291–300 of 395 posts
I do have some sympathy for GM — as much as the public might want it, continuing down the current path is certainly ceding a fair amount of control over their customer base to two large third parties.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
EVs are turning the service business on their head. It looks like the only real service on the Bolt is tire rotations and a cabin air filter change for example.
I have a Nissan LEAF. In 8.5 years, my expenses have included replacing wiper blades twice, cabin air filter twice, filling the washer fluid bottle several times and I’ve looked at the tires and brakes, rotating tires once. It’s been crazy nice. (As the family wrench-turner, even my wife’s CR-V, which is generally low maintenance, has felt like an inconvenient pig for maintenance demands by comparison.)
Ideally, my car would look like a BT speaker, possibly with a microphone and some controls, to the phone. I don't want a dedicated satnav, I don't want an elaborate in-car entertainment system. The reason is twofold. The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. The second is that they tend to be fairly low quality to begin with. The system in my car that integrates with…
One of the things that it has done (that your post reminded me of) is that it eliminated the onboard stereo. There is a dock for a phone (I think in this prototype iteration it only supports a single model of iPhone, but I assume that will change?) and there is a dashboard where a dashboard is expected that will integrate with the phone, and there are optional bluetooth speakers and corresponding mount points in the car (so you can take them with you or not have them at all if you like)
This is the closest I've seen to your vision, and it makes sense. Dodge/Jeep do a good job of providing infotainment systems, but no matter how good they are, unless they're outsourced to Apple or Google (who will always be looking for a way to steer customers to their platforms) there's just not really any way for a car company to keep up with the feature velocity of either.
Car infotainment systems are terrible. That's the reason why everyone wants CarPlay and Android Auto. It's kind of like going back to flip phones after using smartphones for years.
I don't want CarPlay or Android Auto. It's one more thing I have to fiddle with. One more thing to fight while someone beside me or behind me becomes impatient. Bluetooth is meh. I would rather have an aux cord. From the days when we connected systems by physically connecting systems. I am in the car to drive, a delightful escape from interacting with a phone.
Ideally, my car would look like a BT speaker, possibly with a microphone and some controls, to the phone. I don't want a dedicated satnav, I don't want an elaborate in-car entertainment system. The reason is twofold. The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. The second is that they tend to be fairly low quality to begin with. The system in my car that integrates with…
Good luck, though.
"GM said it will gradually shift to built-in infotainment systems that use Google's Android Automotive platform."
I'm driving a new Volvo that has exactly this, and it allows CarPlay. In fact, the next software update looks like it will support CarPlay2.
https://www.xc40forum.com/threads/carplay-access-to-driver%E...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a similar problem, and solved it with a Shortcut which disables wifi whenever CarPlay is connected, and another to re-enable it when disconnected. Real easy since Shortcuts has built-in triggers for CarPlay.
I couldn’t find anything CarPlay related in the built in shortcuts app. Can you share the details?
How does this business decision make sense? A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit. And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her,…
Tesla doesn't offer android or iPhone carplay. Instead they try to offer a software experience superior to those. It does Spotify, gps, etc but also manages the car itself.
Depending on what the user is doing it makes sense. If the user mostly wanted their phone for music and directions, you can build that stuff in house and have it turn out okay. If the user wants carplay for much more than that, then it's not good.
I mentioned this before in an a previous post in April[2]. Car Dashboard designers are not good at software innovation. But they are good at positioning buttons into the right places. or move stuff around here and there. It's what they do. Like moving radio controls onto the steering wheel. In the case of Mercedes, they move the maps feature right into the driver's view. And they offer it in different formats, like text view, Augmented reality camera view, or map view. The same goes for radio content.
Hate to say it, but the flexibility the Mercedes dashboard offers makes it a more superior option compared to the built-in CarPlay and Android Auto that is also. I rarely use this superior option (or whenever I don't feel like connecting my phone by wire) because I am satisfied with CarPlay, and less satisfied with Android Auto (it crashes satellite view map).
Dashboard designers want more of the OS apps to be configurable and stretchable across the interface they install.
[1] http://canadianautoreview.ca/images/car_photos/2017-mercedes...
