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Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

theturnsignalblog.com

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Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#101

Post by massysett »

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.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#102

Post by kelnos »

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.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#103

Post by serial_dev »

sunshowers wrote: post #64

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.

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.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#105

Post by 4rt »

yabones wrote: post #34

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,…

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 £300) 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.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#106

Post by kelnos »

sandworm101 wrote: post #71
baseballdork wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"?

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.

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".

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#107

Post by serial_dev »

pistolpeteDK wrote: post #10

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.

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.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#108

Post by kelnos »

StephenSmith wrote: post #12

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…

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?

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#109

Post by guidedlight »

> 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.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#110

Post by sunshowers »

serial_dev wrote: post #103
sunshowers wrote: post #64

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.

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.

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.
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