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Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

theturnsignalblog.com

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Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#111

Post by kelnos »

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.

Do cars with systems built on Android Automotive (which is Google's infotainment OS, and is not the same as Android Auto) support CarPlay?

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#112

Post by kenjackson »

massysett wrote: post #101

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 a…

I so much prefer hooking up my phone, rather than having to authenticate every device I own to all the services I want to use. And given that most of the services that I want to use in the car are also services on my phone, e.g., GPS maps, music, podcasts -- why would I want to have to use a whole new app for this purpose?

I love that when I search for something with Google Maps it knows, typically in a letter or two, what place I'm trying to go to. I don't want to use a different music service in my car -- it has all my playlists and my "likes" already.

Do I want Ford to write its own implementation of Google Maps or Pandora? Why? Seems stupid to have 10 different implementations of the same service.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#113

Post by kenjackson »

guidedlight wrote: post #109

> 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.

You stopped reading the rest of the article because your own personal experience has thus far matched the authors? Or some other reason?

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#114

Post by jitl »

elzbardico wrote: post #104

It is bad enough that Mercedes decided to emulate Tesla. Now, fuck this, I don't want my merc dashboard to look like an IPhone. It cheapens the experience.

In my view, Apple does a better job designing high-end digital surfaces than Mercedes. Last week Mercedes decided to add a green polo shirt to all the user avatars in my vehicle, which to me seems like a clown move, and something that Apple would never do. You can always just not connect your phone to your car if you prefer the stuff the car does on its own.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#115

Post by anon373839 »

I love CarPlay, but has anyone noticed that Apple just isn’t testing on non-touch interfaces? Some cars use a wheel to navigate the UI, and there are some awful CarPlay UI bugs where certain buttons become unreachable.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#116

Post by Arcsech »

xyst wrote: post #17

I used to be fascinated with Apple but I no longer want anything to do with them. I could care less if my car has Apple or android auto at this point. I would rip it out immediately if it had one. Any always on connectivity would be removed. Car manufacturers are increasingly selling off your private data and leveraging all of these technology upgrades you paid for to do it. As soon as the car is connected to the int…

I don't disagree with your points about connected cars, but at least for CarPlay (I don't know about Android Auto), it's entirely an orthogonal concern. CarPlay is a standard for, basically, connecting an external display to your iPhone - it doesn't need to connect to anything other than the iPhone itself, and doesn't grant the car any access to the internet or anything, and IIRC the phone can't read anything meaningful from the car either.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#117

Post by kelnos »

xyst wrote: post #17

I used to be fascinated with Apple but I no longer want anything to do with them. I could care less if my car has Apple or android auto at this point. I would rip it out immediately if it had one. Any always on connectivity would be removed. Car manufacturers are increasingly selling off your private data and leveraging all of these technology upgrades you paid for to do it. As soon as the car is connected to the int…

It's a shame, because a lot of this connected stuff does provide useful functionality to a lot of people.

I'd much rather see stronger privacy legislation that bars companies from selling your data to third parties -- period, no exceptions, no opt-in terms that offer customers more features or services if they'll agree to privacy violations.

And then actual enforcement, with fines high enough that they can't just be shrugged off as the cost of doing business.

While I don't think we'll ever get quite there, I do think we're going to be moving in that direction. I do have a car with connected features, and I live in California, and I've already instructed them that they may not sell my data to third parties. I don't know if they actually follow the law on that, but it's a start.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#118

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

kelnos wrote: post #102

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 aut…

I also think the author misses the mark on this statement

> Apple’s long-term goal is likely to find ways to directly monetize CarPlay. It could license CarPlay to carmakers at some point. But with the entire global car market amounting to only around 70 million cars per year and the car industry’s slim profit margins (ranging from 5% to 15%), it must reach a high market share to get significant revenue from it. However, carmakers may be hesitant to invest in what they see as a competing product.

I don’t think Apple sees this as a promising revenue stream. It’s just another way to encourage people to stay within the walled garden. That seems many times more valuable than any possible licensing fees they would get from manufacturers

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#119

Post by jitl »

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.

I was in the same spot, decided to do a 3-year lease on a gas Mercedes while waiting for the US EV market to deliver the mythical "Tesla Y with Carplay and manual air conditioning grates". Hyundai Genesis is really close, needs a bit more baking.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#120

Post by frankus »

A bit of a tangent, but those "distinctive" interior mockups made me instantly cringe. I'm fine with designers having a bit fun with every part of the car other than the top of the dashboard, which should be flat, dull, and dark (ideally covered in something like Vantablack), because any bit of visual clutter there gets superimposed over the road in front of you thanks to the reflection of the windshield in sunny weather.
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