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Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

theturnsignalblog.com

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Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#31

Post by btown »

> A lot of the concerns around branding focus on the instrument cluster as it's one of the most recognizable parts of an interior. If you look at the CarPlay concept for Porsche and remove the steering wheel, there is no way you can tell it's a Porsche. I'm sure many brands took notice of this... With many traditional differentiators being democratized, design is a good way to stand out.

This is a really good case study in how difficult it is to find a balance between co-branding and maintaining a consistently high-quality design system across co-branding partners. There's a massive amount of work across UI/UX design and implementation done at Apple that assumes that widgets are not only using a serif font, but a specific serif font with specific kerning; that color-primary-60 and color-primary-50 and color-for-text-on-top-of-primary-60 are distinguished in a very specific way.

(Light/dark mode and localization efforts force a degree of flexibility here, but there are still a finite set of QA targets if you focus on primary language markets.)

But what happens if multiple partners want their own primary color and font? This suddenly has far-reaching, costly ramifications across multiple organizations. Even having planned your APIs from day one around color and style customizability doesn't guarantee that this can be done successfully. Taken to an extreme, frontend engineers (not just their embedded designers) are practically required to hold the context of all future potential customization needs in mind when implementing a component - a nigh impossible ask.

Which is to say that there are few companies that could pull off what the OP posits that car manufacturers are requesting, having a world-class interface that is customized to their brand. That's a tall order even for Apple's depth of talent.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#32

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#33

Post by ransom1538 »

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…

"Give me a car with a simple backup camera, manual transmission, and regular sized vehicle (no trucks or suvs, fuck that)."

Mazda, cx5 <= 2016. Small. Has usb sd, simple knobs, backup camera. It reminds me of when apple removed the escape key, I had to learn how to buy a used mac.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#34

Post by yabones »

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, things were a complete mess. In-car systems were too integrated to be replaceable with a third party 2-DIN unit, but too primitive to run carplay/AA. People who have cars from this era either sell them (for less than they're worth, since only 21% of people will buy a car without carplay!) or put up with it for another 8 years or so until the car's wound out.

For example, my rustbucket '06 Toyota has a great sounding stereo with carplay but my sibling's 2017 Nissan is stuck with flaky and poorly integrated bluetooth.

Or, if you do want to upgrade your 2013-2017 car, you end up replacing half of the in-dash components with ones from a couple model years up, tapping into the car's CAN bus to recognize the new controller, and then running some sketchy scripts to patch the firmware to remove component protection since the VIN's don't match up anymore. Not for the faint of heart.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#35

Post by the_snooze »

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 really wanted to like that Mozilla report, but their methods only looked at the privacy policies of cars, not actual software/hardware capabilities in the wild. Let's say I own a Honda C-HR, but don't use the Honda Link app or connect the onboard wifi to a phone hotspot. Does Honda still get remote telematic information from me? Is there a live always-on 4G/5G connection in the car itself? It's unclear.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#36

Post by neogodless »

leovander wrote: post #23
mannyv wrote: post #4

CarPlay mostly works, and although it has issues it's definitely user-focused. CarPlay doesn't prevent car makers from tracking vehicle activity. In the end, consumers don't give a shit about the in-vehicle infotainment. It sucks, or it's AA/CarPlay. The first generation of iDrive showed that rich people people will buy cars in spite of the in-car stuff. In fact, most car infotainment sucks, yet people still buy cars…

Top of my head, most car makers aren't rolling their own. It's either off the shelf with some white labeling or they buy it from another care manufacturer. i.e. Mazda default infotainment can be found in some Toyotas

Not sure if there's any more to it than this, but the Toyota Yaris is a rebadged Mazda 2. I suspect you won't find Mazda infotainment in other Toyota models, though.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#37

Post by kernal »

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…

If you tried to rip out Android Automotive you car probably wouldn't work anymore. But, you would have a dumb car that just wouldn't start.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#38

Post by deanCommie »

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…

Meanwhile I rented a car last week and experienced Android Auto for the first time (vs just having my phone precariously balanced somewhere in the car, and using it for navigation), and now I never want to go back or buy a car without Android Auto.

This isn't meant to be a dig of Apple vs Android - I think I would feel the same about CarPlay if i was on iOS.

I think we just value different things. As someone who wants to be able to drive, navigate with google maps, listen to a podcast, and handle incoming messages, but do it safely, these integrations are incredible.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#39

Post by sandworm101 »

mannyv wrote: post #4

CarPlay mostly works, and although it has issues it's definitely user-focused. CarPlay doesn't prevent car makers from tracking vehicle activity. In the end, consumers don't give a shit about the in-vehicle infotainment. It sucks, or it's AA/CarPlay. The first generation of iDrive showed that rich people people will buy cars in spite of the in-car stuff. In fact, most car infotainment sucks, yet people still buy cars…

>> In the end, consumers don't give a shit about the in-vehicle infotainment.

Drivers don't car, but I think car buyers actually do. Remember that many people are not buying cars for themselves but for other people, usually family. They fall into the trap of thinking that those other people might want such features, if not now then in the future. Look at automatic transmissions. I know many people who much prefer manuals, but they always end up buying an automatic because they believe that other people will want the automatic. And a few years later, all the cars are automatics. The same is happening with in-car entertainment systems. We buy them not because we ant them but because we think other people do.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#40

Post by vsdlrd »

mannyv wrote: post #4

CarPlay mostly works, and although it has issues it's definitely user-focused. CarPlay doesn't prevent car makers from tracking vehicle activity. In the end, consumers don't give a shit about the in-vehicle infotainment. It sucks, or it's AA/CarPlay. The first generation of iDrive showed that rich people people will buy cars in spite of the in-car stuff. In fact, most car infotainment sucks, yet people still buy cars…

I thought about that as well. At the moment, CarPlay can't take over every function so carmakers still have to make their own. But in the long term, there is an opportunity for Apple to make the whole thing and monetize it as a cost-saver to carmakers
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