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CarPlay Is Additive

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Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#501

Post by Spooky23 »

MBCook wrote: post #44
valgaze wrote: post #4

Author says "I literally will not buy a car that does not support CarPlay." From July 2022: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/22/apple-carplay-could-be-a-tro ... Apple engineering manager Emily Schubert said 98% of new cars in the U.S. come with CarPlay installed. She delivered a shocking stat: 79% of U.S. buyers would only buy a car if it supported CarPlay. “It’s a must-have feature when shopping for a new vehicle,” Schu…

Since then GM has dropped CarPlay. Rivian has appeared following Tesla and refusing to support it. And I thought there were some other existing manufacturer who was either getting rid of it or thinking about it. Basically despite the popularity the market seems to be moving against it slowly. And the more those cars succeed the more other auto makers will be willing to follow.

Tesla and I think Rivian goes deep into the computer as a control surface. They save $10 not having a handle for the glovebox or whatever.

GM just wants to extract a pound of flesh. All are companies making dumb decisions by ignoring what customers want.

It will cost them customers. My company buys like 10k cars a year and we make CarPlay a requirement. We see it as a safety and productivity issue. We want employees using maps to navigate and avoid hazards, but don’t want them operating our vehicles unsafely.

Personally, it would be a long shot for me to buy any GM product due to high depreciation. The CarPlay/Android Auto thing disqualifies them.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#502

Post by dpkirchner »

lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #376
grumbelbart2 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly the second point. They already collect and track you, even with car play. I strongly recommend this CCC talk, where they hacked a Volkswagen database that contained unfiltered, high-accuracy, timestamped locations of a large majority of electric cars from VW group. Based on that they were, for example, able to identify cars owned by members of Germany's security apparatus: where they work, where they live, whe…

Just curious, are car manufacturers required to obtain explicit consent from owners for collecting such data according to GDPR? Or German car lobby's pocket politicians were able to carve out some exception for them?

And what of passengers?

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#503

Post by DannyBee »

I used to refuse to buy cars without carplay. For many of the reasons I expect others do.

I have a rivian, and my wife has a car with carplay. I've had rivians for years now. I don't miss carplay when i drive my Rivian.

In truth, I used carplay for 3 main things - navigation that didn't suck, listening to music on the apps i wanted to, and reading text messages out loud.

Rivian has made those things not suck. So i don't miss carplay.

On my wife's car, those things suck, badly, without carplay.

I'm sure there are people out there who heavily depend on carplay for other things, and thus, it really does matter if they have carplay or not.

and maybe a day will come when the features carplay could provide me are as shitty on the Rivian as they are on my wife's car, and i'll start demanding it again.

But at least right now, that's not true, and so I think Rivian's choice is fine.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#504

Post by simiones »

Propelloni wrote: post #477
rafram wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CarPlay enables a car-friendly interface with big buttons, shortcuts to navigation/music/communication, and minimal distractions. I don’t know of any way to get that on the phone’s own display.

Can't speak for Carplay, but Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit. The car's (an Audi) system does not, but it fails on many other levels. Both make me angry, albeit for different reasons.

> Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit.

That's not Android Auto, it's Waze doing that (and it would do it on Apple too). And it's not "an attempt at engagement", it's a cost for keeping the real-time map and traffic data that Waze is chosen for up-to-date. Use Google Maps if you don't like the interruptions.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#505

Post by alias_neo »

Poacher5 wrote: post #411
faitswulff wrote: post #104

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…

This is huge for me - I'm in rental cars every other week or so 'cause I fly a lot for work and getting to factories in the boonies isn't really doable on public transport. I used to spend 20 minutes in the europcar car park every single time and then have to log out of everything when I dropped the car off. Now I just hook up Android Auto and I'm back into the same podcast I had on the flight, my itinerary is planne…

> Can't usually be fucked to login for two nights so I just watch TV on my laptop

I recently had the idea of taking the FireStick 4K Max that I bought ~1year ago for the living room smart OLED TV which is getting a little older, I had gotten ready to take it on a few trips I'm doing this year, thought I was being clever, unfortunately it died a literal week after the warranty, boot looping constantly.

I won't buy another Firestick again, it was atrociously add-riddled and often showing things inappropriate for the kids in the middle of the day, but if generic Android TV stick like that was available with good performance and all the necessary DRM levels, I'd probably use that.

For now, I will just carry an HDMI cable and use my laptop.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#506

Post by stevoski »

senordevnyc wrote: post #438
stevoski wrote: post #257

I have a chapter in my book Kill the HiPPO titled “Cupholders vs CarPlay”. The premise of the chapter is that some features in software are like CarPlay when looking for a new car - they become an important must-have for the buying decision - as opposed to “cupholder” features, those features which are a mere minor improvement for existing users. https://killthehippo.com/

Congrats on writing a book, big accomplishment! I'm confused about the cupholder example though: I'd MUCH rather skip CarPlay (which I love) than cupholders in a car, but I wouldn't shop for a car based on whether it has cupholders because surely they all do, right? It seems like shopping based on whether the car has A/C or something.

> Congrats on writing a book, big accomplishment!

Thank you!

The point is that you must make sure your product has the “CarPlay” type of features in order to get new customers for whom those features are must-haves.

Beware of spending your time only on adding new “cupholder” style features, which make existing customers slightly happier but don’t attract new customers.

Especially be aware that when you launched your product X years ago, some of today’s “CarPlay”-style features didn’t even exist. Your current customers are not asking for them, because they are mostly happy with your product as it is.

If you only listen to what existing customers are asking for, you might not even realise that these new “CarPlay” features are stopping you from getting certain new customers.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#507

Post by ExoticPearTree »

izacus wrote: post #269
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) is a coin battery powered computer inside each tyre of your car. They’ve been around for a couple of decades now. Even the lowest end cars have TPMS in each wheel. If you change wheels you need to go to a wheel shop and have them re pair (as in re pair wifi) the wheel with your car. I had to do this recently with my 2014 ford focus. Anyway those are just four of hundreds of comp…

Some cars use ABS speed sensors instead of that which is usually a bit less accurate, but also less of a hassle.

Yes. But in my car the downside is that it does not tell which wheel has a problem, just a generice message: check tyre pressure.

Real TPMS sensors inside the wheel give much more accurate information.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#508

Post by RHSeeger »

makeitdouble wrote: post #409
linzhangrun wrote: post #302

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…

To voice an alternative that isn't touched much in this discussion: > - "It's on your phone" Straight use your phone. There is no need for the car to adapt, no updates, no back deal by the car manufacturer, nothing is tied to the car except Bluetooth. Current screens are IMHO big enough, moving to a tablet or foldables is also an option Mounting/unmounting is a solved problem since magsafe (or Peak Design like strong…

Literally everything you said is not true for me

- My phone's screen is nowhere near big enough for me to "glance" at it while driving (to see if my turn is coming up, etc)

- I'm not carrying around a tablet with me - my phone fits in my pocket

- Mounting is _not_ a solved problem. It just... isn't. This is a whole topic on it's own, but mounting a phone in a good position, where it will stay without moving/falling/bugging (especially in 100+ degree heat) and not be in the way of _other_ car things is a pain

- I already have physical buttons (that interact with car play, where needed) for all those things in my car

- Interacting with the screen of my phone while driving is 100% not something I'm proficient with; nor would I want to be. It's not designed for interacting with it while not paying attention to it. CarPlay is

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#509

Post by thih9 »

linzhangrun wrote: post #302

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…

“Stays up to date over the long term” is in the “cons” list in my book - I’d prefer to have as few changes and rely on muscle memory as much as possible; and I find updates risky in this context.

I don’t mind a built in infotainment system stuck in a previous era, as long as it works.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#510

Post by alias_neo »

bluescrn wrote: post #232
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

All the effort put in to stopping drivers distracting themselves with phones while driving, then we get big distracting touchscreens with apps front+centre in many new cars, and apparently that's OK.

I think it's just typical that this is allowed because it maximises profits; let's be real, a big fat touch screen and nothing else, is significantly cheaper than all of those expensive buttons, knobs, dials and switches that have been engineered and tested to perfection.

Did cars get cheaper when they took all of those out? I certainly didn't notice.

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