At this point it's very easy: no CarPlay, no buy. So no Tesla (obv), no Rivian.
Opinionated, but Tesla's interface seems better than any CarPlay? The thing with CarPlay that I hate the most is that it is laggy. I have it on a Series 5 BMW and Spotify has a delay of at least 4s when you select a song and when it actually starts playing. Same thing when you rapidly skip tracks - the interface changes but the speakers (or any other non-CarPlay interface) can't really keep up. It really is a joke, e…
Yikes. That doesn't sound right. It works fine in my Kia, so this sounds like BMW's implementation is really bad (how did they even do that‽).
VW is bringing back physical buttons in their newer models, e.g. ID.3 Neo and Polo. Skoda never did away with them. It's also part of the safety rating of Euro NCAP, and AFAIK China mandated physical buttons for important functions as well.
I have a 2021 Skoda Octavia and boy do I have to touch the screen a lot. Yes, you can open the AC screen by tapping the AC button but then you still need use the touch screen for any actual AC adjustments. It’s a joke that that’s legal. Looking at my phone is illegal, yet it’s many times faster.
My 2025 Audi A3 is pretty good with buttons and knobs. The only time I need to touch the screen (other than for CarPlay) is to tell it, "no, you still cannot steal my data" every time I turn the car on.
I’m not even that old, but I’d really love to argue to simplify the entire auto infotainment stack. I don’t even need a screen. I just bring my own by magnetically attaching my phone that I’ll use to navigate and Bluetooth music or podcasts. If CarPlay becomes the standard that allows me to not pay for whatever crappy tablet UI automakers are pushing, fine. But that doesn’t make CarPlay a necessity, it just makes it…
A rear camera is mandatory on new cars in the US these days, and it's honestly a good idea to have them either way. This makes a screen a necessity more or less no matter what (I can't see it being implemented with a bring-your-own tablet solution).
That doesn't mean they have to ship most of the infotainment system though. They could just leave that hole there for Carplay to fill. But that would be admiring defeat, and we can't have that.
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…
Another advantage of the "it's on your phone" aspect is that it follows you when you switch cars. If I use my friend's car, I still have MY system. If I rent a car for a trip, I still have MY system.
This is familiar to me from an adjacent industry…smart TVs. The reason Samsung, LG, et al develop their own UIs is not because they are good at it. It’s because if they give up and let their device become a dumb host for apps, they lose their relationships with customers (i.e. ad revenue) and accelerate their race to the bottom as commodity hardware vendors. Customers don’t want this stuff. They want to launch Netfli…
Are there really no customers who want the TV to have Netflix built in? At a streaming company I worked at, we put quite a lot of effort into working around all the smart TV firmware quirks so that you didn't need to buy a separate box if you had a supported TV.
A surprisingly large number of customers DO want the smart TV to "just work" and play their Netflix.
Like car infotainment, they figure out how to use it, bitch about it, and some connect an Apple device and use that instead.
The car industry is currently in the "rodeo" phase that the telcos where in when it came to the internet. Loosing power- and very soon tamed, because the Chinese competition has no such qualms.
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…
I do that on the bike but the car screen integration is nice for navigation. Usually your phone goes in a worse position than the gauge cluster. Even on the bike, the couple cm farther down are the difference between looking down and it being in peripheral vision. The passenger can also fuck around with the music without changing connected phone or giving them the phone itself. And playing around with the phone directly is illegal while the tablet is fine (for me very minor, never been caught).
Am I the only person who hates plugging their iPhone into their car to charge and completely losing control of it? When I plug it into the USB socket, my Peugeot 207 starts playing a random podcast track on my phone. No way of stopping it. If I stop it, it starts again. I can't select a different audio output, e.g. the phone speaker. There are plenty of people complaining about this on the forums. Yes, it's a bug in…
Your car is broken, and was apparently sold as such. I'd return the car for that, or just never buy it in the first place if I noticed it during research or a test drive.
I’m not a big fan of the dumbed down interface. Using the Music app on CarPlay is frustrating. I prefer operating the music app on my phone with a phone mount. Same goes for navigation apps. Finding a restaurant with pictures and reviews is so much faster on my phone.
> Same goes for navigation apps. Finding a restaurant with pictures and reviews is so much faster on my phone. You shouldn't be doing this while driving. If you're doing this while not driving, you still can. Carplay doesn't make your phone inert while connected. You can still use Google Maps on your phone to punch in a location or look around the area, while still connected to Carplay.
I was responding to:
> vastly superior and convenient way to view the same map you can see on your iPhone.
The map and the interface is vastly superior on my phone. Google Maps on iOS is barely usable while connected to CarPlay.
You shouldn’t operate anything while driving. Do that before you leave.