[HN Gopher] Apple's risky bet on CarPlay
___________________________________________________________________
Apple's risky bet on CarPlay
Author : vsdlrd
Score : 267 points
Date : 2024-04-23 17:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theturnsignalblog.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theturnsignalblog.com)
| daanvr wrote:
| My next car must have CarPlay...
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| Apple is a predatory partner
|
| 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)
| resource_waste wrote:
| How would Apple not have leverage in the car market? There are
| 18 companies and only 1 Apple Logo.
|
| I think Apple failed on cars because they are significantly
| more complex then hobbling off-the-shelf electrical parts
| together and slapping an OS on it. Think of how many companies
| can assemble electronics and make OS. Its easy, literal sub 18
| year olds make prototypes like this.
| tnmom wrote:
| I am _very_ happy that the manufacturer of my car is a
| subservient cog wrt the infotainment system. They suck at when
| they're not a subservient cog.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| You're suffering from Tim Cook Derangement Syndrome.
| mannyv wrote:
| CarPlay mostly works, and although it has issues it's definitely
| user-focused.
|
| 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?
| the_snooze wrote:
| >Control over what, exactly?
|
| 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.
| s0rce wrote:
| Do people do that? I just use my phone beside the old useless
| infotainment. Honestly, I wouldn't buy a new car that used an
| in-house infotainment specifically because they go obsolete
| quickly (<5-10 years) and cannot be economically (or at all)
| to the latest tech. Carplay seems to be long lived.
| hx833001 wrote:
| No degradation at all for me over seven years. It's a game
| changer. Car still feels new
| brewdad wrote:
| My vehicle (a mid teens Volvo) doesn't support CarPlay or
| AA. Its infotainment system gets its data from 3G, so it
| doesn't get data anymore. Music is through Bluetooth, which
| works well enough. Navigating means using the clunky in-car
| nav with no traffic data or a phone with the volume turned
| way up.
|
| It's far from ideal but at least I have zero expectations
| for my next car.
| ddmitriev wrote:
| I replaced the head unit on my car from the same era with
| an aftermarket Sony XAV-9000ES unit that has wireless
| carplay support. It takes about 10 seconds to connect
| after powering up the electronics but is otherwise
| seamless. Full steering wheel controls too (volume,
| next/prev track, pause/resume, mute). No car info, but
| the car is old enough to have a proper gauge cluster.
|
| There are also dash-mounted "carplay screens" that are
| both much cheaper and much easier to install but lack
| integrations/require hacky solutions to get, say, audio
| out.
| ruszki wrote:
| Why don't you use bluetooth to navigate with your phone?
| adrr wrote:
| You don't like paying $300 for a map update? On my car, Nav
| + traffic was $3k. CarPlay was $300 and I get multiple map
| choices like Waze or Google maps. Only infotainment that
| comes close is Tesla yet map data is always out of date
| with construction road closures.
| daanvr wrote:
| For me, the fact that it updates with your phone every year
| is a game-changer! The end of those bad user interfaces.
| m463 wrote:
| come on. It is AOL of cars.
|
| 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.
| com2kid wrote:
| Heck simple bluetooth audio playback has degraded year over
| year in my car. After an android update a few years back I
| don't get to see the track name any more, pause/play sort of
| works, and thankfully audio still comes through and I can go
| to the previous/next track.
|
| Without constant updates, software that is part a a larger
| ecosystem will eventually breakdown.
| the_snooze wrote:
| >Without constant updates, software that is part a a larger
| ecosystem will eventually breakdown.
|
| This is why we should be so skeptical of tight software
| integration with durable hardware (e.g., cars and
| appliances with operational lifespans 10+ years easily).
| Software has a pretty short half-life, especially software
| that integrates with internet services; vulnerabilities get
| discovered in third-party components and remote APIs shift
| out from under you.
|
| Durable goods manufacturers have little skill or interest
| in long-term software upkeep (maybe they like the profits
| and the rent-seeking, but not the actual maintenance), so
| the most sustainable design is one where the software is
| easily seperable and replaceable from the core durable
| item. Manufacturer-specific internet-connected infotainment
| in cars ain't it.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| >so the most sustainable design is one where the software
| is easily seperable and replaceable from the core durable
| item.
|
| No, the most realistically sustainable design is one
| where the software is built into the durable item and not
| connected to the internet, so it never changes and
| doesn't need to worry about security issues. You can keep
| using the thing until it fails from mechanical issues and
| can't be easily repaired.
|
| If it's internet-connected for some reason, then the
| software should be open-source so interested parties can
| take over maintenance after the OEM decides they don't
| want to bother any more. However, I don't consider this
| "realistic": how many manufacturers are going to do this
| in reality? Almost none: they want you to buy a
| replacement device.
| kergonath wrote:
| > No, the most realistically sustainable design is one
| where the software is built into the durable item and not
| connected to the internet, so it never changes and
| doesn't need to worry about security issues.
|
| How would that work in a car, where people expect map
| updates and streaming music or radio over the internet?
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Just like that. Robust, simple software, open standards a
| r/w partition for map data. Having well-defined, narrow
| access to the outside world is much easier to secure and
| keep working.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| I don't think it would. I was really thinking more about
| things like home appliances. An embedded computer is
| handy for a washing machine, for instance, but it doesn't
| need to be connected to the internet (no, notifying you
| it's finished isn't necessary: the machine should tell
| you when you press "start" approximately how long it will
| take).
|
| For a car, I really don't know. I don't see any way of
| putting up-to-date navigation software into a dashboard
| without a significant security risk, which means needing
| the ability to keep software updated. Even CarPlay/AA are
| non-trivial and would need security updates.
| com2kid wrote:
| > No, the most realistically sustainable design is one
| where the software is built into the durable item and not
| connected to the internet, so it never changes and
| doesn't need to worry about security issues. You can keep
| using the thing until it fails from mechanical issues and
| can't be easily repaired.
|
| My car isn't connected to the internet, it has not
| received any updates. However Google enjoys messing with
| the Android BT stack for whatever reason (there was a
| period in the mid 2010s where BT on Android was
| dramatically ~broken~ rewritten every couple of years),
| so accordingly my car has lost functionality.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what VW did? No more GPS. Just use CarPlay.
| leovander wrote:
| Top of my head, most car makers aren't rolling their own. It's
| either off the shelf with some white labeling or they buy it
| from another care manufacturer. i.e. Mazda default infotainment
| can be found in some Toyotas
| neogodless wrote:
| Not sure if there's any more to it than this, but the Toyota
| Yaris is a rebadged Mazda 2. I suspect you won't find Mazda
| infotainment in other Toyota models, though.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| I think you're right.
|
| Also, the Mazda infotainment in the mid-late 2010s was made
| by Johnson Controls. The newer systems might be too, I
| don't know.
| moduspol wrote:
| I mean, theoretically they could make money by selling
| additional services. Tesla sells "Premium Connectivity" for
| ~$10/mo, though it might be against the license agreements
| traditional manufacturers have with dealers to sell
| enhancements directly to the consumer.
|
| 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.
| throwaway11460 wrote:
| Every traditional European car manufacturer sells services
| directly to customers. Not sure about the US/Japanese/Korean,
| though.
| geoelectric wrote:
| Historically, Hyundai/Genesis charged $300/yr for BlueLink
| connected care. Think my 2023 Ioniq 5 is one of the last
| (EV) models with that yearly charge, and that year's Ioniq
| 6 and subsequent models get it free.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think they're planning on offering
| it free to my model or earlier, and I don't know if the
| same deal exists for ICE cars.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> In the end, consumers don't give a shit about the in-vehicle
| infotainment.
|
| 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.
| baseballdork wrote:
| > Remember that many people are not buying cars for
| themselves but for other people, usually family.
|
| Can you explain this? I guess maybe the devil is in "many"?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Unless you are single, and even then you carry occasional
| passengers, many/most cars are used by multiple people. So
| people who buy cars are thinking not just about the primary
| driver but about all the other people who will drive/ride
| in the car too. Nobody buying a car actually wants in-dash
| 4k movies, but they think that their partner/kids will.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's true for some features (the wife (and I, to be fair)
| were pretty strongly on the "heated seats" side of
| things) but things like infotainment were not
| _dealbreakers_ if everything else lined up.
|
| But CarPlay is darn close; I'd not say I'd never buy a
| car without it but having it means I don't need to worry
| if the infotainment setup is crap or not, because I won't
| be using it.
| kelnos wrote:
| This doesn't really ring true for me. I agree that when
| people buy cars, they are often not just buying for
| themselves. But the purchase decision is not usually made
| without input from the other drivers. Well, a purchaser
| will probably discuss things with their spouse, and ask
| if they care about particular features. But in the case
| of someone buying a car for their kid, it's usually
| "they'll get what they get, and they'll like it".
| chgs wrote:
| Kids are in the back and thus a screen in the back is
| what's needed. An iPad or similar will do that, so a
| place to mount would be good.
|
| By the time they are old enough to be in the front they
| have their own phone and headphones and care less about a
| mounted display than they do about a TV.
| vsdlrd wrote:
| I thought about that as well. At the moment, CarPlay can't take
| over every function so carmakers still have to make their own.
| But in the long term, there is an opportunity for Apple to make
| the whole thing and monetize it as a cost-saver to carmakers
| krater23 wrote:
| No, never. This would mean to concentrate only to customers
| with Apple devices. Why should a carmaker do this?
| londons_explore wrote:
| I assume Apple would also provide code for a fallback UI
| that offered basic functionality for when you didn't have
| an iphone attached.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| CarPlay poverty mode. Sign me up.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Basically Valet mode for the headunit.
| eloisant wrote:
| So everything turns green?
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah it's CarPlay or whatever Android uses, or I want nothing
| to do with it.
|
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Every single car I have rented in the last ~5 years in the US
| has had CarPlay.
| ossusermivami wrote:
| I just carry those vent phone holder and use my phone when
| renting cars.. it's not the best but does the job for getting
| to the hotel....
|
| obviously i rather have carplay if i could but i am worry
| about security implication, plugging to a car i don't know
| daanvr wrote:
| The auto industry is really at a crucial point with how it
| integrates tech. As cars get more autonomous, infotainment is
| becoming a key part of our driving experience. I'm wondering,
| are carmakers at risk of falling behind if they don't embrace
| platforms like CarPlay? Or do they have solid reasons to keep
| developing their systems in-house to keep control over their
| tech narrative?
| potatolicious wrote:
| > _" So they have control? Control over what, exactly?"_
|
| 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?
| anthony_d wrote:
| For what it's worth I agree on #1. I really like RR/Jaguar's
| current UI. When I'm in a rental or someone else's car and
| I'm forced to use CarPlay I hate it. Feels like I've been
| pushed to kindergarten and given crayons... any car
| manufacturer that just expects me to use CarPlay is probably
| not on my potential buy list.
|
| I might be unusual in my preference but I really expect
| people to have preferences as strong.
| eloisant wrote:
| Android Automotive is already way beyond what manufacturers
| are releasing as "their own".
|
| 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.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > 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
| netsharc wrote:
| It's a bit aggravating that a slice of money I pay when
| buying a car goes to paying for development of the
| infotainment, which can be shoddy. It's like paying the
| Windows tax when buying a laptop with it pre-installed.
|
| 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..
| numpad0 wrote:
| I wonder how much of those frustrations has to do with Japanese
| market share of car industry; I think the touchscreen
| infotainment is not there because car manufacturers value it as
| integral and central part of car experience but simply because
| otherwise their product loses against one of Japanese brands.
|
| 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...
| ryandrake wrote:
| Don't Japanese people have smartphones or tablets with
| navigation on them that they can use? I'd rather cars just
| have a place I can mount my own device, rather than include
| any kind of screen whatsoever with crappy un-updated, un-
| maintained software.
| babypuncher wrote:
| This is sort of the goal of Android Auto and CarPlay, but
| not as a mount for your phone. Rather, it turns the screen
| into a dumb terminal for your phone, bypassing all the
| shitty built-in software and providing a UX designed
| specifically for use while driving.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| And critically lets you directly access CarPlay
| interfaces to apps for streaming, podcasts, navigation,
| etc, all of which is much richer than a dumb audio only
| passthru with skip buttons.
| drekipus wrote:
| In car navigation came before mobile smart phones
| adamomada wrote:
| Ironically, the nav unit I used on a rental car circa
| 2007-08 (birth of touchscreen smartphones) was exactly
| like the GP describes, a separate unit that had a mount
| like the modern smartphone variants.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Phone navigation apps are surprisingly bad in Japan (Google
| ones in particular). Not unusable, but the in-car GPS is
| more competitive than in other markets IMHO.
|
| Also with an aging population a phone screen is just too
| small for many.
|
| BTW, to parent's point VW has been trying different
| approaches with a top mounted GPS/infotainment unit that
| can be omitted on cheaper trims.
| onethought wrote:
| Aging population prefers low quality tiny screens with
| awkward interfaces?
| oneplane wrote:
| They prefer something they are already familiar with.
| chgs wrote:
| That's one reason I use CarPlay - the interface hasn't
| changed for years. Apart from one really annoying change
| to Apple Maps when they replaced the "silence directions"
| toggle from a big square to a touch, wait, touch tiny
| icon interface.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| They're not tiny, at least not compared to a phone.
|
| https://www.daihatsu.co.jp/lineup/move_canbus/03_exterior
| _in...
| 10u152 wrote:
| Damn that looks like a cool car. Shame it's Japan only
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Japan gets way better small car options than the US.
| lobochrome wrote:
| That's not true. Google Maps, in particular, has by far
| the best route guidance. It used to be different - but
| not anymore. Most in-car systems don't even attempt to
| route the last 300m here because the detailed one-way
| street narrow layout of tiny streets isn't in their
| mapping data, or their algorithms are too weak. Google
| has mostly no problem with that.
|
| Entering Japanese addresses IS tricky, though; here,
| custom-built Japanese solutions outshine. There are
| (mainly) no street names; instead, you specify your
| location by filtering down from Prefecture (Tokyo), City
| (Ota-ku), Commune (Kugahara), District (1-Chome), Block
| (26), House Number (1).
|
| Japanese systems allow you to enter it this way - with
| Google (or, even worse, Apple Maps), it's a bit hacky.
| You would specify it as Kugahara 1-26-1 and hope for the
| best.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Google Maps fails in subtle but weird and sometimes
| costly ways.
|
| On one side, it can't route through a bunch of valid
| paths. I first assumed it could be because of residents
| asking Google to cut traffic, but sometimes it's not even
| through residential areas. I see routes on the map that
| are avoided in favor of bigger loops, and when trying the
| shorter routes they're perfectly fine. Or perhaps it's
| the vehicle size and they optimize for SUVs ?
|
| On the other side it will happily route you through paths
| that are restricted to specific categories of cars. It's
| up to the driver to carefully avoid them, but it really
| wants you to go through and reroutes you there when you
| deviate, so it's a huge PITA in areas you don't know and
| try to navigate while ignoring the navigation
| instructions. Cops seem to have noticed it, We've got
| fined the first time we fucked up, and now that I'm aware
| of the issue I see the cops in many of these spots
| basically waiting for the jackpot.
| bunabhucan wrote:
| >avoided in favor of bigger loops
|
| At this point at google, I wouldn't be surprised if they
| were selling your route to advertizers to "optimize your
| driving experience."
| shagie wrote:
| It should not be a surprise at all.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230129231747/https://www.wa
| ze....
|
| https://www.waze.com/ads/
| pr337h4m wrote:
| Why not use plus codes? They're well-integrated into
| Google Maps: https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/
| makeitdouble wrote:
| TIL.
|
| The weird part is Maps will accept them for search, but
| not display the plus code except when looking at POI
| (randomly selecting a point on the map doesn't show it
| for me, I only could get that from the /pluscodes/ map)
|
| This seems genuinely useful, but as usual we're having
| the chicken and egg problem to get it adopted ?
| solardev wrote:
| In mobile at least, you can touch and hold to make a red
| temporary POI that will show you the plus code.
|
| But yeah, nobody uses it in the real World. If I need to
| share a point with someone else I'll just send them the
| Google Maps share URL instead, which has its own
| shortcode
| presentation wrote:
| I notice that Google Maps does very poorly on my iPhone
| 13 Pro with the multi-level roads, like riding around in
| the tunnels under Tokyo or on the roads with highways
| above the local roads, whereas builtin navigation units
| usually have no problems with this. I also find their
| directions to be much harder to follow than the built-in
| navigation units when riding around the major roads where
| turning right requires you to exit to the left for
| instance. Also, Google Maps fails to provide the variety
| of route options with fine-grained toll-booth costs, that
| all navigation units I've used in the last 5 years have
| gotten spot-on.
| shagie wrote:
| Japan has some challenges with traditional GPS and
| satellites that can be low on and buildings interrupt the
| signal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-
| Zenith_Satellite_System
|
| > The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), also known as
| Michibiki (michibiki), is a four-satellite regional
| satellite navigation system and a satellite-based
| augmentation system developed by the Japanese government
| to enhance the United States-operated Global Positioning
| System (GPS) in the Asia-Oceania regions, with a focus on
| Japan.
|
| ...
|
| > The primary purpose of QZSS is to increase the
| availability of GPS in Japan's numerous urban canyons,
| where only satellites at very high elevation can be seen.
| A secondary function is performance enhancement,
| increasing the accuracy and reliability of GPS derived
| navigation solutions. The Quasi-Zenith Satellites
| transmit signals compatible with the GPS L1C/A signal, as
| well as the modernized GPS L1C, L2C signal and L5
| signals. This minimizes changes to existing GPS
| receivers.
|
| Its got a neat orbit that does a figure 8 with the apogee
| over Japan (see also
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra_orbit )
| kingrazor wrote:
| That definitely does not match my experience. I was in
| Japan in December of 2022 and used my phone to get
| everywhere, the directions were extremely accurate, more-
| so than in my home town in the US.
| astrange wrote:
| Cars can have better GPS reception, which is important when
| you're trying to drive in an urban area with a lot of
| buildings. Phones are bad at accuracy there.
|
| (CarPlay can provide car GPS to the phone though.)
| katbyte wrote:
| My iPhone 12 has much better reception then my 22 Tacoma
| even when tossed on the passenger seat.
|
| Like waaaaaay better and more accurate
| withinboredom wrote:
| It just pretends to be more accurate by using AI. A car
| tends to be more raw, which is what you want when
| navigating at speed.
|
| As someone who used to help out with Waze maps, raw GPS
| tracks from phones can be WAAAY off from actual roads and
| other GPS tracks.
|
| Your phone looks for the most likely road for you to be
| on and snaps you to that road. Your car does a similar
| thing but has much higher GPS resolution than your phone
| so it is more likely to be right.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Could we please for once stop using the term "AI" when we
| mean "heuristics"?
| withinboredom wrote:
| Phones do use AI though, at least iPhones. They look at
| all sensors (accelerometers, gps, wifi, etc).
| lupusreal wrote:
| Sensor fusion is AI I guess.
| withinboredom wrote:
| AI can be distilled down to a series of if-statements.
| That's basically all it is.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Right, expert systems are GOF AI. What isn't?
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Gosh, so the moment you use an if-statement, or an
| aggregate function (like sum or average), or weighting
| coefficients to mark some inputs as more significant than
| others, it's "AI" already? And I naively thought it was
| just, well, "computing". You could do "AI" on a 8086,
| ffs.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Yeah, forgot the /s ... wasn't being serious.
| rusticpenn wrote:
| heuristics and Meta-heuristics are AI. Heuristics are how
| children (and adults) learn to solve new problems.
| katbyte wrote:
| no it IS more accurate. When i am off-roading i always
| record my track and have to unplug my phone from the
| trucks system to get an accurate un-smoothed track.
|
| google maps does weird things but gaia just uses the raw
| GPS data from the phone and doesn't snap, however when
| you are plugged into carplay the phone seems to always
| consider the car/trucks data more accurate even when its
| clearly not.
|
| this could very well my specific truck (dealer has
| refused to look and i don't have another to compare to)
| or a general tacoma thing but it both smooths the GPS
| data to make "nicer" looking lines and often introduces
| drift over time as likely some processing it does
| compounds an error
|
| (i also realize i said the wrong phone, iphone 14 not 12
| but even with the 12 it was notably better then the truck
| but the 14 pro has a much improved GPS and it shows)
| withinboredom wrote:
| AFAIK, and I could be wrong (though I did google this
| first), plugging your phone into CarPlay does not use the
| car's gps unit. That's just your phone trying to find a
| road because it's connected to a car. Even if you are
| getting the car's gps, it's not going to give you raw
| values, but display values to show in an app, which
| should be smooth, IMHO.
| astrange wrote:
| No, it does use the car's GPS unit if it's provided to
| the phone. Which is why I started this thread by saying
| it did.
| katbyte wrote:
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250076351?sortBy=bes
| t
|
| > If your vehicle has wireless CarPlay, the iPhone's GPS
| chip is completely ignored.
|
| > If your vehicle has wired CarPlay, the iPhone's GPS
| chip may be ignored, depending upon what the head unit
| tells the phone to do.
|
| this happens when near roads or not. the truck is doing
| something weird and wrong with the GPS data and forcing
| the phone to use it
| t0mas88 wrote:
| But the in-car unit has both GPS (with the antenna being
| on the roof) as well as wheel speed. Noticeable in longer
| tunnels with traffic jams that make the speed vary. Then
| it's clear Google maps takes a random guess at where you
| are while the in-car system knows how far along you are.
| katbyte wrote:
| the only time i am paying attention is when off-roading
| and recording a track, and then its very obvious when the
| GPS is doing a good or bad job and unplugged from carplay
| i get a far more accurate track.
| beagle3 wrote:
| Phones also use WiFi access points and some Bluetooth
| beacons to get a better location. AFAIK only Google and
| Apple have up-to-date maps of these that are useful for
| navigation, and no one else does (Mozilla threw the towel
| a year or two ago).
|
| Cars can theoretically have better GPS antennae, and can
| do better dead reckoning using wheel position and wheel
| rotation speed. But do they? I haven't seen any evidence
| that any car actually does better than a modern phone.
|
| Especially inside a dense city, WiFi location can be much
| more precise than GPS.
| katbyte wrote:
| i only really care about accurate when off-roading in the
| middle of nowhere with no reception and recording my
| track - my iphone performs far better when unplugged from
| the truck then when plugged into it.
| astrange wrote:
| That's possible too, but the issue I was thinking of
| wasn't exactly reception - it's that GPS signals bounce
| off buildings and so it looks like you're somewhere else.
| Stronger reception might actually make that worse.
|
| Japan has local satellites to help with this (QZSS) and
| local cars may handle that better than global phones.
| mavhc wrote:
| Cars have wheel rotation and direction sensors so can do
| dead reckoning when the gps isn't being useful
| solardev wrote:
| Phones will use the accelerometer and gyro to do dead
| reckoning too, like when you're in a tunnel.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| The Japanese navigation units in cars have been really good
| for at least 15 years. The signs and lane markings usually
| match exactly what's ahead of you in real-life, and there's
| a radio system on the highway gives traffic and road
| closure information even if you're not connected to the
| internet. It's only recently that smartphone apps are as
| good.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _That doesn 't have to be a touchscreen but usually are_
| [...]
|
| 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.
| toast0 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure a touchscreen is cheaper than buttons, or
| at least awful close. You'll still get some buttons, unless
| the car maker really hates you, and hopefully something to
| turn for volume control (which may even work most of the
| time, if you're lucky).
| jajko wrote:
| Touchscreen is such a stupid low value move for driver.
| Physical knobs are safer in many ways, last much much
| more, I don't need to lose contact with whats happening
| in front of the car to manage these, just muscle memory.
| BMW has nice big physical knob (turn&press) to control
| all menus, much better than hunting on flat glossy screen
| with fingers.
|
| Some stuff can be managed from steering wheel, but
| instead of putting there things like AC there are voice
| controls, while we all know very well this increases
| danger on the roads and calls shouldn't be made while
| driving.
|
| That being said, I choose (used) cars based on many
| metrics, and this is just one of them and not the most
| important one. So its sort of self-inflicted move to
| worse.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Physical knobs are safer in many ways, last much much
| more, I don 't need to lose contact with whats happening
| in front of the car to manage these, just muscle memory._
|
| None of which some up on a spreadsheet in the
| manufacturer's accounting department.
|
| Similarly: open concept offices with hot desking lowers
| the amount of rent (per employee) that shows up on an
| expense report, but the productivity drop of open offices
| does not.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I used to agree, but the point I made in GP is that the
| touchscreen front and center _could_ be a requirement,
| with what to do with one being open to local market
| interpretation.
|
| IF that's the case, and that's one big if, debating
| touchscreen vs buttons might not be meaningful, because
| touchscreen MIGHT be a requirement that cannot be
| removed. With un-eliminable touchscreen, buttons becomes
| just added cost, rather than being a resilt of cost
| calculations between all-touch vs all-buttons.
| friendzis wrote:
| Button-y interface can be handled on basically any IO-
| heavier 8-bit microcontroller with some muxes as all it
| needs is to handle interrupts and emit event messages
| over whatever-bus. The solution can even be hard real-
| time if there is such requirement.
|
| Touchscreen will probably run atop whatever OS powers
| infotainment system. In theory touch events CAN be
| handled on the same 8-bit uC, but converting click
| coordinates to button-press messages requires knowing
| what is visible on the screen, which either hinders
| expressiveness of touch interface (fixed islands for
| controls) or complicates implementation (constant
| updating of element-coordinate maps). The moment safety-
| critical control runs along with non-safety software huge
| validation challenges arise - the performance
| characteristics of the whole system, including UI, must
| become at the very least bounded.
|
| Hard button solution can be internally commoditized,
| whereas soft button solution requires constant
| babysitting throughout development lifecycle. One is much
| more expensive than the other, however, once the move is
| made incremental cost drops dramatically.
| presentation wrote:
| I don't own my own car here, but whenever I ride taxis or
| rent cars in Japan I noticed that they almost all appear to
| have aftermarket infotainment units. This makes sense now!
| eloisant wrote:
| Honestly I would prefer to have a 2DIN hole where I can put
| whatever infotainment I want, instead of being stuck with
| whatever the car maker included, and that I can change
| without changing my car.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Yeah, it can't get pro-consumer and pro-right-to-repair
| than that. Disappointment with lackluster stock
| infotainment followed by disappointment in the move away
| from repairability felt a bit hypocritical to me knowing
| that world. 2DIN holes are fine!
| Xixi wrote:
| I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying that the Japanese
| road network is not a grid. In terms of actual layout, it's
| quite grid-like. I would even say it's usually much closer to
| a nicely laid-out grid than the mess any European city is.
|
| 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!
| solardev wrote:
| That's really cool! I didn't realize that. Thanks for
| explaining.
|
| Reminds me the Township & Range system in the US, which is
| still used in public land management: https://web.gccaz.edu
| /~lynrw95071/Township%20Range%20Explana...
| api wrote:
| Auto makers want what everyone else wants: recurring revenue.
| They want to find a way to sell subscriptions to something. The
| infotainment system is a potential angle for that. CarPlay
| makes that irrelevant.
| babypuncher wrote:
| GM's plan is to sell a subscription service that covers all the
| things you already pay for on your phone (maps, music
| streaming, etc). It's why they're killing CarPlay, because they
| know that even if their service is good, nobody will pay $20/mo
| for shit they already get for free on their phones.
|
| Basically, their goal in life is to be a worthless middleman
| who takes peoples money while providing no real value to
| society.
| what_ever wrote:
| Doesn't Tesla do that as well?
| jdminhbg wrote:
| No, Tesla sells internet connectivity for $10/month.
| hatsix wrote:
| While Tesla does have a $10/m plan, you still get basic
| Internet without paying for it... Tesla's free is better
| than any other company's paid subscription.
|
| That said, $10 is far too much for what it is, should be
| $5.
| chgs wrote:
| A Tesla costs $80k and lasts 10 years. Why are you saying
| $1200 for internet is too much and $600 isn't?
|
| Why do they even bother charging - just bundle it in with
| the headline price. It's a tiny portion of the revenue,
| nobody is going to think "oh that $87,345 Tesla is too
| much I'll go for the $86,145 one"
| mavhc wrote:
| Tesla costs $30k
| https://www.tesla.com/modely/design#overview $29450 with
| tax incentive
| delfinom wrote:
| Yea but that's the joke is they plan.
|
| Toyota should also plan to expand their manufacturing
| capacity to pickup GMs lost sales to anyone under the age of
| 60.
|
| Lol
| donw wrote:
| Toyota offering a V8 (both gas and diesel) in its trucks
| would change the market in a big way.
| hedora wrote:
| I'm surprised Toyota doesn't offer a hybrid pickup
| similar to Ford's.
|
| I wish any manufacturer offered a 250-class electric
| truck with a basic trim line. They probably want to sell
| more cars per battery for now.
| 10u152 wrote:
| Tundra Hybrid doesn't count?
| kortilla wrote:
| No, that's a half ton class truck (f-150 comparable). A
| 250 class truck (f-250, 2500, etc) is a 3/4 ton class and
| is what you need if you want to tow >10k pounds while
| having basically any load in the truck.
| katbyte wrote:
| Tacoma and tundra both come in hybrid now
| jasondigitized wrote:
| How is GM a middleman when they are producing the product I
| am buying which is a car? If GM bundled OnStar with a top
| tier infotainment / navigation / ChatGpt / I'm hungry where
| do I eat app, I'll pay for that as long as it's reasonable
| and lets me know I'll be taken care of if I crash and need
| assistance.
| eropple wrote:
| Maybe for you. If it doesn't exactly mirror the stuff on my
| phone, though, it's distinctly worse than using my phone.
| If it doesn't start playing music from my phone when I turn
| the car on, it's distinctly worse than using my phone. If
| it doesn't _act like my phone does today_ , it's distinctly
| worse than using my phone.
|
| For me, there is no room for GM to become a player here. I
| have friends' addresses, etc. in my iPhone's contacts and
| they show up on Maps. GM isn't going to do that, so GM
| isn't going to get my business. I'm starting to look for a
| new car right now, and this is a hard no. If it doesn't
| support CarPlay and Android Auto (both--I've used both in
| the last five years, and might switch back again to Android
| in the lifetime of my next car), it's outside my observable
| universe.
| lokar wrote:
| I would never consider buying GM. I was, in the past, a
| UAW shop steward.
| hedora wrote:
| I once bought a GM vehicle. Never again.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| My family had GM cars when I was a child, decades ago.
| Never would I seriously consider buying a GM.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why would you pay for that when your phone already does all
| of that and you always have it on you?
| hedora wrote:
| They are trying to be a middleman between you and the
| internet.
|
| It's analogous to a TV and monitor manufacturer saying they
| are no longer providing non-wifi inputs, app side loading,
| or supporting screen casting from local devices.
|
| Then the manufacturer would charge a monthly fee for the
| monitor to keep working.
|
| Hopefully, next, the CEO acts surprised when reporting the
| resulting massive drop in shipments.
| briandear wrote:
| GM doing top tier tech is a joke. Also, they monetize your
| car data.
| lokar wrote:
| You pay for maps on your phone?
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Either you pay with your data (Google) or upfront for the
| phone (Apple).
|
| I use Organic Maps on GrapheneOS and add businesses I want
| which aren't there (hence I had to look them up in Google
| Maps in Firefox Focus, which is painful enough that I don't
| want to have to repeat it).
| babypuncher wrote:
| You pay for cell service on your phone, which lets you
| access things like Google/Apple maps, spotify streaming,
| etc.
|
| GM wants to charge for a separate internet service tied to
| your car, that still goes over the cellular networks, in
| order to access these exact same features in their head
| unit. It is completely redundant. CarPlay already offers a
| near perfect experience in this regard, without charging an
| extra monthly fee.
| dboreham wrote:
| Regarding "it sucks", if we're talking mapping/directions I
| disagree. Google maps is really a pretty piss poor application.
| It hasn't changed in 15 years and it's obvious its maintainers
| haven't ever driven anywhere using the application, even around
| the Google campus in MT View, or downtown SF. It's deeply bad.
| In my experience _some_ car manufacturer mapping applications
| are quite a bit better. Since they obviously suck at software,
| who knows how good it could get with the combination of (not
| Google) AND (competent team)?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Until Apple Maps got offline downloads (in iOS 17), Google
| Maps was way ahead for offline use, which was enough to have
| me use it normally as well.
| chgs wrote:
| > It hasn't changed in 15 years
|
| 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.
| devmor wrote:
| >In the end, consumers don't give a shit about the in-vehicle
| infotainment. It sucks, or it's AA/CarPlay.
|
| 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.
| internetter wrote:
| Likewise. I vastly prefer the physical buttons, as I can hit
| them without taking my eyes off the road. The only two things
| I use infotainment for is mapping and music control.
| hedora wrote:
| Bluetooth should let you select phone audio sources from
| your car buttons.
|
| It's usually terribly implemented. iOS doesn't support it
| for third party apps or first party podcasts, and apple
| music's support is a shit show. Android is better, but it
| is hit-or-miss depending on the car.
|
| I wish the government would declare this a safety feature
| and mandate recalls for incorrect implementations
| (including phones and cars).
| Tagbert wrote:
| If find the Bluetooth interface too limited because it
| requires interacting with the touchscreen on the phone. I
| want to use the large screen on the car with an interface
| that is optimized to work while in the car not small controls
| on a small phone.
| bluGill wrote:
| No touch screen i should be accessable by the driner unless
| the car is in park. I don't care if it is the phone or
| infotainment, no touchscreen is allowed.
| lokar wrote:
| It what if I'm in FSD mode? /s
| Tagbert wrote:
| The person I was replying to was arguing for a Bluetooth
| connection to their phone instead of CarPlay. CarPlay is
| much better from a safety standpoint than a phone screen.
| prmoustache wrote:
| You just choose a superlong playlist before starting the
| car and then play it randomly. You don't have to interact
| with the phone.
|
| Last time I had a car I had an old mp3 portable mp3
| player constantly hooked up to the car with 4GB of music
| inside. I would just hit play and drive and would only
| adjust volume from the steering wheel if I needed to. If
| I had a car again I would probably do the same, that is
| the lowest distracting way to have music in your car.
| devmor wrote:
| There is absolutely nothing on the phone I need or want to
| interact with while driving that is not covered by
| bluetooth audio controls.
|
| Perhaps you should reconsider your driving needs vs safety?
| nox101 wrote:
| When (if?) auto-driven cars become a thing I'd expect some
| people will want a giant monitor in their car if nothing else,
| so they can watch movies, play video games, tele-conference,
| etc....
|
| Disney's "The Magic Highway" might be dystopian to some but the
| relaxing vehicle seems pretty cool to me
|
| https://youtu.be/Vo4-rYNGEwE?t=199
| cypressious wrote:
| Impressive. Funny that one thing they got wrong is cars
| becoming smaller instead of bigger.
| baq wrote:
| If you could get 5 self-driving single seaters instead of
| one 5-seater for the same price... probably the 5-seater
| wins.
|
| But if you can call a reliable self-driving one-seater
| within 5 minutes guaranteed?
| thereisnospork wrote:
| Just a monitor? I'm putting in a lazyboy and full on home
| theater setup in the back of my self driving car, well self
| driving van.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| > Let's turn the question around: why would car makers want
| to...
|
| 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.
| bambax wrote:
| > _why would car makers want to spend millions of dollars a
| year rolling their own infotainment system?_
|
| 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.
| heywire wrote:
| I'm happy with the way Mazda has integrated CarPlay. No touch
| while moving, the navigation wheel moves a highlight around
| the screen to select buttons/links. I find it much less
| distracting.
| briandear wrote:
| Audi is similar. I think also Mercedes. It's great.
| throwaway11460 wrote:
| The audi wheel with buttons around it is terrible. I have
| to look down to find the correct button, and then I need
| to look at the screen to wheel to the correct option.
|
| Touchscreen is not better than physical buttons but at
| least I can still look forward while operating it.
|
| This audi is the first time I actually started using Siri
| - and not because I like it.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| On the new mazda3 it's no touch at all. They took it out
| completely
| nswest23 wrote:
| Don't you think it's possible that car makers are moving in
| this direction in anticipation of a day when you no longer
| have to be paying attention to that extent while driving? Or
| do people still think that day is very very far off because
| based on my experience with FSD we're not as far as everyone
| thinks.
| nradov wrote:
| That's the danger of FSD. It's just good enough to trick
| poorly trained, unskilled drivers into thinking that they
| no longer have to pay attention. This works fine ... until
| they encounter an edge case that FSD isn't programmed (or
| trained) to handle.
| classified wrote:
| Siphoning user data of course. Remember: Over time, every
| company becomes an ad company.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| > it's definitely user-focused
|
| 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_.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Article is really about the unofficially called "Carplay 2", a
| deeper integration that Apple announced in 2022 but hasn't been
| heard about since.
|
| 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!)
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Apparently this isn't true. If you have a car where the 2nd
| screen behind the steering wheel also shows CarPlay-related
| stuff, you have CarPlay 2 (or so I've been told). It's just not
| as invasive and all-or-nothing as it was billed to be.
| sitharus wrote:
| CarPlay 2 is arriving late 2024 according to Apple, so it's
| definitely not a CarPlay 2 feature.
|
| Dual screen CarPlay was released in 2019
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20875604/apple-carplay-
| io...
| MBCook wrote:
| No. There are three things, which makes it confusing.
|
| 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.
| thedougd wrote:
| Any idea when #2 was released? I have a 2019 Honda. Android
| Auto can use the instrument panel as a second screen but
| CarPlay cannot. I miss seeing the next-turn distance
| countdown right in front of me.
| MBCook wrote:
| I know it requires both sides to support it. My car
| originally didn't but a later update to my car enabled
| it.
|
| I don't know when the first car got that, it's possible
| it simply didn't exist when yours was made. Or maybe it
| did and they just didn't bother? I don't know.
|
| My car doesn't have the version where it just shows Apple
| Maps, which I would love. Instead the next turn/etc. is
| clearly being sent to the cars operating system because
| it gets displayed the same way the cars internal
| navigation stuff does on the screen behind the wheel.
| davidcsally wrote:
| I have a 2023 rav4 prime and it shows apple maps
| directions in the instrument cluster and HUD, maybe that
| counts?
| jojobas wrote:
| I'd say trusting phone vendors whether to show me an oil
| pressure warning is kinda stupid, but that's just me.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Huh? There were updates a few months ago
| https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/27/apple-confirms-next-gen...
| randomdata wrote:
| _> (bye-bye GM!)_
|
| 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.
| genmud wrote:
| I sold my GM truck because of how horrible the head unit was. I
| am still driving my 8 year old f150 because the infotainment
| system works fairly well.
| paxys wrote:
| We are in the golden age of phone<->car integration, so enjoy it
| while it lasts. In a few more years 100% of auto manufacturers
| are going to start charging a monthly subscription for this,
| split between them and Apple/Google.
| poisonborz wrote:
| People would just buy a head unit for a fixed price, and use
| the built in screen only for adjusting aircon and whatever is
| vehicle-specific. Also carmakers would never give up to have a
| total control over their car screen like this. They are
| struggling for a decade now with more and more horrid
| iterations, with no end in sight.
| swozey wrote:
| Carplay2 seems cool, but if it takes away my ability to just jump
| into whatever new car with my iphone or android phone and use
| aa/carplay I don't want to lose carplay. I have 3 cars with
| carplay and I don't want to have to set all of them up and lose
| portability.
| ramshorst wrote:
| As CarPlay aims to dominate even more screens in our cars, isn't
| Apple simply replacing buttons and dials with potentially
| distracting and fingerprint-smeared touch screens just to extend
| its software reach?
| encoderer wrote:
| I have physical buttons that control CarPlay - for navigation
| and music
| itishappy wrote:
| This seems like an odd thing to blame Apple for. They never
| provided those buttons and dials.
| adrr wrote:
| Apple just needs to make Siri usable like the Google home
| assistant or Alexa.
| pistolpeteDK wrote:
| After spending a very long time trying to find the perfect non-
| Tesla EV with both carplay, good range, cargo space etc... I gave
| up and "settled" for a Model Y LR. The software in a Tesla is
| just as good as Elon is bad. Not to turn this into an anti-Elon
| thing... But the software in the Tesla is really second-to-none,
| and more folks would find out if it weren't for Elon.
| serial_dev wrote:
| It's not necessarily an Elon issue.
|
| 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.
| jitl wrote:
| I was in the same spot, decided to do a 3-year lease on a gas
| Mercedes while waiting for the US EV market to deliver the
| mythical "Tesla Y with Carplay and manual air conditioning
| grates". Hyundai Genesis is really close, needs a bit more
| baking.
| StephenSmith wrote:
| If you're in the market for a new-to-you car, then I recommend
| looking at the model years where they switch from wired car-play
| to wireless car-play and buying the previous model-year.
|
| 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.
| albumen wrote:
| When I looked into this previously, the delay seemed pretty
| significant, not just upon auto connect. Can you recommend your
| dongle?
| spike021 wrote:
| I've had a Carlinkit 3.0 for two years connected to a
| standard $400 or so Pioneer head unit with CarPlay and it
| works fine.
|
| Initial connection is a bit slower than wired, maybe 20
| seconds or so, but it's up and running by the time I'm moving
| my car.
|
| There's very small amount of input lag for stuff like
| skipping songs or pause/play. I'd say that lag is almost
| exactly the same as when I used to only use bog-standard
| Bluetooth to connect to a head unit with my phone so I think
| that's just the downside of a wireless connection-- wired
| doesn't have this lag.
| definitelyauser wrote:
| I've tried a few dongles and have had nothing but bad
| experiences.
|
| "Kinda works" for a while, with a noticeable delay when
| changing songs etc.
|
| Actually pondering replacing the infotainment system itself to
| get wireless airplay.
| axxl wrote:
| The delay happens with integrated systems as well apparently.
| My brother's car has it built in and he confirmed my adapter
| is the same.
| luhn wrote:
| I thought the audio delay was because of a crappy dongle too,
| but when I rented a car with built-in wireless CarPlay it was
| exactly the same.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Android Auto: I use the Motorola wireless dongle in a VW. It's
| great when only 1 phone is paired, but my wife and I share the
| vehicle in question. It allows multiple pairings (despite the
| instruction manual hardly mentioning that ability, if at all)
| but it's finicky as hell. Half of all attempts at swapping
| phones end in unplugging the thing and using a cable, to the
| point where I'm thinking I keep wireless AA for myself (driver
| 90% of the time) and have her use a vent mount with only BT
| audio (driver 10% of the time). Connection handshake delay
| before visible feedback is about 30 seconds, which makes
| troubleshooting an extremely latency-riddled nightmare. But the
| other half of the time, it's as simple as selecting the desired
| phone in the Bluetooth menu of the car. Once connected, the
| experience is identical to wired AA.
|
| This problem didn't exist at all before going wireless.
| wil421 wrote:
| The wifi dongle audio quality was reminiscent of the old iPod
| FM Transmitters that would plug into the cigarette lighter. Not
| to mention the annoying delay.
| MBCook wrote:
| Really? I never had any audio issues, but wireless is built
| in. So I don't think it's an inherent issue.
|
| The delay though... ouch.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Or just get a car that you can retrofit a head unit to. Could
| be a third party one or a better one from another model. In my
| VW I retrofitted a head unit with navigation and cruise
| control, amongst other things. Be sensible and get things like
| parking sensors that are hard to retrofit, but don't pay for
| things you can easily fit yourself.
| jamesfmilne wrote:
| Agreed, I bought a 2017 VW Golf recently, it has wired Apple
| CarPlay.
|
| Bought a dongle for PS55, 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.
| calfuris wrote:
| It seems to be on the upswing, at least for some
| manufacturers. I went from a 2017 CRV to a new one recently
| and they replaced the touch-based steering wheel volume
| adjuster with a physical wheel and moved the only thing that
| I ever wanted to use the touchscreen for while driving (HVAC
| mode control) to a physical button. The only controls that
| are stuck on the touchscreen are ones that a reasonable
| person would never want to try to change while driving.
| dap wrote:
| I am not sure if this would be a problem with wireless as well,
| but I've had very inconsistent experiences having Carplay start
| _at all_ using a dongle. I 'd say right now it works about 70%
| of the time, and about 25% of the time when it doesn't, I can
| get it working by unplugging and re-plugging after the car is
| on. The rest of the time I have to stop the car and start it
| for it to work. This all started about a year ago though. (2022
| RAV4 Prime, multiple iPhone and iOS versions, genuine Apple
| lightning cable, both with and without an extra Lightning->USBC
| dongle.)
| hedgehog wrote:
| In my experience it's over cable CarPlay is reliable if the
| head unit is already booted and the phone is unlocked when
| plugging in. If either of those things aren't true then no
| guarantee the phone will connect after the booting /
| unlocking finishes (I use and recommend the setting to
| disallow accessories when the phone is locked).
| api wrote:
| I actually prefer wired. Otherwise when I get in the car and
| turn it on, it pairs with my wife's phone half the time instead
| of mine. I also almost always want to charge the phone anyway.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I have an actual wireless carplay head unit from Pioneer in my
| 2011 RAV 4, but I still use it in wired mode with one of these
| dongles because Pioneer's implementation is so buggy as to be
| practically useless and they refuse to issue any firmware
| updates for the device.
|
| 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.
| dboreham wrote:
| In my experience wireless car play is a nothingburger -- you
| end up plugging in your phone to charge it anyway. If it's not
| plugged in, the wireless interaction draws so much power that
| you need to plug it in. Stable configuration is therefore:
| plugged in. (yes you can sometimes have the combination of
| wireless CP and wireless charging, but wireless charging also
| sucks).
| MBCook wrote:
| Wireless CarPlay = heat.
|
| Wireless charging = heat.
|
| Both = furnace.
| kelnos wrote:
| I haven't used wireless yet, so maybe I just don't know what
| I'm missing, but I kinda just don't see why I'd ever need it.
| I'm going to plug in my phone anyway to charge, so what's the
| draw?
| hypothesis wrote:
| It's kinda convenient for short trips (thus no plugging
| required) because it just works: it shows up on screen
| immediately when you get into the car, no extra movements.
| Also, I think cars with wireless CarPlay are equipped with
| wireless charging for a convenient combo.
|
| 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.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Yeah my RAV4 has a nice wireless charging feature which I
| expected to make lots of use of. Just place the phone on a
| little nonslip pad and it charges as I drive! Perfect and
| so convenient.
|
| Except I misunderstood that my year didn't have wireless
| CarPlay, so I have to choose between CarPlay and wireless
| charging :( Hopefully my next car will have both.
| jrmg wrote:
| I don't find I need to charge - my phone lasts all day even
| with relatively heavy CarPlay use. I suspect it uses less
| power than you think it might because it doesn't need to
| power the screen.
| MBCook wrote:
| I hate it. In my car (admittedly the only one with wireless
| I've ever tried) there is an extremely noticeable delay
| between input and action.
|
| 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.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The draw is that wireless charging is faster/easier than
| plugging, or so I understand.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Being able to simply leave it in my pocket is really nice.
| Particularly nice when running errands around town (in and
| out frequently)
|
| 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.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I haven't seen a car USB port that does fast charging, only
| slow 5V @ 1 or 2 amps. So if I need a charge, I'd rather use
| a fast 18W "cigarette lighter port" charger and wireless
| connection.
|
| Otherwise my trips are usually short enough. Also my phone's
| dual screen addon case (LG V60) blocks the USB port.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Some of the dongles function as Android tablets as well,
| allowing you to run pretty much any Android app (like Youtube,
| Netflix, etc without any restriction, though not all apps are
| safe and may even be illegal while driving)
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I have one wired and one wireless vehicle. I will absolutely
| pay more for integrated wireless. It just works flawlessly.
|
| 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.
| RobT7k wrote:
| I have zero interest in the CarPlay v2 (as described in the
| article).
|
| CarPlay v1, however, is an absolute requirement. It works great
| and gives me pretty much everything I want.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm curious, but honestly I don't see any automaker ever
| playing along.
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| I don't know man. Never underestimate Apple's marketing. If
| it's a good implementation, all they would need is 1
| automaker to do it the others will have to. I wouldn't
| consider a new car without AA/CarPlay and many others are in
| the same boat. Automakers had to start offering upgrades to
| their old cars to support AA/CarPlay. There is no way
| automakers could invest as much into software development as
| Apple or Google. I hear people like their Tesla infotainment
| systems, but I don't have a Tesla nor plan on buying one.
| Also don't see how they could match the AppStore/Play Store.
| MBCook wrote:
| I won't buy without CarPlay either.
|
| But if Android Automotive runs CarPlay, I'm not sure how
| much I care. And I'm a huge fanboy.
|
| I'd like to be able to use Siri to control the temperature
| and a few other things. And taking over the whole screen
| could be nice.
|
| But Apple is such a control freak about things I have a
| hard time seeing most car makers agree to it. And just
| about every industry Apple has touched has learned the
| lesson that Apple takes things over. Car makers clearly
| already dislike the fact that CarPlay is so popular, I
| don't think they want to give Apple MORE leverage.
|
| I find the idea of Android taking over the industry a
| problem (monoculture = bad, manufacturers are clearly not
| up to it themselves). Apple could be a hedge. But they're
| not a play nice company even when they should be.
|
| They haven't learned humility again after losing it during
| iPod/iPhone rise.
| jkmcf wrote:
| Recently had two rental cars with CarPlay. Oddly, the experience
| with a Chevy (who is abandoning CarPlay support) was much better
| than the Hyundai, though its main problem was connecting and
| constantly asking permission.
|
| 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.
| mey wrote:
| As a shopper of a vehicle. I want my car to control car
| operation/cockpit information. I have enjoyed the continuous
| improvement of navigation and entertainment functionality of
| Android Auto/Car Play.
|
| 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.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > One is critical vehicle functionality
|
| 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
| xyst wrote:
| I used to be fascinated with Apple but I no longer want anything
| to do with them.
|
| 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...
| gmadsen wrote:
| kind of funny a back up camera is now considered a "dumb" car
| feature
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| Back-up cameras have been required on all new vehicles in the
| US and Canada since 2018.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| What metric do you want to use for smart versus dumb?
|
| CCTV dates back a hundred years. The vast majority of dumb
| phones have had cameras since before the advent of the smart
| phone.
| izacus wrote:
| CarPlay and Android Auto run on your phone and outright prevent
| the car manufacturer access to data (they only expose the video
| and audio streams). Whatever data selling is going on it
| utterly disconnected from those technologie.
|
| So what exactly are you ranting about here? Why this rant when
| you don't seem to know what those technologies are?
| ransom1538 wrote:
| "Give me a car with a simple backup camera, manual
| transmission, and regular sized vehicle (no trucks or suvs,
| fuck that)."
|
| Mazda, cx5 <= 2016. Small. Has usb sd, simple knobs, backup
| camera. It reminds me of when apple removed the escape key, I
| had to learn how to buy a used mac.
| the_snooze wrote:
| I really wanted to like that Mozilla report, but their methods
| only looked at the privacy policies of cars, not actual
| software/hardware capabilities in the wild. Let's say I own a
| Honda C-HR, but don't use the Honda Link app or connect the
| onboard wifi to a phone hotspot. Does Honda still get remote
| telematic information from me? Is there a live always-on 4G/5G
| connection in the car itself? It's unclear.
| kernal wrote:
| If you tried to rip out Android Automotive you car probably
| wouldn't work anymore. But, you would have a dumb car that just
| wouldn't start.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Meanwhile I rented a car last week and experienced Android Auto
| for the first time (vs just having my phone precariously
| balanced somewhere in the car, and using it for navigation),
| and now I never want to go back or buy a car without Android
| Auto.
|
| 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.
| ectospheno wrote:
| Not sure how one could reclaim driving privacy in an age where
| we have license plate scanners and E-ZPass scanners at places
| not on toll roads all while you and everyone else drives around
| with multiple Bluetooth devices turned on. Nothing stopping
| your car from recording everything anyway and having the dealer
| just download it each time you have an oil change. This mirrors
| privacy everywhere else. Think this ship already sailed.
| xenospn wrote:
| You can very easily buy a dumb car and install aftermarket
| parts to get the benefit of CarPlay without any of the
| telemetry.
| sovnwnt wrote:
| I actually had a chat with my local MP (Canadian equivalent of
| Member of House of Representatives) about this.
|
| 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.
| Angostura wrote:
| > used to be fascinated with Apple but I no longer want
| anything to do with them. > 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.
|
| And by 'rip out' you mean "disconnect your phone"
| Arcsech wrote:
| I don't disagree with your points about connected cars, but at
| least for CarPlay (I don't know about Android Auto), it's
| entirely an orthogonal concern. CarPlay is a standard for,
| basically, connecting an external display to your iPhone - it
| doesn't need to connect to anything other than the iPhone
| itself, and doesn't grant the car any access to the internet or
| anything, and IIRC the phone can't read anything meaningful
| from the car either.
| kelnos wrote:
| It's a shame, because a lot of this connected stuff does
| provide useful functionality to a lot of people.
|
| 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.
| astrange wrote:
| > 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]
|
| Obviously good. Driving is incredibly dangerous to other people
| and insurance companies are the most motivated to make it
| safer.
| roughly wrote:
| Something that stuck out to me 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.
|
| 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.
| m463 wrote:
| I think it is just global manufacturing. Plus a little bit of
| feature parity.
|
| 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.
| roughly wrote:
| Re: Tesla - at least in the early days, they did the same
| thing a lot of boutique manufacturers did:
| https://www.theautopian.com/how-tesla-engineers-saved-
| millio...
|
| Re: "global manufacturing" - yeah, but there's also a choice
| being made there. I own an older BMW, and there's been a very
| clear shift away from what was once a differentiated product
| to a kind of blah middle-object, which is almost certainly in
| pursuit of a larger market share, but again, that's a choice.
| I could tell you what the value prop of a BMW made between
| 1975 and 2005 was, I can't really tell you what it is now,
| and that's a choice it seems like a lot of manufacturers are
| making.
| eslaught wrote:
| > value prop of a BMW made between 1975 and 2005
|
| I'd be curious for someone to explain what this is, and
| what happened in 2005 that changed this.
| roughly wrote:
| For a very long time, BMW's cars were intentionally
| driver-centric - if you got a BMW, you were getting a car
| that was luxurious and well built, sure, but more than
| that, was just sublime to drive in a way the spec sheets
| don't capture. The handling, steering, suspension feel,
| engine and transmission, everything combined for
| something that was engaging and genuinely fun to drive,
| but didn't sacrifice actual daily usability. That was
| their sales pitch: Want luxury? Grab a Benz. Care about
| the actual driving experience? Here's your car.
|
| I really don't know what happened after 2005, and it
| wasn't overnight, but the general driving experience of
| the cars has declined every generation since then -
| steering's gotten a bit more numb, suspension's not quite
| as communicative, engine noises are more muffled, and
| they just seemed to lose the thread over the years. I'm
| not sure if some of it was leaning into technology at the
| expense of the driving experience, but aside from the one
| or two models per generation that still have some of the
| old soul, they really don't seem to know what their sales
| pitch is anymore.
| codexb wrote:
| What happened is there are no real "budget" cars anymore.
| Mandatory safety, engine, emission, backup cameras (yes,
| they're mandatory) has steadily driven the base price of a car
| so high that the added cost of creature comforts doesn't
| actually increase the price of a car that much relative to the
| total price. Why would someone spend spend $40k on a bare bones
| car when they could get a well-equipped car for $45k? That's
| basically where we're at. So, basically all cars, "budget" or
| luxury, need to have all the major creature comforts.
| cherioo wrote:
| But why is that somebody spending even 40k on a barebone car?
|
| How is it that BYD and a bunch of chinese manufacturers able
| to produce ~10k car but nobody else?
| asadotzler wrote:
| That same BYD is $30-40K in Australia. Governments
| subsidize. The US will subsidize around $7-10K of your US
| made EV. China does that too.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Tell us you haven't been in a contemporary Corolla without
| telling us you haven't been in a Corolla recently.
| 10u152 wrote:
| A corolla isn't a budget car.
|
| The cheapest configurable Corolla here (Australia) is
| $35,857. More than 50% of the median yearly wage ($65000)
|
| To me that's not a budget car. The closest thing would be a
| Kia Picanto for about $18500
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'm not really seeing why safety or emissions rules drive up
| the price of a car? Backup camera sure that's an extra $200.
| codexb wrote:
| Cars require hundreds to thousands of microchips these
| days. Airbags require sensors and circuits. Emission
| systems require expensive sensors, and engines require
| complex electronic and mechanical real-time tuning systems
| to constantly monitor and adjust fuel usage to limit
| emissions and meet minimum mpg requirements. Automatic
| transmissions are now extremely complex, including 8 to 10
| gears or using CVT to achieve the best fuel efficiency.
| Backup cameras need a monitor, and it costs more than $200.
| And now that you _must_ put a monitor in the car, you can
| 't just have it be useless except for a backup camera, so
| now you have to add a bunch of software features. Meeting
| emissions requirements means making cars much lighter. This
| means more expensive composites and materials. This means
| increased manufacturing and engineering costs to meet
| structural requirements while designing cars with the least
| amount of material.
|
| I don't think you realize how simple cars used to be.
| Engines were extremely simple and purely mechanical,
| essentially 50 year old technology. Transmissions were
| simpler, either manual transmissions or ATS with only a
| handful of gears. Engines and cars were made entirely of
| cheap steel. You had no expensive screens, no expensive
| sensors or electronics. You had no expensive research on
| structural design and materials science. You had no
| expensive emissions systems. You could fix nearly
| everything in the car with hand tools.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| As far as airbags, my assumption was that you're going to
| have at least 2 no matter what, and I don't think more
| than 2 is mandatory.
|
| The big differences to engine and transmission are
| interesting, I believe you that it's a big difference but
| I'm not sure how to evaluate specific numbers for it.
|
| Building the entire car with more expensive structure and
| paneling sounds like a pretty bad thing to effectively
| require, especially when most losses are aerodynamic.
|
| For backup cameras I was including the monitor in that
| price. You can buy kits for under $50, so I don't think
| $200 is unrealistic for something built in.
|
| I will say that having a thousand microchips rather than
| a dozen is probably because it's cheaper that way.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| > 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
|
| Why is this bad on BMW? Doesn't Toyota make the most reliable
| cars?
| srockets wrote:
| The BMW Z4 2018 and later models shares platform with the
| Toyota Supra 2019 and later. The platform, at least according
| to both brands marketing, was co-developed, and it is
| manufactured in Austria by a 3rd party that also built cars
| for other brands.
|
| And no, Toyota doesn't make the most reliable cars. It might
| have been true for some period of time, but isn't true for
| every model and every year (even Corolla, often suggested as
| a very reliable sedan, has some versions that are in fact
| infamous for their tendency for oil sludge buildup that
| result in engine failures).
| roughly wrote:
| It's nothing to do with the reliability. It'd be like finding
| out that Apple had shipped a laptop based on Dell internals -
| whatever the results, it'd indicate something tectonic had
| happened in Cupertino. It's just not something the company
| would have even considered a decade or so ago.
| daanvr wrote:
| How significant is the demand for advanced infotainment systems
| like CarPlay 2 among consumers? Are there market studies or
| consumer surveys indicating that buyers would prioritize "CarPlay
| 2" capabilities when purchasing new vehicles?
| resource_waste wrote:
| Does it come with a fruit logo sticker?
| btown wrote:
| > A lot of the concerns around branding focus on the instrument
| cluster as it's one of the most recognizable parts of an
| interior. If you look at the CarPlay concept for Porsche and
| remove the steering wheel, there is no way you can tell it's a
| Porsche. I'm sure many brands took notice of this... With many
| traditional differentiators being democratized, design is a good
| way to stand out.
|
| 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.
| vsdlrd wrote:
| That is a great point and you are absolutely right! It really
| shows how tricky the UI part of this is and how quickly you run
| into scaling issues
| WWLink wrote:
| If it mattered that much, I think Porsche could still just use
| their classic gauges with 1 being a screen (as they currently
| do on most of their cars).
|
| Probably unpopular opinion, but I preferred mechanical gauges
| anyway.
| yabones wrote:
| There's an interesting gap when discussing carplay/aa.
|
| 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.
| spike021 wrote:
| My car is from between 2013-2017 and it supports a standard
| 2-DIN replacement with Apple CarPlay.
| bdcravens wrote:
| That's what I did with my 2018 Toyota C-HR. For a time, that
| same radio was in my wife's 2018 Rav4 and a friend's 2013
| Dodge Grand Caravan.
| floxy wrote:
| >(for less than they're worth, since only 21% of people will
| buy a car without carplay!)
|
| ...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.
| bombcar wrote:
| The percentages only apply to _new_ car buyers, in my
| experience.
|
| Once you're in used territory, all bets are off and you'd
| have to poke around.
| MBCook wrote:
| The percentage for new car buyers is actually less than
| 21%.
| 4rt wrote:
| Porsche has a reasonably priced upgrade path for their head
| units even in quite old cars which add Carplay. The value is
| obvious to them - it maintains a high resale value on older
| vehicles which maintains their higher current sale value.
|
| Something I found interesting when I was hacking my VW to add
| Carplay (without paying PS300) 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.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I think you're finding "different" car manufacturers using
| that system because they're all VW owned brands. You'll find
| the rest of the parts on the car are mostly the same also. If
| you want to annoy an Audi owner, point out which VW model is
| 95 percent identical... in some cases like the Q7 vs VW
| Touareg, the VW model is even higher end and nicer.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| People like to complain about touch screens and lack of
| buttons, but the loss of the double DIN slot is a much worse
| loss. It more or less forces you to buy a new car to get
| satellite navigation updates or properly functioning Bluetooth.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Agreed. These days you can get a double DIN carplay/aa deck
| with a slot load DVD player for under $80 USD. That is
| absolutely shocking. I mean, we couldn't even get a 5" slot
| load CD drive for our computers for that kind of money and
| these things have a 5" screen on them too!
| js2 wrote:
| > 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
|
| 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
| srockets wrote:
| For other brands, there are third party retrofits that
| replace the integrated stereo with a DIN mount, or with a
| carplay compatible head unit. The software on those is
| usually clunky, but it's not like OEM car head units are
| known for their UX.
| wvenable wrote:
| Sadly my 2014 CX-5 is not supported.
| js2 wrote:
| Sorry if I got your hopes up. I edited my comment to be
| more accurate. I didn't realize 2014 only applied to the
| Mazda 3 and it's 2016 for the other models.
| tssva wrote:
| I replaced my 2014 CX-5 head unit with a 3rd party unit
| which supports CarPlay/AA, integrates with the steering
| controls, the factory Bose amplifier and retains the
| ability to change the car settings through the head unit.
| Took about 2 1/2 hours to install it.
| wvenable wrote:
| Which head unit is that? I looked into it years ago but I
| definitely couldn't find one that still allowed you to
| change the car settings and I felt that was a bit of non-
| starter.
| katbyte wrote:
| Seems like there are third party options if you google it
| jay-aye-see-key wrote:
| This is so cool, I have a compatible Mazda and never thought
| to check if such an upgrade existed. Have ordered the kit and
| very excited. Thanks!
| wnissen wrote:
| I have installed that unit but I wouldn't characterize it as
| for the "least bit handy". It involves removing all the
| panels from the screen, center console, and shifter, and
| fishing some wiring behind the climate controls. Definitely
| do-able, but not for the faint of heart. The wiring is easy
| to connect, to be sure, Japanese are outstanding at that.
| Totally worth the money. I just wish I could put in one of
| the factory backup cameras, neither the dealer nor my trusted
| local stereo shop will do that for me.
| js2 wrote:
| That's fair.
|
| You also have to update the software first, which is a 45
| minute process that requires touching the brake pedal every
| 20 minutes to prevent the head unit from going to sleep.
|
| I've installed it twice: a few years ago in a CX-9 and two-
| weeks ago in a Mazda 3. There's YouTube videos for it so
| you know what you're getting yourself into. I found the
| procedure straight-forward. Mostly you need to know which
| parts to pull off and where the bolts, clips and fasteners
| are. If you're someone who'd install their own dash cam,
| you can probably do it.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Another option is to get a device that is essentially a tablet
| that runs Carplay and connects to the car's audio via
| Bluetooth.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Receivers-Display-Stereo-Blu...
| superfunny wrote:
| "...since only 21% of people will buy a car without carplay"
|
| That statistic is complete bullshit.
| chgs wrote:
| I suspect it came from
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/05/carplay-popularity-iphone-
| tes...
|
| A non statistically relevant random poll of Apple fanboys
| eloisant wrote:
| I don't have an iPhone but I wouldn't buy a car without
| Android Auto - and it's usually the same cars that support
| carplay.
|
| Anyway it's pretty much moot because besides Tesla, all new
| cars support both Carplay and AA.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Only 21% of people will buy a car without car play? Maaaaybe
| new cars. Maybe.
|
| 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.
| kergonath wrote:
| > 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.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| We had a 2014 that suffered from this. It some touchscreen that
| was basically useless besides showing the backup cam and a few
| random, infrequently changed settings. However, replacing it
| was essentially impossible it also served as a critical system
| for a few things.
|
| 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.
| tssva wrote:
| I have a 2014 Mazda CX-5 and a 2017 Subaru Outback. I have
| replaced the head units in both with 3rd party units which
| support CarPlay/AA. Both installations were easy and took about
| 2-3 hours. Both support changing the car settings through the
| 3rd party headhunt, integrate with the steering wheel controls,
| factory backup camera and the factory installed amplifiers
| (Bose and Harmon Kardon). The key to these integrations were
| iDatalink Maestro units. I ordered mine through Crutchfield but
| most decent car audio websites will generate an installation
| package including the appropriate wire harnesses, iDatalink
| unit, 2-DIN adapter and trim pieces once you select a head unit
| to purchase.
| fransje26 wrote:
| > Both support changing the car settings through the 3rd
| party headhunt, integrate with the steering wheel controls,
| factory backup camera and the factory installed amplifiers
| (Bose and Harmon Kardon)
|
| 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?
| tssva wrote:
| I know the iDatalink Maestro works with some European and
| US cars also. I don't know that there is any kind of
| standard. I suspect the unit has reversed engineered the
| canbus messages for the different manufacturers. Before
| installing the unit you have to program it via usb. They
| provide software for Windows and Mac. You select your
| vehicle, wiring harness model and head unit model and it
| programs it appropriately. It also downloads pdfs with
| instructions for installation including wiring harness
| connections. For my Mazda no splicing of any of the factory
| wiring was necessary. For the Subaru I had to splice a
| single wire for the Starlink (similar to Onstar and not
| SpaceX Starlink related) unit.
|
| 3rd party headhunts from various manufacturers have a port
| for the iDatalink unit which allows it to integrate with
| the head unit. Both of mine are Kenwood but I know a few
| others have support. There are also alternatives to the
| iDatalink Maestro it is just what I have used.
| prmoustache wrote:
| It is not advertised by the car makers but most cars of that
| era can still be retrofit with dual DIN slots.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > Cars from 2018 and up pretty universally support Carplay, and
| it's generally quite well integrated into the car's
| infotainment system.
|
| 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.
| chgs wrote:
| I rent almost exclusively in the "B" level in the U.K. and
| have always had CarPlay. Maybe it's a policy by Enterprise
| UK.
|
| Occasionally I've had something like a D or so, or a van, but
| even the last van I had had CarPlay.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| I've got a cheap 2021 Nissan Versa, and it has CarPlay plus a
| bunch of useful electronics features (front/back proximity
| detection, auto-dipping headlights, etc).
| whoitwas wrote:
| I'm interested in where this data is sourced: "only 21% of
| people will buy a car without carplay". I find that really hard
| to believe even if the survey was isolated to SF.
| bradfa wrote:
| I am in that 21%. Heck, I would MUCH prefer to buy a car with
| no touch screens at all. All I want is a decent car ala
| 2004ish but with modern crash safety and headlights that
| don't suck. I do not care about Bluetooth even!
|
| 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.
| suprfnk wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment, but: how do you navigate?
| Especially to unknown places?
| bradfa wrote:
| My phone works great for driving directions. I plug it in
| and turn up the volume when I'm driving by myself. I plug
| it in and turn off the volume and give it to another
| human to tell me what to do when I have passengers I can
| trust to navigate for me. I only really need to use the
| phone for navigation like 2 or 3 times per month, at
| most. My daily commute to the office never has traffic
| and in nicer weather times I often ride my bike.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I wonder if that assertion is based on _new_ car sales.
|
| 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.
| dayvid wrote:
| I spent like $100 to put a large Carplay display in a 2007
| beater Honda Accord I bought recently. Much better than my
| fiance's Mazda system
| sedawk wrote:
| Interested in doing this, can you please share the details of
| the product you purchased?
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Nowadays there are low cost Chinese kits that directly add
| AA/Carplay to most of those early integrated systems without
| even replacing the unit. They've reverse engineered the lcd and
| touch screen interfaces so they can hijack the screen.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| This article could really use a tl;dr. I tapped out about a third
| of the way through after I got bored with slogging through so
| much windup in search of a "risky bet."
| spike021 wrote:
| A huge benefit to CarPlay for me is I can travel someplace like
| Japan, get a car with a CarPlay-supported head unit, and
| immediately I have Google or Apple Maps available straight off
| the bat in English with all my saved locations like hotels or
| places that are bookmarked. Nothing to set up or anything.
|
| 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.
| hedgehog wrote:
| The car probably has odometry and inertial sensors to do
| position updates while GPS is unavailable. That's actually how
| some of the original car nav systems worked even pre-GPS in the
| 80s.
| spike021 wrote:
| That makes sense. I would've thought the accelerometer/gyro
| in the phone could be used similarly but I'm probably wrong.
| astrange wrote:
| It can, but it's harder because you can mount the phone any
| way you want in the car, or not mount it at all.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I strongly doubt that.
|
| Cars simply have bigger, more power antennas because they
| don't have to be packaged in a phone.
|
| One of our cars has a wireless modem that can be used for a
| hotspot. I've driven to plenty of areas where my phone has no
| service (think remote and hilly terrain), but the car still
| has two or three bars.
| hedgehog wrote:
| The sensors are there and report on CAN bus, I just don't
| know enough about how the nav systems are integrated to
| know if they actually use the data.
| sunshowers wrote:
| As a former iPhone and current Android user, I would be very
| hesitant to buy any car that has Apple software in it. I don't
| trust Apple's software to work well with whatever phone I end up
| picking next.
| serial_dev wrote:
| My understanding is that most cars ship with both Android Auto
| and Apple CarPlay, so you (or your passengers) don't need to
| commit to one mobile OS only because of the car you bought.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Oh yes, current cars do. I'm concerned about the situation
| where Apple provides the onboard infotainment system, which
| is what's being talked about in the post.
| internetter wrote:
| The proposal is not replacing the infotainment with
| carplay. It's adding a second infotainment system
| sunshowers wrote:
| I see! Okay, I guess I was confused then.
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| No it's not what's being talked about. I'm not sure where
| you're getting this. There aren't a lot of details about
| CarPlay 2, but even this article says that CarPlay 2 is a
| way for the car and the phone to communicate more and allow
| the phone to control more of the car. What you're thinking
| about is Android Automotive where there is an Android box
| in the car that is THE infotainment system. I have yet to
| see anywhere that Apple is building an iOS box that sits in
| the car itself that is the only infotainment system.
| kelnos wrote:
| Do cars with systems built on Android Automotive (which is
| Google's infotainment OS, and is not the same as Android
| Auto) support CarPlay?
| sunshowers wrote:
| Yeah, I believe so! But the post talks about using your
| iPhone to do things like turn on climate control remotely.
| I'm incredibly dubious of the idea that Apple would build
| an Android app with the full feature set that they'd ship
| for iPhones. And I'm never going to accept a $$$$$ purchase
| locking me into any particular ecosystem.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| The author admits that they only use 3 apps on CarPlay 1. They're
| going to get CarPlay 2 and still only use 3 apps.
|
| What's the big deal about CarPlay 2, then? Who cares?
| 51Cards wrote:
| >Continuing with the above example, let's imagine I just
| downloaded a new podcast app on my phone (one that is also
| available in the automotive Play Store). The next day I have to
| go on a long drive and I want to listen to a podcast episode I
| downloaded on my phone. When I enter my car, I have to go to the
| Play Store, find the app, download it, log in, and then download
| the episode. When I use CarPlay, I only have to connect my phone.
|
| 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.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| >> Continuing with the above example, let's imagine I just
| downloaded a new podcast app on my phone (one that is also
| available in the [Android A]utomotive Play Store).
|
| 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).
| arjvik wrote:
| There's a difference between Android Auto (Google's CarPlay
| equivalent for phone projection to any infotainment system)
| and Android Automotive (Google's Infotainment OS).
| MBCook wrote:
| Any car that supports android auto (not automotive), no
| matter what software it's running, is technically capable of
| supporting CarPlay.
|
| 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.
| dagmx wrote:
| The author is talking about Android Automotive which is
| different than Android Auto.
|
| Auto is driven from your phone whereas Automotive is running on
| your car directly.
| 51Cards wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification!
| dagmx wrote:
| No problem. It's a really common misunderstanding because
| Google purposefully like to name things to reduce
| distinction.
| MBCook wrote:
| I agree it's a mess. But Apple isn't doing itself any
| favors on CarPlay branding now that it sort of means
| multiple things.
|
| And don't get me started on the Apple TV naming mess.
| mintplant wrote:
| Alright, but then comparing CarPlay 1 to Android Automotive
| is comparing apples and oranges. The author should be
| comparing CarPlay 1 to Android Auto and CarPlay 2 to Android
| Automotive.
| dagmx wrote:
| Sure but I'm just providing more info to the other person?
| I'm not defending the author. I think many of their
| criticisms on both sides have flawed arguments and
| misconceptions .
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| Ummm, no? Sort of. First we don't really know much about
| CarPlay 2. It was announced in 2022 but hasn't been
| detailed yet. However, all the assumptions are that it runs
| of your phone just like CarPlay 1, but with more control
| and integration in the car. Nothing I have seen from Apple
| or others suggests that Apple is building an Android
| Automotive-like product. I.e: Apple software that runs off
| the car itself. Also it will be very unlike Apple to sell
| software that car companies run, which is what Android
| Automotive is. Unless the plan is to sell an iOS box that
| car manufacturers integrate into the car. But I haven't
| seen any thing that suggests that.
| zbentley wrote:
| > Android Automotive which is different than Android Auto
|
| 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.
| mcfedr wrote:
| I really hope the lock in with have with car/phone a connection
| is something the EU addresses next.
|
| 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.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| What permissions do iOS or Android withhold that prevent you
| from doing this? The reason car manufacturers don't do this is
| that it makes no sense to put the software in the phone if
| you're not trying to make the software portable between
| different cars.
| mcfedr wrote:
| You cannot make an iPhone app that has access to phone calls,
| sms, other apps notifications, other apps screens
| ajmurmann wrote:
| > 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.
|
| 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.
| mcfedr wrote:
| I do agree, I think mostly car manufacturers are gonna make
| something worse, but it would be nice to have some more
| competition on the market as carplay and android something
| are also not good.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| 100% agreed on more competition. In addition to not having
| much face in cart manufacturers ability, I also worry about
| how a successful interface by a car manufacturer would
| impact availability of carplay and android auto. It's
| similar to net neutrality and ISPs offering streaming
| services themselves.
| innagadadavida wrote:
| I use CarPlay but it is very clunky - I need to plug in the
| device etc. I've been working on using and old iPhone and keep it
| connected in the car all the time. I plan on using wifi hotspot
| for connectivity and since the device can sign-in using my
| ApplID, it can have access to my calendar or Messages as needed.
| Sharing the routing address from another Apple device can be done
| easily from Maps.
|
| 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.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's specific to your car's head unit. When I get into my
| vehicle, the iPhone in my pocket connects to its head unit via
| Bluetooth with zero actions from me. Seriously, I get into the
| car and the CarPlay display comes on showing my phone's apps. I
| don't have to plug it in, tap a button, or do anything else at
| all.
| massysett wrote:
| I disagree with this love of hooking my $1000 phone to my $30000
| car.
|
| 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.
| kenjackson wrote:
| I so much prefer hooking up my phone, rather than having to
| authenticate every device I own to all the services I want to
| use. And given that most of the services that I want to use in
| the car are also services on my phone, e.g., GPS maps, music,
| podcasts -- why would I want to have to use a whole new app for
| this purpose?
|
| 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.
| massysett wrote:
| You make a great case for why your car should have Google
| Maps built in. That wouldn't require you to hook your phone
| to the car.
|
| Having to hook the phone to the car is s giant leap backward.
| We've got Gmail: email from any device. We don't say: My
| phone has all my email, I hook it up anytime I want to read
| mail, if the battery is dead or I forgot my phone, I'm
| screwed. No, we use Gmail from a tablet, phone, PC, etc.
|
| But for some reason people believe it's an awesome advance
| that we can hook the phone to a car, as if it's impossible to
| build Google Maps into a $30000 car.
| hypothesis wrote:
| > as if it's impossible to build Google Maps into a $30000
| car
|
| I'm dreading the day when they start shipping Chromium with
| your car and thus force you to jump through 0-day hoops.
|
| Is Tesla basically this? Do they still update old models?
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Guess I'll just have to learn to love paying for two
| cellular data plans!
| lmz wrote:
| The lifecycle of a car and those gadgets are quite
| different. Without upgradable hardware in your car you'd be
| stuck with a very old version of Gmail on your car.
|
| This is the same logic as why some people would rather buy
| the dumbest TV they can and let the smarts live in an
| external replaceable box.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| In addition to the points other comments are making, please
| consider rental cars. So much easier there if I can just
| plug in my phone and get the same Infotainment UI
| everywhere.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's like arguing for a smart TV instead of a dumb TV
| plus a smart set top box. I'd vastly rather my car's system
| be a dumb display for my upgradable phone. If Google
| stopped making Maps, your idea would mean my car could no
| longer navigate. With CarPlay or Android Auto, you can just
| switch to a different map app.
| ScoobleDoodle wrote:
| If I were to place a bet, I would bet on car manufacturers
| abandoning updates to the vehicle software far earlier than I
| desire, rather than maintaining it appropriately. I'd also
| guess ads or other unwanted intrusions will be coupled with it.
|
| 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.
| jrmg wrote:
| Have you used CarPlay?
| massysett wrote:
| Yep. My car has it. Not a fan. I have an old-school phone
| holder and usually I prefer that.
| kelnos wrote:
| It's pretty funny to me to see an Apple user complaining about
| lack of interop with other ecosystems. You've chosen your walled
| garden; now it's time to realize you're stuck in it.
|
| 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.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I also think the author misses the mark on this statement
|
| > 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
| karmakaze wrote:
| I hate to say it but monetize subscriptions, not new car
| sales. It's got to be worth as much as a seat warmer.
| dmoy wrote:
| Wait I gotta be missing something. Are seat warmers a
| subscription now?
|
| Damn, indeed I missed that section
|
| > With their own software platforms, they are desperately
| trying to find recurring revenue streams, whether it's a
| subscription for seat heating or driver assistance systems
|
| ..........
| filoleg wrote:
| > Are seat warmers a subscription now?
|
| They almost became a subscription, but BMW backpedaled at
| the last second[0].
|
| 0. https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/7/23863258/bmw-cancel-
| heated...
| rrdharan wrote:
| Pretty soon the pedals will be a subscription or pay per
| use.
| filoleg wrote:
| That's called "leasing a car", and it comes with a
| limited number of miles per year, beyond which you pay
| $X/per 100 miles iirc. I wouldn't know the details,
| because I bought my car instead of leasing, but I
| remember looking at lease terms that all had a mileage
| limit +extra pay per N number of miles.
| godelski wrote:
| > I don't think Apple sees this as a promising revenue
| stream.
|
| 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.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| The information you are referencing could be retrieved
| without CarPlay though. I am sure car specific data has
| some value to Apple, but given they aren't really in the
| car business it might not be the primary driver/motivation
| here. It's probably more likely that the data was way more
| valuable when they were building their own car but now that
| has been scrapped perhaps not as much?
| raihansaputra wrote:
| > 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
|
| 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".
| willcipriano wrote:
| Imagine a world where Apple and Google (and others) worked
| together and made a open standard that is as good as what they
| both have today.
|
| Bluetooth but for cars.
|
| Such a missed opportunity.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| This would be considered a trust worth busting.
| pegasus wrote:
| Not if it's open.
| npteljes wrote:
| Not if it's anything like the video standardization
| efforts. The result is royalty free and open source. Every
| provider and consumer benefits when the infra is open
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media
| hu3 wrote:
| Is USB a trust worth busting?
|
| Or DDR?
|
| Or M2?
|
| I'd argue those are trusts worth boosting.
| khimaros wrote:
| personally, i am hoping for (and working slowly toward)
| modernized AACS so that eg. a raspberry pi can be used to
| control most modern car head units unmodified:
| https://github.com/tomasz-grobelny/AACS
| jnaina wrote:
| CarPlay 2 needs a deeper integration to the car, as part of the
| vehicle's SDV stack. From what I understand, Apple will license
| software that runs on the vehicles SDV stack (RTOS, etc) with
| support for various Auto specific SoCs (Nvidia, Qualcomm,
| Renesas, NXP, etc).
|
| 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.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > and doing so isn't really in their interests, outside of
| Apple users who might refuse to consider their cars without
| CarPlay 2 support.
|
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > And it's the auto manufacturer's fault for deciding to go
| with Android Automotive as the infotainment OS.
|
| 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.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| > give iPhones the ability to control most aspects of the car's
| infotainment functions
|
| 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...
| eloisant wrote:
| That's why I'm happy with CarPlay/AA for infotainment...
| ONLY. Maps, music, podcasts, that's all I need.
|
| 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.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > You've chosen your walled garden; now it's time to realize
| you're stuck in it.
|
| 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.
| kergonath wrote:
| > It's pretty funny to me to see an Apple user complaining
| about lack of interop with other ecosystems. You've chosen your
| walled garden; now it's time to realize you're stuck in it.
|
| 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)
| graftak wrote:
| Pretty much all new car reviews are complaining about the built
| in infotainment, and it only gotten worse after manufacturers
| decided to jump on the all out touch screen bandwagon (to save
| a few bucks) but without Tesla's generally alright UI and
| responsiveness.
|
| 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.
| elzbardico wrote:
| It is bad enough that Mercedes decided to emulate Tesla. Now,
| fuck this, I don't want my merc dashboard to look like an IPhone.
| It cheapens the experience.
| jitl wrote:
| In my view, Apple does a better job designing high-end digital
| surfaces than Mercedes. Last week Mercedes decided to add a
| green polo shirt to all the user avatars in my vehicle, which
| to me seems like a clown move, and something that Apple would
| never do. You can always just not connect your phone to your
| car if you prefer the stuff the car does on its own.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > Mercedes decided to emulate Tesla
|
| 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.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I am not even talking about the software, because I think it
| is a matter of habit and expectations, but this horrible
| trend of refusing to have a proper dashboard and instead just
| slapping what looks like a bunch of tablets in front of you,
| and of course, the death of physical buttons. I absolutely
| abhor this.
| guidedlight wrote:
| > I use only three apps when driving: Google Maps for navigation,
| Spotify for music, and Castro for podcasts. The number of cars on
| sale today with these three apps available is zero.
|
| My car (a Volvo) has two of these three apps built-in.
|
| I stopped reading the rest of the article.
| kenjackson wrote:
| You stopped reading the rest of the article because your own
| personal experience has thus far matched the authors? Or some
| other reason?
| ianferrel wrote:
| Doesn't your example support the author's point? Your car, like
| all other cars, does not support all three of those apps.
| anon373839 wrote:
| I love CarPlay, but has anyone noticed that Apple just isn't
| testing on non-touch interfaces? Some cars use a wheel to
| navigate the UI, and there are some awful CarPlay UI bugs where
| certain buttons become unreachable.
| giobox wrote:
| Thankfully it seems to be mainly just Mazda and Alfa Romeo in
| currently on sale cars doing the disable CarPlay touch screen
| while moving thing? There are probably other outliers, but
| those two are the primary culprits who made it a brand policy.
|
| 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.
| isatty wrote:
| I've a touch screen but I never use it and almost always use
| the wheel (bmw), and I've rarely had bugs or difficulty using
| it. What vehicle dyou have, out of curiosity?
| frankus wrote:
| A bit of a tangent, but those "distinctive" interior mockups made
| me instantly cringe. I'm fine with designers having a bit fun
| with every part of the car _other than_ the top of the dashboard,
| which should be flat, dull, and dark (ideally covered in
| something like Vantablack), because any bit of visual clutter
| there gets superimposed over the road in front of you thanks to
| the reflection of the windshield in sunny weather.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I'd be perfectly happy with carplay for media/navigation only. I
| want my analog dials, knobs and switches for all other car
| control and climate control functions.
|
| 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.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Google jumped on this opportunity by releasing Android
| Automotive. Unlike Android Auto, Google's equivalent to Apple
| CarPlay, Android Automotive runs natively inside the car and any
| carmaker is free to use it.
|
| 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.
| fragmede wrote:
| that the really good computer thinking people aren't really
| really good at people thinking is surprising to you?
| 10u152 wrote:
| 156500 employees.
|
| I'm sure there's a few PR/Marketing people in there. It's not
| all "Good computer thinking people"
|
| Google isn't a plucky startup with just a few dedicated
| engineers.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > Google isn't a plucky startup with just a few dedicated
| engineers.
|
| They made great long term corporate value and customer
| relationship decisions then, for their context.
|
| When big corporations full of talent get sloppy, it is
| usually either a very competent emphasis on short term
| financial growth or value multiple growth. Or the result of
| multiple competent actors infighting or working at cross
| purposes, due to a lack of strong internal alignment. The
| latter jungle case saves a CEO from having to deep dive,
| they can just see what happens and select winners.
|
| Either way, by competent I mean someone is accomplishing
| exactly what they intend. Optimizing their net worth given
| the company's incentive and power structures, in the
| absence of a CEO who cares more about the long than the
| short term.
|
| It only takes that one difference at the very top to
| trickle down. The greater the talent, the greater the
| effect.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The actual name is Google Automotive Service [0], which
| shortens as GAS. That's not bad I think, at least it's easy to
| remember.
|
| 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.
|
| [0] https://developers.google.com/cars
| MBCook wrote:
| Isn't that a recent renaming though?
| Nevermark wrote:
| Few things are as big a win as ensuring your customers are
| never quite sure they really understand your product line up.
| Because they actually never really understand your product
| line up.
|
| I can understand this kind of thinking in a here-and-gone
| used car lot.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| >Competition aside, from Apple's perspective, CarPlay is also not
| ideal in its current form. For a company that values control over
| the user experience, it's an eyesore to see their product
| embedded inside another product.
|
| 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?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| This! Cars should be dumb and use physical buttons for all
| functionality I might use while driving. The entertainment
| system should just be a larger screen and better speakers for
| my phone. I have zero interest in dealing with a infotainment
| system developed by the car maker that's built-in. This way I
| can upgrade by buying a new phone, it's synced to my phone
| because it's my phone and everything works the same in rental
| cars and I don't need to sync any of my data to rental cars.
| I'm pretty happy with my car, but I'm sometimes annoyed when it
| thinks it's ok to use the display or speakers for things that
| aren't coming from my phone. It's the same issue as stupid
| "smart" tvs!
| luuurker wrote:
| > This is a little unfair because Castro is a small, iOS-only
| app. [...] But it does mean that if I want to listen to podcasts
| in these cars, I have to change my podcast app to one available
| in the Play Store.
|
| 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.
| teeray wrote:
| > But it won't be possible to sell a subscription for a feature
| when all is controlled by Apple CarPlay
|
| _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.
| lanthade wrote:
| It's amusing when the author says "when the phone crashes."
|
| 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.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| FWIW Teslas infotainment works better than CarPlay
| filoleg wrote:
| Somewhat agreed (I prefer the Tesla infotainment system over
| CarPlay, but they both have their own advantages, despite
| being imo equally good overall), but I would say it's not
| super relevant to the argument. And only because Tesla
| infotainment is the only car manufacturer's first-party
| infotainment system I've seen that can hold a candle to
| CarPlay. Not a single other one I've seen was even close.
| CarPlay was the best I could hope for, because anything that
| was first-party (excluding Tesla) was absolutely awful.
|
| I don't remember which specific brands had CarPlay and which
| ran their own infotainment systems, but I remember a couple
| years ago visiting dealerships of
| BMW/Mercedes/Honda/Toyota/Kia/Subaru/Ford and walking away
| either relieved that the car had CarPlay or internally
| cursing at their first-party infotainment system and
| promising myself to not even bother trying next time.
| cjensen wrote:
| Doesn't matter because CarPlay and AA allow you to bring
| whatever apps you want to with you. If you listen to podcasts
| or books on your phone, you can continue them from the
| CarPlay/AA interface next time you drive.
|
| CarPlay and Android Auto give you the choice of your own app
| and full integration with the rest of your listening life.
| ajross wrote:
| That's a statement about audio playing only though. To
| first approximation the core job of a car infotainment
| product is map and navigation display. Everything else is
| noise.
| lokar wrote:
| Have you not used maps via CarPlay?
| arcticfox wrote:
| I think CarPlay is kind of stupid because the ONLY apps
| that make any sense are audio and maps. Both of which
| don't need much variety... Google Maps, plus a handful of
| audio apps, and the infotainment system is complete.
| seer wrote:
| Hmm waze is hugely popular where I come from, because of
| all the police speed traps it crowdsources. And I've not
| seen that as part of an official infotainment system like
| ever.
|
| And to be fair I prefer waze, not just because it makes
| driving simpler, but the community feeling you get by
| marking stopped cars or other obstructions on the road
| for others to pay attention to.
|
| Unless automakers organize and come together to build a
| common os/ui layer, I don't see apps like that ever being
| present in official infotainment systems.
|
| And audio book apps change all the time too - local
| variants with local libraries, language learning apps
| etc. There is quite the variety of stuff you could do in
| a car.
| _flux wrote:
| I imagine a lot of companies would like to integrate
| their apps to cars. Think the police, ambulances,
| taxis/Uber, etc. Currently they just solve the problem by
| mounting more devices to the car.
|
| And even if you want to use only audio and maps, then
| there are still a selection of audio streaming providers
| and map providers around.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Yes. It's awful.
|
| Plus CarPlay it's pretty unstable and requires cable on
| some cars.
| hollandheese wrote:
| People listen to audio in their cars a lot more than they
| use navigation.
| katbyte wrote:
| Offline maps such as Gaia don't work on Tesla so that is
| it failing at its job compared to CarPlay
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Maybe you can use your phone for when you actually go
| offline once a year...
| katbyte wrote:
| try every week or two?
|
| camping hiking etc bring me places without reception.
|
| driving between towns here (BC, canada) often mean long
| stretches of road without reception.
| tsudounym wrote:
| Tesla's Spotify app had a long standing bug where it couldn't
| recognize playlists with more than 100 songs. To be dependent
| on a car company to give bugs for every individual apps
| rather than to just mirror from your phone, which will have
| patched apps right away..
| djtango wrote:
| Yeah its like smart TVs but worse
| lokar wrote:
| Plus, that musky smell...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If that were true, Tesla would have no problem offering
| CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility.
|
| After all, it's just a protocol to let your phone use the
| display (or part of it) as a second monitor.
| hatsix wrote:
| it is not just that, and cheap decks with laggy carplay/AA
| unfortunately prove that some processing happens external
| to the phone
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume every touchscreen monitor has its own processor,
| but that does not mean it is seeing any data other than
| the video stream. And I imagine that video stream data is
| not going elsewhere.
| caf wrote:
| My theory is that Tesla want to strongly encourage people
| to use the in-built navigation that works very hard to
| ensure you don't run out of charge.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| Or because they want to charge a subscription for
| "premium data" which nobody would buy if there was
| CarPlay.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| You don't need premium data for online maps. Premium data
| is for sat maps, music and live camera views. Also at $10
| per month it's actually quite cheap.
| caf wrote:
| Yeah it doesn't seem to be a profit centre, at the moment
| anyway.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Are you saying you can't listen to music in a Tesla
| without a subscription?
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Bluetooth, radio, usb and using your phones hotspot is
| still an option (tho unrealistic given how shit iOS
| hotspot is)
| prmoustache wrote:
| ah right, that is just internet connection for anything
| else but maps
| hamandcheese wrote:
| I'm saying I can't get live traffic on my Tesla maps
| without a subscription.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Which is $10 per customer per month more than they'd get
| if everyone was using CarPlay / Android Auto.
|
| It's been proven time and time again that vertical
| integration is a massive money earner and you can bet
| that if Tesla were to release a smartphone then support
| for that in their cars would be a software update that
| follows immediately after. But since there's no plans for
| a phone, the next best thing is a subscription-based
| infotainment system.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Can carplay live stream video from hyundai's cameras..?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| We are talking about mapping and music. Not parking
| sensors
| hamandcheese wrote:
| You mean that feature I've never used?
|
| I pay for premium data only because of Spotify and live
| traffic. Which I wouldn't have to do if it had CarPlay.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| It's also for live traffic.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Lol. Just a protocol that you need to get a blessing from
| Apple and pay them dearly.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > pay them dearly.
|
| Source? I cannot find a single reference to Apple
| collecting fees, much less onerous fees, for implementing
| CarPlay functionality.
|
| Automakers don't like CarPlay because it makes cars
| fungible. I like CarPlay because it makes cars fungible.
| Apple seems like it would give away CarPlay (at least for
| now) to broaden the reach of its platform.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Unless I want to use my favorite podcast app - Overcast - or
| use my radio station's CarPlay app.
| katbyte wrote:
| It has a far more limited selection of apps and Some I use
| daily are not available so it really doesn't matter if it
| works better because for me it doesn't work at all.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Depends on lots of variables, overall not something I want to
| rely on just to play music. Like I got a Chevy rental and
| CarPlay took forever to pair then proceeded to play distorted
| music for some reason, while the FM radio worked fine. Worked
| better on another car but still took forever to pair.
|
| 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.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| The quality of a rental Chevy head unit is not a good
| indicator of the CarPlay user experience in a decent car.
| hot_gril wrote:
| It shouldn't matter, it's just music. And one car that
| failed the test was a $50K Suburban. If it's this flaky,
| maybe some other car works fine but one day it stops.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I think we should collectively start saying things like
| "wow, look at how horrible this system is. I wonder how
| bad the computer control for steering or brakes is!"
|
| The point being, further hurt the sales of any cars like
| this, because really, it could be true.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Eh, that's something a lot of people would notice and the
| government would get involved in, and it's been played
| out already. I generally trust GM's steering and brakes
| to work. Infotainment is not their expertise, and if they
| were releasing a self-driving car, I'd also be wary given
| their track record.
| derwiki wrote:
| CarPlay is alright on rentals, but I don't care for it as a
| daily driver. Gimme a USB port I can plug a 32GB flash drive
| full of MP3s into. I don't mind using a phone holder in the
| vent when I need to map, but I only map on <10% of trips.
| This is probably the most luddite thing about me: I loathe
| using a phone while driving. I just find it too distracting.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I'd use a flash drive if I didn't also need nav and my wife
| didn't have online music. So what I've got is a cupholder.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Second this, had VW, GM and Ford cars, complete unusable shit
| without carplay, doubt the other car makers are any better.
|
| 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.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| Mercedes seems to be quite good from what I've heard and seen
| on ytube. Not cheap though.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Drove a rental GLA last September, and the system was quite
| nice to use. No noticeable lag.
|
| Also, the integration with the iphone was top-notch. It
| understood that the iphone provided navigation, so if I
| pressed the nav button while on the radio screen, it would
| activate google maps from the iphone. The only thing which
| wasn't great was typing in some long address, which is why
| I connected the iphone.
|
| Rented some kind of Audi a few weeks later, and it had the
| usual crappy integration. "nav" is the car's laggy
| navigation, etc.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| My Renault Megane e-Tech uses an Android Automotive based OS,
| along with some Qualcomm chips to drive it[1].
|
| Result is that it's smooth like a tablet, even with it's
| quite large 12" screen. Been very pleased with it so far.
|
| It also supports Android Auto and CarPlay though, something I
| had as a requirement.
|
| [1]: https://9to5google.com/2021/09/06/android-automotive-
| renault...
| sircastor wrote:
| CarPlay is still wholly dependent on the car's infotainment
| stack. If your Suburu's system is crashing, CarPlay can't
| insulate you from that.
| nmcfarl wrote:
| I don't know about that - my Subaru head unit crashes a lot
| more when I'm clicking around in the Subaru programs, and it
| very rarely crashes when I'm clicking in CarPlay. My feeling
| is there are bugs in the Subaru provided programs, and very
| few bugs in the program that launches CarPlay and gives it
| control of the screen (probably because that is a very simple
| program).
|
| So it seems that the more features I use via carplay the less
| it crashes. It's not perfect, but it certainly helps.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I had the same problem with my Volvo XC-90 (2020 Model).
| It's been years since any of my iPhones have crashed. Never
| had a problem with carplay in my BMW or Chrysler minivan
| either. I hope Volvo has found the problem and released a
| fix by now.
| skinner927 wrote:
| I had/have a 2020 Subaru Forester and 2024 Subaru Ascent
| and both head units have completely frozen to the point
| removing the battery was the only fix (even the radio fuses
| didn't reset the underlying computer).
|
| It's really quite a shame as they're fantastic cars
| otherwise. But yes, it's never CarPlay that does it.
| saganus wrote:
| In my case, I own a VW SUV and to my surprise when I go
| nearby a particular antenna, if I have my Android phone
| connected it crashes the whole infotainment system, and I
| can't do anything with it unless I turn the car off for
| several minutes, which is obviously impossible if I'm going
| somewhere.
|
| However my wife has an iPhone and although going next to the
| same antenna does crash the system as well, it does so very
| briefly and just resets the connection or something, and as
| soon as we go out of range it starts working again.
|
| So it does look like there's some difference between CarPlay
| and Android Auto even when using the same exact car with
| both.
|
| No idea why this happens and I can only assume the antenna is
| transmitting in a frequency that interferes with the wifi
| connection (it does not require a cable like older VW cars)
| which triggers a bug in the Android's stack, but Apple's
| stack seems more resilient somehow.
|
| I would love to know if anyone else has had the same
| experience because I find it quite baffling and very annoying
| when I forget to disconnect my phone when going through that
| antenna.
| dijit wrote:
| that's less true in reality than you think, because I am in a
| similar situation as OP.
|
| Infotainment systems are prone to runtime errors and crashes,
| if you interact less with the internal workings of the
| infotainment system itself, it does a somewhat good job of
| just passing audio through and you have fewer sessions with a
| crash.
|
| That said; i have noticed a disparity in what the
| infotainment gps navigation can do and what carplay can do-
| carplay is often limited to the center console, but the
| built-in navigation can go into the HUD of the car. An
| annoying difference.
| fire_lake wrote:
| If the car stack is doing less then crashes are not as
| likely?
| internet101010 wrote:
| My iPhone crashes... intentionally. Because the Spotify app
| caches everything rather than doing refreshes when loading "new
| episodes" of podcasts. I had to abandon them for podcasts
| because of it.
|
| That said, a car without CarPlay is simply out of the pool of
| possible cars I would buy. It's a requirement.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| My infotainment unit is pretty unreliable. Sometimes I have to
| play music or use my map from the phone speakers because the
| cars unit just goes black and won't reboot
| x-shadowban wrote:
| Fell for the Crosstrek but then got the ick with that dash
| tablet
| katbyte wrote:
| Also I find it CarPlay crashes or hangs you just unplug/replug
| and it works
| jkestner wrote:
| Once my Ford's infotainment system (Microsoft CE, I believe)
| crashed hard, and I had to open and close the door while I was
| at a stoplight to get it to reset.
|
| On the other hand, the voice command system works as badly as
| it did when I got the car, while Siri has gotten worse.
| pjerem wrote:
| Happens on mine too.
|
| I discovered not later than yesterday that if I plug a
| Nintendo Switch to one of the USB ports (to recharge it), the
| interface disappears.
|
| And this is still one of the least garbage infotainment I had
| to endure to this day.
| jkestner wrote:
| Agreed! Seems like these systems are about 10 years behind
| in general, so I was pleasantly surprised that the voice
| system worked after a fashion. Just requires too specific
| phrasing to make it do stuff, and then I didn't pay to keep
| the maps up to date... Also appreciate that the main UI
| follows Fitt's Law and I can jam my finger to the corner to
| go to audio (though if it would just stay on that screen
| between drives I wouldn't have to do anything).
| jeffchien wrote:
| You don't _have_ to download a new podcast app because you could
| just play it through Bluetooth. CarPlay and AA probably wouldn 't
| even exist if it weren't for car vent phone holders and
| 2.5mm/Bluetooth upending automakers' grip on navigation and
| entertainment.
| hot_gril wrote:
| It's amusing how some new cars seemingly deliberately have no
| place to put your phone, while some older ones were
| specifically designed to hold your iPod.
| nottommo wrote:
| Big fan of apple CarPlay installed an aftermarket one in my 2004
| Golf and it can make it feel more modern than some 2013 cars.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Can I please not have my dashboard change configuration every
| time I plug my phone in? Infotainment only is a FEATURE, not a
| bug!
| sircastor wrote:
| When I worked for an Auto maker (left 2 years ago), the cluster
| was an independent system from infotainment. They could follow
| messages from each other on the bus (it wasn't CAN bus, we'd
| moved on from that) but basically there wasn't a way for CarPlay
| to talk to the Cluster.
|
| 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.
| wackget wrote:
| CarPlay features in the instrument cluster is already a thing
| in some cars: https://youtu.be/HB4CODQmYl8?t=140
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Sure, but that's just auto manufactures largely sticking to a
| legacy system because they don't need to improve.
|
| As soon as customers demand better, there will be better/easier
| integration between the two components.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Tbh CarPlay runs really badly in my 2018 VW GTI and Castro in
| particular is extremely buggy. It's pretty much random if the
| turn by turn audio navigation works at all.
|
| 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.
| mxlapp wrote:
| Volvo's car radio is not easy to use, I hope it would be better
| to use CarPlay directly
| mantra2 wrote:
| I and most people I know are part of that 70% of people who would
| never buy a car without CarPlay. Even my elderly relatives who
| are not GREAT with tech in general seem to love it.
| neilv wrote:
| > _Thanks to a deep integration with the software stack of the
| vehicle, CarPlay 2 can control most infotainment functions. It
| can therefore take over the entire infotainment display, the
| instrument cluster, and any passenger displays._
|
| The instrument cluster?
|
| Any other safety-critical functions that the iPhone isn't
| isolated from?
| jeena wrote:
| Normally the instrument cluster runs a different software
| stack, but can overlay some graphics from the infotainment in
| certain areas to show navigation or what music is playing right
| now.
| jeena wrote:
| The author is talking about that they only use Google Maps,
| Spotify and some podcast app and that those are not available in
| the car. Interestingly for me only the Google Maps thing is a
| problem, actually Google Maps doesn't work here in South Korea so
| I have to use Kakao Maps or T-Map. Anyway music and especially
| podcast work wonderfully over bluetooth.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Two things scare me about Android / Apple car integration - I'd
| be interested in experiences others have had:
|
| 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?
| jacooper wrote:
| > 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
| esel2k wrote:
| Shouldn't this be exactly like the bluetooth integration? It's
| just a defined protocol for basic functions like start, stop,
| play etc. so similarly stream any Apps from your phone with basic
| commands? I am happy to limit myself to a large google maps
| screen and the rest is control of my entertainment like I do
| today (open the app and then control via bluetooth).
|
| By this we have no vendor lock in and just making sure there is a
| protocol downwards compatibility...
| wilde wrote:
| Ugh, CarPlay 1 is exactly the division of responsibilities I
| want. I don't want Apple anywhere near the actual driving
| functions and instruments. It takes a long time for my car to
| connect to CarPlay and it'd be super distracting to have the
| instruments suddenly change to Apple's as I'm driving.
| graftak wrote:
| I much rather have car manufacturers creating 'exclusive to their
| brand' themes and skins for the CarPlay 2 dials than not having
| car play (2) at all.
|
| 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.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Having had to do with car executives, especially in Europe, let
| me tell you... they're a peculiar lot. The older ones confuse
| their old school pride for business acumen more often than not,
| because of survival bias from an era when the two things
| actually coincided. The younger ones are frustrated by the fact
| that older upper management is extremely conservative and
| they're often put down or given toy projects to tinker with. On
| the other hand, incumbent carmakers might have also seen how
| Apple was able to turn the carriers' business around by
| convincing Cingular/AT&T about giving up their control and they
| don't like the idea of ending up like the carriers, with
| overarching licensing fees for keeping on using the tech...
| roydivision wrote:
| All I look for is a USB connection to the simple stereo, plug my
| phone in and mount it on the dash. I fail to see why I have to
| deal with the additional cognitive load of an other interface
| that WILL go wrong when I already have a perfectly good one in my
| pocket.
|
| (No, I don't even want Bluetooth, ugh).
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I also prefer this, but I find that lots of cars for some
| reason end up with weird volume levels for turn-by-turn
| compared to the music. Have you found a bullet proof way of
| adjusting this?
| mfeldheim wrote:
| The only reason I use CarPlay is because I have an iPhone. The
| experience with Android auto is way ahead. Did you ever try to
| call a business that's not in your contacts? Did you ever try to
| ask a simple question? Siri integration is horrible
| withinboredom wrote:
| Siri, in general, is horrible. Just ask Siri: "set an alarm for
| 12:00 UTC" or "set an alarm for 12:00 Eastern Standard Time"
| and she will create an alarm named UTC or Eastern Standard Time
| ... but it's actually in your current timezone.
|
| Super annoying when you want to set an alarm in a timezone you
| are going to be traveling to.
| rekoil wrote:
| I feel like we should separate Voice Assistants from
| infotainment in general here.
|
| 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.
| r00fus wrote:
| My Siri hack is to ask "call $business_name near me" and it
| works pretty well. For asian names, I just ask "call
| $restaurant_category near me".
|
| I really hope Siri gets that LLM-based upgrade in iOS18 but I
| can cope with it for now.
| parski wrote:
| I went from CarPlay (Kia e-Niro) to Tesla (Model 3) to CarPlay
| (Volvo XC40 Recharge) and I vastly prefer CarPlay. I've tried
| wireless CarPlay (BMW M2) and while convenient when entering and
| exiting the vehicle I found it to be quite laggy compared to
| wired. While Tesla does have the Apple Podcasts app it's a really
| bad experience. It won't sync playback state properly so I have
| to memorize what I'm listening to and how far I've gotten when I
| switch from car to phone or back. Similar story with Apple Music
| and even Spotify (which is usually great at keeping state between
| devices but not with Tesla for some reason). Yes, I paid for
| "premium connectivity". Tesla did have better route planning
| though.
|
| 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.
| can16358p wrote:
| One thing that is ridiculous with CarPlay is that I can't read
| messages: it only allows to "speak" it and while I use my phone
| in English I message with my friends in my native language and
| speaking works terrible. Even my car's shitty infotainment system
| can display messages.
|
| 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.
| trodat14 wrote:
| Why do you need to read messages while you're driving?
| fragmede wrote:
| because the message may be informing the driver of a change
| in destination
| bzzzt wrote:
| Is the message so important it justifies creating a safety
| risk? You could also just wait until you've arrived or stop the
| car at a safe place...
| mihainov wrote:
| That's the problem. I don't know if the message is important
| or not unless I see it. There wouldn't be a safety risk if at
| least the beginning of the message was displayed on screen.
| That would be enough to figure out if it's something worth
| stopping for or something that can wait.
| can16358p wrote:
| Well it could be important. CarPlay has no problem displaying
| a notification of a message with a red dot or a popup from
| below. If it didn't, then I get it.
|
| But it does show that there's a message but doesn't show the
| message itself: worst of both worlds.
| deergomoo wrote:
| All I want from CarPlay is for it not to start blaring the last
| thing I was playing on the car speakers as soon as I plug it in,
| especially given there's about a 10 second window between the
| sound playing and the head unit being booted enough to actually
| show the screen so I can pause it.
|
| I have no idea if it's the car or CarPlay but could I please just
| have a toggle _somewhere_?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Most radios have a mute that'll also pause the playback
| rekoil wrote:
| It's the car I'm pretty sure. If anyone has another take I'd
| love to hear what they think, but I've used many
| implementations of CarPlay and have never encountered what
| you're describing.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| A similar thing happens to me. I don't use Apple Music
| regularly. This means the last song I played is from something
| like 2-3 years ago. I constantly listen to podcasts and other
| music streaming services on my phone. Constantly. In the
| shower, running, in the gym, walking around town...constantly.
|
| 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?
| m000 wrote:
| Why can't we have a car that only has:
|
| (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.
| arepublicadoceu wrote:
| The same reason why we can't have:
|
| - TV's that only display images without syphoning user data;
|
| - One-time payment app purchase without subscription.
| m000 wrote:
| If you don't mean "make more money"/"squeeze out every penny
| possible", I doubt the reasons are the same. These are 3
| totally different classes of products, with different
| development/support costs, and pricing orders of magnitude
| apart.
|
| - A new car is an O($10k) investment.
|
| - A TV is an O($100) investment.
|
| - A monthly app subscription is typically O($1).
| whoitwas wrote:
| This article is very surprising to me, people actually use and
| want this software? I always avoid using car infotainment because
| they suck and just link my phone via bluetooth because it isn't
| the worst possible thing.
| jlnthws wrote:
| I still drive a 2008 model car with nothing more than a radio and
| a basic Bluetooth handsfree system, and it's all I've ever
| needed. When I bought the car, I consciously opted out of a
| 3500EUR built-in GPS, predicting that smartphone navigation would
| soon surpass it. Over a decade later, that decision still holds
| up--my iPhone handles all my navigation needs more effectively
| than any built-in system could.
|
| 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?
| 293984j29384 wrote:
| The AA/Carplay experience is incredibly superior to a cell
| phone clipped into some type of holder. With wireless Carplay,
| I couldn't even imagine going back to plugging my phone in, or
| even taking it out of my pocket. There is no downside because
| you aren't forced into using it.
| jlnthws wrote:
| > incredibly superior to a cell phone
|
| I guess YMMV. I've recently had the chance to test drive some
| of the latest models from BMW and Audi, and honestly, I found
| their infotainment software to be quite laggy and sometimes
| unresponsive. It felt inexact and bloated, reminiscent of an
| old Windows XP laptop with a Samsung UI skin. While the
| CarPlay integration was ok, it still didn't surpass the
| simplicity and efficiency of just using my iPhone mounted on
| the dashboard as a makeshift heads-up display.
| 293984j29384 wrote:
| I'd agree with the comments about the built-in system for
| any car but I disagree that mounting your phone on the
| dashboard is more simple and efficient then just leaving it
| in your pocket for the same functionality.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I don't understand why they never formed a committee and decide
| core basic features an OS should provide, set up an open spec API
| (a good one), and have that as a basis for android, ios, and
| mobile phones. Something like that could easily hold up for 20
| years. Obviously we could put in climate controls, but all the
| cars should have the same basic "position" and "heirarchy tree"
| of where basic controls/settings are. Whenever I rent a car it's
| always a fkn hastle to find settings. That's all I ask :)
| Terretta wrote:
| Who is "they" and "we"?
|
| Perhaps the group behind OBD II?
|
| https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/everything-you-need-to-kn...
| aaroninsf wrote:
| A lot of this is a parable about what is wrong with the tech
| industry, which rewards dominance and market seizure rather than
| utility, longevity, and other consumer benefits.
|
| 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.
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