361–370 of 537 posts
It’s amusing when the author says “when the phone crashes.” My 2022 Subaru Outback head unit frequently crashes or is really unresponsive. My iPhone never crashes. Car infotainment systems are garbage. I’d never buy a car without CarPlay. It’s maybe the #1 measure I have for vehicle quality when I rent on vacation.
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Phone navigation apps are surprisingly bad in Japan (Google ones in particular). Not unusable, but the in-car GPS is more competitive than in other markets IMHO. Also with an aging population a phone screen is just too small for many. BTW, to parent's point VW has been trying different approaches with a top mounted GPS/infotainment unit that can be omitted on cheaper trims.
That's not true. Google Maps, in particular, has by far the best route guidance. It used to be different - but not anymore. Most in-car systems don't even attempt to route the last 300m here because the detailed one-way street narrow layout of tiny streets isn't in their mapping data, or their algorithms are too weak. Google has mostly no problem with that. Entering Japanese addresses IS tricky, though; here, custom-…
Car manufacturers have had decades to develop their software but almost all are difficult to work with, slow, give bad user feedback (full screen pop-up with entire paragraphs while navigating) and are cumbersome to get accustomed to when switching cars.
I’m one of the 79% that demands CarPlay, if it’s not part of the car I don’t want it.
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Do people do that? I just use my phone beside the old useless infotainment. Honestly, I wouldn't buy a new car that used an in-house infotainment specifically because they go obsolete quickly (<5-10 years) and cannot be economically (or at all) to the latest tech. Carplay seems to be long lived.
My vehicle (a mid teens Volvo) doesn’t support CarPlay or AA. Its infotainment system gets its data from 3G, so it doesn’t get data anymore. Music is through Bluetooth, which works well enough. Navigating means using the clunky in-car nav with no traffic data or a phone with the volume turned way up. It’s far from ideal but at least I have zero expectations for my next car.
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…
In that respect a UI made by Apple will certainly appeal to an audience already demanding current CarPlay. On the other hand, it could be that the current level of CarPlay integration is already enough.
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,…
It’s amusing when the author says “when the phone crashes.” My 2022 Subaru Outback head unit frequently crashes or is really unresponsive. My iPhone never crashes. Car infotainment systems are garbage. I’d never buy a car without CarPlay. It’s maybe the #1 measure I have for vehicle quality when I rent on vacation.
CarPlay is still wholly dependent on the car’s infotainment stack. If your Suburu’s system is crashing, CarPlay can’t insulate you from that.
Infotainment systems are prone to runtime errors and crashes, if you interact less with the internal workings of the infotainment system itself, it does a somewhat good job of just passing audio through and you have fewer sessions with a crash.
That said; i have noticed a disparity in what the infotainment gps navigation can do and what carplay can do- carplay is often limited to the center console, but the built-in navigation can go into the HUD of the car. An annoying difference.
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The quality of a rental Chevy head unit is not a good indicator of the CarPlay user experience in a decent car.
It shouldn't matter, it's just music. And one car that failed the test was a $50K Suburban. If it's this flaky, maybe some other car works fine but one day it stops.
The point being, further hurt the sales of any cars like this, because really, it could be true.
(No, I don't even want Bluetooth, ugh).