491–500 of 537 posts
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Imagine a world where Apple and Google (and others) worked together and made a open standard that is as good as what they both have today. Bluetooth but for cars. Such a missed opportunity.
This would be considered a trust worth busting.
Or DDR?
Or M2?
I'd argue those are trusts worth boosting.
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Depends on lots of variables, overall not something I want to rely on just to play music. Like I got a Chevy rental and CarPlay took forever to pair then proceeded to play distorted music for some reason, while the FM radio worked fine. Worked better on another car but still took forever to pair. I installed a new stereo for my old car today, intentionally avoided CarPlay and got a simple non-touchscreen JVC. $60, 15…
CarPlay is alright on rentals, but I don’t care for it as a daily driver. Gimme a USB port I can plug a 32GB flash drive full of MP3s into. I don’t mind using a phone holder in the vent when I need to map, but I only map on <10% of trips. This is probably the most luddite thing about me: I loathe using a phone while driving. I just find it too distracting.
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…
Agreed, I bought a 2017 VW Golf recently, it has wired Apple CarPlay. Bought a dongle for £55, works fine. Love having a car with a steering wheel with real buttons, and climate controls with real knobs. It feels like around 2018 is the zenith of Human Machine Interface in cars and it's all been downhill since, as they cram everything in a fucking touchscreen.
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,…
> 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 Mazda sells a retrofit kit for their 2014 (Mazda 3) / 2016 (other models) and newer cars that didn't come with native CP/AA. It's about $200 and DIY if you're the least bit handy: https://mazdaparts.org/mazda-3-smartphone-mirroring-kit.html
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,…
I spent like $100 to put a large Carplay display in a 2007 beater Honda Accord I bought recently. Much better than my fiance's Mazda system
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I'm not really seeing why safety or emissions rules drive up the price of a car? Backup camera sure that's an extra $200.
Cars require hundreds to thousands of microchips these days. Airbags require sensors and circuits. Emission systems require expensive sensors, and engines require complex electronic and mechanical real-time tuning systems to constantly monitor and adjust fuel usage to limit emissions and meet minimum mpg requirements. Automatic transmissions are now extremely complex, including 8 to 10 gears or using CVT to achieve t…
The big differences to engine and transmission are interesting, I believe you that it's a big difference but I'm not sure how to evaluate specific numbers for it.
Building the entire car with more expensive structure and paneling sounds like a pretty bad thing to effectively require, especially when most losses are aerodynamic.
For backup cameras I was including the monitor in that price. You can buy kits for under $50, so I don't think $200 is unrealistic for something built in.
I will say that having a thousand microchips rather than a dozen is probably because it's cheaper that way.
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> I don't like that car manufacturer has to use Apple / Google software, why can they not make an app that you install and your phone connects to the car in a useful way. I've had some rental cars that wanted me to install a manufacturer app. Super annoying! Just let me plug my phone in and project my screen and speakers. I don't want to get adjusted to a new UI with each car I drive, or worse sync stuff. I also have…
I do agree, I think mostly car manufacturers are gonna make something worse, but it would be nice to have some more competition on the market as carplay and android something are also not good.
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>Without constant updates, software that is part a a larger ecosystem will eventually breakdown. This is why we should be so skeptical of tight software integration with durable hardware (e.g., cars and appliances with operational lifespans 10+ years easily). Software has a pretty short half-life, especially software that integrates with internet services; vulnerabilities get discovered in third-party components and…
>so the most sustainable design is one where the software is easily seperable and replaceable from the core durable item. No, the most realistically sustainable design is one where the software is built into the durable item and not connected to the internet, so it never changes and doesn't need to worry about security issues. You can keep using the thing until it fails from mechanical issues and can't be easily repa…
My car isn't connected to the internet, it has not received any updates. However Google enjoys messing with the Android BT stack for whatever reason (there was a period in the mid 2010s where BT on Android was dramatically ~broken~ rewritten every couple of years), so accordingly my car has lost functionality.
Car makers what "differentiation". Uh huh. That is literally, exactly, what consumers do NOT want or benefit from.
I want consistency so that I can get in a rental car, or my friend's car, or my new car,
and have sh-t just work.
The LAST thing I want is a curated subset of familiar apps and controls, plus crappily designed but "cool looking" replacements all about convenying Brand(tm) Values.
The only reason I use CarPlay is because I have an iPhone. The experience with Android auto is way ahead. Did you ever try to call a business that’s not in your contacts? Did you ever try to ask a simple question? Siri integration is horrible
I really hope Siri gets that LLM-based upgrade in iOS18 but I can cope with it for now.