it’s out. Infotainment is still a huge weakness in many cars, and is definitely a plus to many users. Carmakers are free to ignore it of course, but unless they are maybe Tesla, they have no good reputation to rely on in selling their own custom infotainment experiences.
Yes and no. Android Automotive supports android apps, but GM's implementation (for example) still locks out android phones from using Android Auto. Yes, you can install the same apps, but the nice thing about hooking up your phone is that you're maintaining all of your apps, data, and state in one place instead of two and it's inherently different for as many different drivers as there are phones.
Yes, as far as I know, any automaker can choose to make the screen in the dash compatible with Carplay, at least the non fancy Carplay that will be able to show all the apps on the phone.
Zero reason, in my opinion, to not offer a Carplay compatible screen, other than to inconvenience car users. Not the CarPlay 2 thing, but just original Carplay.
There is an existing vibrant ecosystem of Tier 1 partners who can do the CarPlay (or AA) integration, lessening the burden on the Auto OEMs for such specialised integration work (Luxoft, etc).
CP2 is an eventual pathway (pure conjecture here) for Apple to offer other upgrades in the future, like an L2+ ADAS package, via a subscription model, with a potential profit split between Apple and the OEM.
Somewhat like what MobilEye currently offers and their current business model. Apple gets valuable realtime traffic info from such an L2+ offering, which can feed into making Apple Maps better with up to the minute traffic updates. And the OEM gets to leverage a valuable "sticky" offering that is bound to attract the Apple crowed (usually well heeled folks with deeper pockets). And they both get to monetize CP2 via a paid subscription model.
> Apple’s long-term goal is likely to find ways to directly monetize CarPlay. It could license CarPlay to carmakers at some point. But with the entire global car market amounting to only around 70 million cars per year and the car industry’s slim profit margins (ranging from 5% to 15%), it must reach a high market share to get significant revenue from it. However, carmakers may be hesitant to invest in what they see as a competing product.
I don’t think Apple sees this as a promising revenue stream. It’s just another way to encourage people to stay within the walled garden. That seems many times more valuable than any possible licensing fees they would get from manufacturers
Isn't the value of CarPlay/AndroidAuto indirect? As in that the value is coming from the data being generated to enable better mapping? Because the truth is that some of these mapping services' main utilities depend on a large network of users (e.g. information about congestion, road notices, etc[0]). In that way it seems beneficial to get your app onto as many vehicles as possible and even gives motivation for making CarPlay cross-platform (even if the main benefits only go to Apple users).
[0] Also, wtf AndroidAuto. You pull data from Waze users for things like speed traps, road hazzards, etc, but you don't let me contribute when using Auto? Why is there no button (or voice command) "report road hazard"? Hell, this'll even help you classify events for your ML models.
I agree this is the optimal way of seeing it. Apple did not do the same with App Store though. The initial vision was to just apply enough fees for hosting and vetting the apps. Now with the way they hold on to the 15/17/30% fee, they are treating it like a revenue stream instead of a "courtesy service".
In that respect a UI made by Apple will certainly appeal to an audience already demanding current CarPlay. On the other hand, it could be that the current level of CarPlay integration is already enough.
Because the solutions the auto makers came up with _sucked_ and as it’s not core to the operation of the car, I’d prefer it be done by someone that even approximately knows what they’re doing with software?
I am not buying the car for their infotainment features, I’m buying it for the car. I’d like it the entertainment bits were just delegated to the setup I already have…
I don't need my whole car UI to be taken over by my phone. My car maker solution to display and control speed, HVAC, gas tank/battery status is perfectly fine.
Bluetooth but for cars.
Such a missed opportunity.
Yes, Siri is terrible, but the EUs new DMA law requires that I be able to select a different voice assistant on iOS too, and that should theoretically, once implemented, also apply to CarPlay.
In my opinion, and while I haven't used "Android Auto" I have used "Android Automotive" (the OS version, without a phone driving the integration), CarPlay the infotainment integration (besides Siri) offers a better user experience.
Super annoying when you want to set an alarm in a timezone you are going to be traveling to.
I really hope Siri gets that LLM-based upgrade in iOS18 but I can cope with it for now.
Car manufacturers have had decades to develop their software but almost all are difficult to work with, slow, give bad user feedback (full screen pop-up with entire paragraphs while navigating) and are cumbersome to get accustomed to when switching cars.
I’m one of the 79% that demands CarPlay, if it’s not part of the car I don’t want it.
Good I bought the car, now get out of my life. I’m not paying hundreds of dollars for GPS map updates when I can plug in my phone and use any other mapping app’s evergreen maps. Also, subscriptions for heated seats are patently absurd.
Typically this difference of one model-year can add thousands to the cost of the vehicle, especially because wireless car-play is so coveted. The experience of wireless is fantastic, but is it worth several thousand dollars? Maybe, but herein lies the trick.
Buy a dongle. They're about $100 for a good one. They can be tucked away in the vehicle. They work almost* as good as integrated wireless car-play.
*Maybe add 5 seconds to auto-connect when you get in your car.
We've upgraded the wired one with one of those dongles. It mostly works, but has some quirks. The three most annoying:
* Phone calls result in a feedback loop for the other end. Essentially, they break the in-car noise cancellation and playback the caller audio to the caller.
* When my wife pulls in the garage, my phone will connect - even though it should have been connected to her phone.
* The USB port that connects to the head unit remains power for a period of time after the vehicle is off. Annoying when I'm in the kitchen (next to the garage) and my phone keeps trying to CarPlay.
EDIT: I'm also realizing that I believe the car with Wireless has associated each of our keys with our phones. Despite them both being paired, it will prioritize the phone last used with the key. That's pretty handy for not having to fight with pairing.
Moral of the story: Don't buy a head unit from Pioneer. They suck ass. This is quite possibly the shittiest tech product I have ever spent money on.
But boy it’s enraging to use with multiple phones when you share a car with someone. It will stay connected to other person phone, while in range, and, if you to call that person, car will ring. It’s chaos… or maybe it’s just me.
Otherwise my trips are usually short enough. Also my phone's dual screen addon case (LG V60) blocks the USB port.
Prior to switching to Apple, I was running into major issues with USB-C ports being hyper sensitive to physical positioning. Charge would always work, but Android Auto would simply drop out seemingly randomly. Didn't matter on cable. It was just something that would happen.
Tapping on the screen for the next song or pressing the steering wheel button to do the same can take a half second or more. Doing it on the phone is nearly instantaneous, just a very tiny audio delay.
Using a cable? Never any delay at all. Unnoticeable.
Between that and the fact that it can really burn battery I’m happy to plug it in every time.
This problem didn't exist at all before going wireless.
The delay though… ouch.
Bought a dongle for £55, works fine.
Love having a car with a steering wheel with real buttons, and climate controls with real knobs.
It feels like around 2018 is the zenith of Human Machine Interface in cars and it's all been downhill since, as they cram everything in a fucking touchscreen.
"Kinda works" for a while, with a noticeable delay when changing songs etc.
Actually pondering replacing the infotainment system itself to get wireless airplay.
CarPlay v1, however, is an absolute requirement. It works great and gives me pretty much everything I want.
Tangential I know, but I giggled at yet another example of Google's incompetent branding and product naming. How a company filled with so many brilliant people can be so bad at brand strategy is baffling to me.
The fact that it's still confusing with android auto being another thing is I think partly on purpose, to make it look like Android is doing more than what it's actually responsible for.
> There used to be a big difference in driving characteristics and technology between premium and budget brands. Compared to a Volkswagen, a BMW used to have a more powerful engine, better handling, and comfort features like seat-heating and cruise control. However, a Volkswagen Golf now has similar tech as a BMW and with the transition to EVs, drivetrains and handling won't be the same differentiator as before.
The thing is: that didn't used to be that way. You can blame it on the transition to EVs, but part of that transition seems to be that a bunch of manufacturers decided not to build their own platforms, motors, etc and are just licensing from other manufacturers*. The article's correct to note that flattens a lot of the value proposition of any given manufacturer, and if that's forcing them to lean in a lot on the software, that's a weird position for an automotive manufacturer, because that's never been anyone in the industry's strong suite - there's a reason 80% of drivers won't buy a car without CarPlay.
It's also notable that the brands who do seem to be going in on CarPlay are those that still make a point of building their own engines and platforms - Aston, Porsche, and even Polestar tries to differentiate itself there.
* to be clear, this was happening before EVs, too - BMW put out a car that shared a platform with a Toyota, in a move that should've caused a plague of locust to descend on Munich if God existed and had a driver's license, and Stellantis put a Lancia badge on a Chrysler a couple years back.
It seems maybe tesla is the one fighting it. I think the original model S used steering wheel stalks from mercedes?
Now they do so many things themselves (or don't do in case of stalks), to the point of making their own chips for the machine learning stuff.
Why is this bad on BMW? Doesn't Toyota make the most reliable cars?
Perhaps the group behind OBD II?
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/everything-you-need-to-kn...
Elon was, for a long time, the genius billionaire who saves us from climate change and gets us to Mars, so even in liberal cycles he was liked until he bought Twitter (or until he became a sh1tposter on Twitter).
Some people just like the software, some don't. Me personally, find it way too much, too complicated and I am not going to control my AC over touch screen, sorry.
Obsolescence - ‘your phone is too old to use with this car’ or your car being too old for your phone. Double points for software updates to either which disable functions or features.
Vendor lock-in - are the players mutually exclusive? Does having a phone from one manufacturer limit my car choices?
Realistically it's going to be the other way around
In some 2024 Mazda models they are finally letting you choose to keep the touch screen working while moving, letting you use either the wheel or the touch screen. I don't think either company will still be disabling touch screens/wheel only inputs for CarPlay for very much longer. Similarly, the new infotainment platform for Lexus cars has done away with weird input devices ("Remote Touch") and you can just poke the screen with a finger.
This is a really good case study in how difficult it is to find a balance between co-branding and maintaining a consistently high-quality design system across co-branding partners. There's a massive amount of work across UI/UX design and implementation done at Apple that assumes that widgets are not only using a serif font, but a specific serif font with specific kerning; that color-primary-60 and color-primary-50 and color-for-text-on-top-of-primary-60 are distinguished in a very specific way.
(Light/dark mode and localization efforts force a degree of flexibility here, but there are still a finite set of QA targets if you focus on primary language markets.)
But what happens if multiple partners want their own primary color and font? This suddenly has far-reaching, costly ramifications across multiple organizations. Even having planned your APIs from day one around color and style customizability doesn't guarantee that this can be done successfully. Taken to an extreme, frontend engineers (not just their embedded designers) are practically required to hold the context of all future potential customization needs in mind when implementing a component - a nigh impossible ask.
Which is to say that there are few companies that could pull off what the OP posits that car manufacturers are requesting, having a world-class interface that is customized to their brand. That's a tall order even for Apple's depth of talent.
Probably unpopular opinion, but I preferred mechanical gauges anyway.
Why can't we let the car deal with car-related functions and Apple deal with playing podcasts and showing maps? It seems like the best of both worlds to me. Apple is solving a problem that doesn't need solving.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Apple could design a better interface than car manufacturers, but is it really worth the hassle?
I also really don't like wireless charging. It spares the port from constant wear but my device tends to get really hot and the charging is very inefficient. I plan to go back to slow wired charging everywhere to put less strain on the battery. I already have in my car and by my PC. Unfortunately my XC40 doesn't support dual screen CarPlay so I use the Google Maps in Android Automotive for navigation and use CarPlay for music, podcasts, etc. Switching from AA Google Maps and CarPlay and back is not a high friction interaction though so it's an okay solution. I'm also able to deactivate wireless charging so I'm pretty happy with this solution.
(a) a standardized mechanism for attaching and powering your phone on its dashboard (think a "mini VESA mount" with options for USB/wireless charging)
(b) bluetooth HID-compatible physical controls on the steering wheel and/or center console so you don't have to reach for your device
(c) a minified car "radio" that only offers AM/FM radio and bluetooth audio connectivity
All other controls should be physical, copied straight out of a 90s/00s car.
- TV's that only display images without syphoning user data;
- One-time payment app purchase without subscription.
This results in the worst possible outcome: I need to take my phone and read the messages on my phone screen, creating a safety risk.
The only downside I've experienced with it in Japan is the GPS can be wonky in tunnels whereas the car's built-in GPS seemingly doesn't.
I’m willing to bet that the soonest any large OEM could offer CarPlay 2 would be next year. The development process is just too slow to turn around something.
As soon as customers demand better, there will be better/easier integration between the two components.
Now, as I face the inevitability of replacing my car due to dubious environmental regulations (current car emits less than modern but twice heavier ones), I'm genuinely concerned about the current state of car infotainment systems. They feel overly complex, bloated, and fragile, prioritizing features over functionality and user experience. The shift towards these systems seems more like a downgrade, sacrificing reliability and usability for unnecessary add-ons that don't improve the driving experience.
Anyone in the same position? What car would you recommend that meets environmental standards but keeps the infotainment system super simple, or even non-existent?
I have no idea if it’s the car or CarPlay but could I please just have a toggle somewhere?
Yet when I enter my car and CarPlay starts for some reason maybe 50% of the time (not all of the time even) it randomly decides to play the last song I streamed in Apple Music 2-3 years ago. WTF Apple?
That's the downside of choosing apps that are not cross platform. Don't do that if you want to have the freedom to use different systems.
I don't like that car manufacturer has to use Apple / Google software, why can they not make an app that you install and your phone connects to the car in a useful way.
The reason is that only Apple apps have the required permissions and system access to do it.
I've had some rental cars that wanted me to install a manufacturer app. Super annoying! Just let me plug my phone in and project my screen and speakers. I don't want to get adjusted to a new UI with each car I drive, or worse sync stuff. I also have zero interest to find out what software a car company will develop. Car companies should make cars and leave infotainment to my phone and companies that are experts in it. Built-in infotainment in cars is even worse than "smart" tvs.
The screenshots there make me feel pretty good about keeping my car from the 90's if that's the current state of new cars.
The fact that everyone seems to think CarPlay is great though I guess suggests that the problem lies with the implementation details with the VW.
> there is no match for seamlessly transferring the phone's state to the car.
I’ll point out it’s not at all seamless. In fact it’s extremely cumbersome to fish out a lightning cable and plug the phone in. A good car infotainment system where I didn’t have to connect my phone at all would be seamless.
This seems like a missed opportunity for Apple - they can release a screen less device bundled with a cheap 4g connection and smooth out other integration issues for sharing / setup etc.
By this we have no vendor lock in and just making sure there is a protocol downwards compatibility…
What's the big deal about CarPlay 2, then? Who cares?
The one cool feature was that Google maps driving directions showed up on the front instrument cluster in addition to the center console. That’s a feature I’d like to have more broadly.
Since my older cars do not have it, having a great mount (Peak Design) makes a huge difference, but damn I want it integrated if only for the bigger screen.
The instrument cluster?
Any other safety-critical functions that the iPhone isn't isolated from?
(No, I don't even want Bluetooth, ugh).
Everywhere else in my house, I try to make gadgets independent of one another. I remember when a printer worked only when it was hooked to a PC to be its server. That was bad. It’s much better for my printer to hook to the network directly.
Some thermostats require a phone to program them. That’s bad. The thermostat should have full functionality as a stand-alone device. My dishwasher requires a smartphone app to work some of its features. Bad. My old dishwasher was fully controllable from the panel on front.
A car is no different. I don’t want to have to plug my phone into my car like a dongle, even wirelessly. The car should connect to the network itself and have needed applications like nav and music. Maybe car-makers suck at making this software, so maybe Apple or Google should make it for them. Or maybe carmakers should get better at it.
But no, I’m never going to think that plugging my phone into my car is any better of a kludge than is forcing me to get out my phone to work my dishwasher.
I love that when I search for something with Google Maps it knows, typically in a letter or two, what place I'm trying to go to. I don't want to use a different music service in my car -- it has all my playlists and my "likes" already.
Do I want Ford to write its own implementation of Google Maps or Pandora? Why? Seems stupid to have 10 different implementations of the same service.
I’d rather connect my phone, for which I’ll update the hardware 4+ times over the time I own my car, and get the corresponding OS and software updates yearly or more frequently. Send that data to the car’s reliable and dumb screen(s) from my chosen phone and I’m in control and happier for it.
For the love of god, keep them separate. One is critical vehicle functionality. There other can crash/reboot/have connectivity issues, without me being concerned about knowing the engine is overheating/battery pack is dead, a tire is blowing out via TPS or I'm speeding.
I don't want a car that is CarPlay only, guess what, my car is not an accessory to my phone. The genius of current Android Auto/CarPlay is that the car head unit can act as a mostly "dumb" head unit for my external mobile processor.
Except it isn't. Can you start or continue driving without any of that info? Then it isn't critical.
Critical functionality is:
- steering
- drivetrain
- brakes
- tyres
Except Tesla is doing it right. Mercedes software is a mess. It's hard to explain why, but use it for a few days and it's just obvious.
Car makers what "differentiation". Uh huh. That is literally, exactly, what consumers do NOT want or benefit from.
I want consistency so that I can get in a rental car, or my friend's car, or my new car,
and have sh-t just work.
The LAST thing I want is a curated subset of familiar apps and controls, plus crappily designed but "cool looking" replacements all about convenying Brand(tm) Values.
My car (a Volvo) has two of these three apps built-in.
I stopped reading the rest of the article.
My 2022 Subaru Outback head unit frequently crashes or is really unresponsive. My iPhone never crashes.
Car infotainment systems are garbage. I’d never buy a car without CarPlay. It’s maybe the #1 measure I have for vehicle quality when I rent on vacation.
On the other hand, the voice command system works as badly as it did when I got the car, while Siri has gotten worse.
The insane lag to enter anything on google maps on my 2024 Yukon is ridiculous. Worse, the fact it makes me TYPE in the touchscreen instead of letting me do this on the phone is yet another reason to completely ditch it. Google could easily let me control it through the phone (as they do with youtube on my tv) but I doubt they care enough to do that.
It should be straightforward, pick a direction on my phone, beam to car, car opens it automatically in google maps. That is not difficult.
I installed a new stereo for my old car today, intentionally avoided CarPlay and got a simple non-touchscreen JVC. $60, 15 minute DIY job, BT paired instantly, has aux too, and sounds great.
That said, a car without CarPlay is simply out of the pool of possible cars I would buy. It's a requirement.
I could care less if my car has Apple or android auto at this point. I would rip it out immediately if it had one. Any always on connectivity would be removed.
Car manufacturers are increasingly selling off your private data and leveraging all of these technology upgrades you paid for to do it. As soon as the car is connected to the internet, it’s shipping off your private data and selling it to data brokers. Manufacturers are hiding behind their wall of text called “terms of service” to do so [1]
In some cases the manufacturers are reporting your driving history to insurance companies so they can get any reason to bump your rates or deny you coverage . [2]
My dream car is now a “dumb” car.
Give me a car with a simple backup camera, manual transmission, and regular sized vehicle (no trucks or suvs, fuck that).
[1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/technology/gm-lexis-nexis...
So what exactly are you ranting about here? Why this rant when you don't seem to know what those technologies are?
Why can't we stop companies selling our data? You'd think it's easy:
--- very clear opt-in method for having your data sold
--- rejecting cannot prevent regular use of services
--- heavy penalties for breaking these rules
Problem is that no politician wants to touch this because
--- manufacturers sell data to subsidize the product
--- if they can't sell data, costs are going to shoot up
--- if they do this in response to a law, they get to raise costs even more because it affects the whole industry at the same time and there's a clear scapegoat
Consumers care a LOT more about their cheap, connected devices than their privacy. Because getting by your data like [2] happens to individuals, but costs affect the group.
EDIT: To clarify, the MP only suggested that costs would go up and people don't care. The rest is my personal speculation.
I'd much rather see stronger privacy legislation that bars companies from selling your data to third parties -- period, no exceptions, no opt-in terms that offer customers more features or services if they'll agree to privacy violations.
And then actual enforcement, with fines high enough that they can't just be shrugged off as the cost of doing business.
While I don't think we'll ever get quite there, I do think we're going to be moving in that direction. I do have a car with connected features, and I live in California, and I've already instructed them that they may not sell my data to third parties. I don't know if they actually follow the law on that, but it's a start.
This isn't meant to be a dig of Apple vs Android - I think I would feel the same about CarPlay if i was on iOS.
I think we just value different things. As someone who wants to be able to drive, navigate with google maps, listen to a podcast, and handle incoming messages, but do it safely, these integrations are incredible.
Obviously good. Driving is incredibly dangerous to other people and insurance companies are the most motivated to make it safer.
Every partnership Apple enters must result in Apple winning and the other party simply being a subservient cog
So, no one wants to do business with them in new markets where Apple doesn't have leverage
This is why they couldn't get a manufacturing partner for the now-dead Apple car...no one wanted to be the Foxconn of cars (they do all the work, Apple gets all the credit)
