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GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

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Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#121

Post by kmlx »

ungamedplayer wrote: post #4

Call it what it is.. they like the control of their in car entertainment systems and they don't want external companies taking that part of the pie. It's okay gm, we understand. Let's hope you are able to make a compelling competition to this, otherwise your sales will suffer. Traditional car software is very very poor for whatever reason. I don't think that car manufacturers have the mindset and capability to make e…

> Call it what it is.. they like the control of their in car entertainment systems and they don't want external companies taking that part of the pie.

they did call it as it is. it's in the article:

> In addition to potentially buying things from GM or GM’s partners through their car’s infotainment system, GM is also looking at subscription services that would be managed through the same interface. GM’s chief digital officer, Edward Kummer, told Reuters as much when the decision to drop CarPlay and Android Auto was announced. Automakers see subscriptions as huge new source of income to be tapped, with GM alone hoping to make as much as $25 billion per year just off subscriptions by 2030.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#122

Post by dntrkv »

jimmaswell wrote: post #79
dreamcompiler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect they don't want to pay what great software engineers cost, and even if they did, most such engineers probably wouldn't want to put up with GM's bureaucracy. It's probably kinda the same story with great mechanical and industrial engineers, which is why approximately nobody finds GM cars exciting.

It doesn't take much more than not going for the cheapest offshore team possible to make better car media center code than we get. I'm sure most of us could easily do it ourselves in a month or less. It seems like such a simple problem. Play songs and interface with some controls/radio receiver/etc while being at least a tiny bit conscious of efficiency.

The problem is that you need to architect, build, and maintain that system for years, or decades, to come. That requires an in-house software team that knows what it's doing. Building that first version that "works" is easy. Building that first version that actually works and supports everything you need it to, is quite a bit more difficult.

Building and then maintaining that software, year after year, without slowing to a crawl because of all the tech debt that's piled on (especially so since you have subpar engineers or you're contracting out to cheap workers abroad), is even harder.

And if you want to provide a user experience comparable to what the top software companies in the world are capable of, that's just not gonna happen at these car companies.

Tesla was born from the software industry, that's why they're the only ones that can compete.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#123

Post by msh »

andsoitis wrote: post #98
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is the exception here: they seem to have mastered making a car software experience that doesn’t suck, and they don’t even support CarPlay. But Tesla is a tech/software company that happens to make cars (of dubious build quality), I don’t think conventional automakers can replicate that.

Tesla software experience far outshines CarPlay and Android Auto.

But it lacks good media apps for podcasts and audiobooks unfortunately.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#124

Post by verhaust »

andsoitis wrote: post #98
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is the exception here: they seem to have mastered making a car software experience that doesn’t suck, and they don’t even support CarPlay. But Tesla is a tech/software company that happens to make cars (of dubious build quality), I don’t think conventional automakers can replicate that.

Tesla software experience far outshines CarPlay and Android Auto.

Can you give examples of this? I was recently looking for a car and saw the discounts and credits for a Tesla and thought it was finally time to go electric. Then I started researching the interface and saw so many people talking about how clunky it was and they decided to just use bluetooth with their phone to listen to music rather than the interface or even worse hacks where they setup a web server on their phone to mirror to the interface and have to type urls so they can use waze.

My wife has a Honda CRV with android auto and it works great when I drive it. We both use Youtube Premium (formerly Google Music) for our music and I use (soon to be going away) Google Podcasts for my podcasts. Those both work great with Android Auto. My understanding from looking it up is that it is near impossible to use non-supported software with a tesla without ugly hacks. My experience with Android Auto is good that it, or something better, is an absolute requirement on my next car. From my research, it seemed like Tesla added more walled garden annoyances than improvements.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#125

Post by mullingitover »

brandonagr2 wrote: post #70
mullingitover wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh, hard disagree. I rented a Tesla for a few days. I didn't have time to spend an hour learning their UX before driving off in it, and I expected the Coca Cola of EVs to have intuitive controls. Huge mistake , I came away with the impression that Teslas are designed by people who don't actually drive cars, and I was thrilled to get back to Carplay and sane Honda ergonomics.

What were you unable to figure out? To navigate you tap the large NAVIGATE text box and enter a destination.

I was able to figure everything out fine eventually. I'm just accustomed to normal car UX. It doesn't matter if it's a Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford, whatever: I can get in a car, take ten seconds to have Carplay working, and the rest of the controls are completely intuitive without any mental effort. I don't have to navigate through on-screen menus to do literally everything. The established auto manufacturers learned these ergonomics lessons over the past 50+ years, and things are designed based on that experience. Teslas just don't have that ergonomic finesse that you don't notice until it's not there. If you feel like you're doing sysadmin work to operate your car, the designer screwed up.

Tesla didn't cram everything into a screen because it's the superior ergonomic design, they did it because it's cheap. It definitely feels cheap and very mentally cumbersome.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#126

Post by inferiorhuman »

shiroiuma wrote: post #115
dreamcompiler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect they don't want to pay what great software engineers cost, and even if they did, most such engineers probably wouldn't want to put up with GM's bureaucracy. It's probably kinda the same story with great mechanical and industrial engineers, which is why approximately nobody finds GM cars exciting.

>I expect they don't want to pay what great software engineers cost, and even if they did, most such engineers probably wouldn't want to put up with GM's bureaucracy. IMO, the bureaucracy isn't that big a problem; all big companies have this problem. The big problem for GM is their locations: who the heck wants to move to Detroit? Or any of the other places their suppliers tend to locate?

Super low cost of living on a tech salary? Sounds good to me. But if that doesn't work GM has the Cruise offices in San Francisco that they'll have to find some use for. GM proper also has offices in North Hollywood and Pasadena. Cadillac famously used to have offices in New York for the prestige, but Cruise still does AFAIK.

I'd bet that the problem is absolutely going to be more of a bureaucracy and salary issue than a location one. GM is a hilariously broken company and I can't imagine an enjoyable one to work for.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#127

Post by mulmen »

msh wrote: post #120
mulmen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2010 BMW has excellent infotainment software. Better than any new car I have driven (all rentals). Navigation is easily controlled with the iDrive knob. Previous destinations are sorted in reverse chronological order. New destinations are easy to enter. Adding destinations works as expected (insert/append). When the fuel gauge reaches 1/8 of a tank the car prompts to add a gas station on the route which can be acc…

It would be useless to me personally. I hate radio. I don’t listen to much music. When driving I mostly listen to podcasts and audiobooks which sounds like is not really practically possible.

It has an aux cord so you can plug in a cell phone. Or you can use a USB drive to transfer files to the internal hard drive. The lack of Bluetooth Audio is the greatest flaw of the system.

It does have a "cradle" in the center console to connect a phone, I believe audio is supported by that. Unfortunately it requires an adapter and 2010 was the era of phone minification so there's not physically room for modern mega-phones to fit between the cradle headers, even if BMW kept up with adapters. There's also an iPod adapter but it uses the 30-pin plug. I haven't tried plugging in a regular 30-pin to USB A plug to the console USB port, that might work as well.

The navigation functionality is far superior to anything else I have seen.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#128

Post by jandrewrogers »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #20
ungamedplayer wrote: post #4

Call it what it is.. they like the control of their in car entertainment systems and they don't want external companies taking that part of the pie. It's okay gm, we understand. Let's hope you are able to make a compelling competition to this, otherwise your sales will suffer. Traditional car software is very very poor for whatever reason. I don't think that car manufacturers have the mindset and capability to make e…

I expect they don't want to pay what great software engineers cost, and even if they did, most such engineers probably wouldn't want to put up with GM's bureaucracy. It's probably kinda the same story with great mechanical and industrial engineers, which is why approximately nobody finds GM cars exciting.

The tragic aspect is that they spend inordinate amounts of money on this software with nothing to show for it. The money is spent so poorly and ineffectively, while trying to cut every inconsequential cost corner along the way with the output being micromanaged by people that don’t understand software, that if you directed a fraction of that money at a small team of highly paid and experienced software engineers you’d likely get a brilliant product.

Automotive OEMs don’t work that way, they spray money at hundreds of the cheapest engineers they can get away with and hope something good comes out the other side. I’ve seen it over and over. Their problems could be solved by paying a small team of excellent engineers proper Silicon Valley wages. It would be cheaper and produce a better product, but they don’t think that way. The concept of a highly paid software engineer is objectionable to the executives in that industry.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#129

Post by viraptor »

mulmen wrote: post #99
Kurd wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it car software is very generous. More like abandonware.

I want abandonware in my car. Don't include alpha-grade software in a mid-five-figure product. If you can't get it right don't ship it. The navigation/infotainment space is a thoroughly solved domain. We don't need biweekly OTA updates to add the latest trendy thing. I don't want controls moving around or menus changing based on a perverted engagement metric. BMW "pathced" several mechanical features of my car. This…

I've got abandonware in my Ford. It's got a bug in the Bluetooth stack which makes it unusable with my new phone. It's never going to be updated, so out of 2 users of that car, one can't play media and the other needs to deal with occasional infosystem crashes that require a full reset and re-pairing. You may be lucky today, but as years go by, you'll find some bugs too.

As Bluetooth standards evolve, you'll want non-recall updates in your car.

Re: GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

#130

Post by moepstar »

msh wrote: post #123
andsoitis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla software experience far outshines CarPlay and Android Auto.

But it lacks good media apps for podcasts and audiobooks unfortunately.

How about Spotify?

Apple Podcasts is coming in the next (holiday) update in +- 2 weeks (seriously)...

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