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CarPlay Is Additive

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Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#321

As an R1S owner I feel like the elephant in the room is that the Rivian developed infotainment software is just not very good. For example, the Spotify app has weird scrolling issues and the interface for offline downloads is clunky and unreliable. The maps/route planning is fine but not really any better than Apple/Google Maps (or ABRP). So I find it hard to give much credit to their argument against CarPlay when th…

Car manufacturer build infotainment never is.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#322
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. CarPlay is in the top 10 features for my next Car. Even for my older 911 which I bought second hand, the first investment was a Pioneer head unit with CarPlay.

In my opinion, anything older than a 996 shouldn’t have an infotainment screen. Looks very out of place. Just use a phone mount for navigation or use audio navigation through a period correct radio.

I agree. I find it tacky when people buy old BMWs and Mercedeses just to throw the original (often mint condition) radio unit out and put in a cheap carplay display.

Like you have this 30 year old car with a pristine wooden trim where all components align nicely in design and you decide to ruin it for the convenience of having notifications in your face while driving? A phone holder looks much less invasive.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#323

Surprised no one's mentioned it so far, but CarPlay / Android Auto aren't just features, they're consistency . Across makes, models, years. I know what I'm getting when I connect my phone - and if anyone uses my car with their own device, they get their own dashboard, as well. One interesting use case I saw was a couple where one used a left-to-right interface and the other a right-to-left UI. CarPlay makes this easy…

I would prefer knobs and buttons over a screen flow in either direction, but no modern car caters to this anymore.

Jeep may not be modern, but all of the windows, climate, etc, are physical buttons.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#324

For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself. Its advantages are mainly these: - Consistency. You get into a new car, all you need to figure out is how to open CarPlay, no need to learning a completely different and often complicated infotainment system. - "It's on your phone". You can decide what playlist to play or w…

You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. CarPlay is user-centric, which is why users like it. All these attempts to force people into a device-centric experience make no sense. I spent an hour or two a day, at most, in my car. My phone is within Bluetooth distance every waking moment. Why in the world would I want m…

> You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym.

That would still work, as you can use Bluetooth.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#325

I am clearly in the minority here but I have driven cars with and without CarPlay and honestly do not care whether a car has it. I use my phone for navigation and mount it such that when I look at it I am not taking my eyes off the road. I find this to be far better than having to look down at the center of my dashboard but CarPlay navigation UI via Google Maps or Waze also works fine so it’s not a huge difference. R…

> having to look down at the center of my dashboard that's why more recent models move the screen higher up. it sometimes looks a bit silly (like they glued an ipad on top of the dashboard), but it's a lot more usable > HUD that projected my location, speed, heading and turn by turn navigation (with lane info!) onto the windshield the latest carplay implementations are compatible with the inbuilt navigation aids, so…

It works with Apple Maps and Google Maps, Waze doesn’t pass this information to the car.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#327

For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself. Its advantages are mainly these: - Consistency. You get into a new car, all you need to figure out is how to open CarPlay, no need to learning a completely different and often complicated infotainment system. - "It's on your phone". You can decide what playlist to play or w…

You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. CarPlay is user-centric, which is why users like it. All these attempts to force people into a device-centric experience make no sense. I spent an hour or two a day, at most, in my car. My phone is within Bluetooth distance every waking moment. Why in the world would I want m…

I think this is in the same vein as continuity and user centric and what you were describing but it’s a different part - more than one person drives my car. I want my things and my wife wants hers. Having accounts or something extra on a new shared device is annoying.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#328

I am clearly in the minority here but I have driven cars with and without CarPlay and honestly do not care whether a car has it. I use my phone for navigation and mount it such that when I look at it I am not taking my eyes off the road. I find this to be far better than having to look down at the center of my dashboard but CarPlay navigation UI via Google Maps or Waze also works fine so it’s not a huge difference. R…

I'm going to jump in and say I mostly agree.

It's no big issue for me one way or another to have a car with the technology from factory, and I do like having the wireless connectivity - music from the phone etc is really nice - but visual maps and visual UI add no value to me personally.

The setup I have for my project car is ideal for me - a small bluetooth receiving amplifier that feeds the speakers directly. It's all hidden behind the dash, has no visible UI, but I get in the car and the phone takes over, it's in a cradle and becomes the head unit.

I never need to see a map on screen (Maybe because I grew up doing orienteering, or can just listen to the verbal directions, I'm not sure) so that doesn't bother me. And siri can handle hands-off interaction with the device when needed.

I did upgrade the head unit in my family/daily car to support carplay etc, but the primary motivator there was finding a unit that could support a reversing camera. It certainly made the interior feel more modern, but again I don't think it adds much value to me personally.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#329

For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself. Its advantages are mainly these: - Consistency. You get into a new car, all you need to figure out is how to open CarPlay, no need to learning a completely different and often complicated infotainment system. - "It's on your phone". You can decide what playlist to play or w…

Also speed and connectivity. My car needs a screen and some low power chips. It’s ten years old and the maps and everything are snappy (low quality touch screen aside, but that’s not too bad) because it’s all running on my nice fast device I already own that’s much newer than the car.
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