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CarPlay Is Additive

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Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#681

Post by benrutter »

Telaneo wrote: post #404
benrutter wrote: post #301

There's so many comments on the lines of "I would never buy a car without android auto/car play support". I 100% used to be on this camp, "A car without android auto, what am I, a caveman!?". Anyway, separately to anything car related, I got fed up of some of google's treatment of android and switched to Murena's /e/os which is a de-googled spin of android. It doesn't support android auto, and that held me back from…

> (my car does already have functionality like google maps built in though, so I might feel differently if it didn't) See if you care in 5 years when the maps are out of date.

No, I meant literally the car has google maps built in - it's an up to date android app.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#682

Post by SoftTalker »

xp84 wrote: post #536
titanomachy wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure the car manufacturers would much prefer if you updated your car as often as you do your phone.

They’re working on it. I follow a mechanic on YouTube who has shared dozens of examples of manufacturers seemingly intentionally shipping deeply flawed components for seemingly no reason other than to push the average lifespan of a vehicle back downwards from the high levels we’d reached by about 2012. Cars are being junked with less than 100k miles because the original parts fail, replacement parts are hard to get,…

This isn't new. Automakers have always wanted to build to price and to survive the warranty period. Only competition works against it. Japanese makers competed on affordability and reliability from the 1970s through the 2010s or so, but now they've adopted the same compromises and are skating on their reputations. Honda for example is no longer affordable, nor as reliable or well made as they used to be, though everyone still thinks they are. Even Mercedes, once the king of overbuilt cars, are now just overpriced tin and plastic like any other car.

Hopefully some makers will start competing on affordability and maintainability again. Slate might be one.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#683

Post by dbt00 »

0x457 wrote: post #654
brookst wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. CarPlay is user-centric, which is why users like it. All these attempts to force people into a device-centric experience make no sense. I spent an hour or two a day, at most, in my car. My phone is within Bluetooth distance every waking moment. Why in the world would I want m…

You picked a bad example. You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth. Likewise, you even get controls for music and audio metadata displayed. What you don't (usually) get from car's regular infotainment: - Maps that don't suck - Maps that get updated often - Navigation that is aware of more than just what HD Radio tells about highways - Helpful notification when you get into the car that…

> You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth.

Tesla bluetooth UI is pretty ass, actually.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#684

Post by SoftTalker »

Mashimo wrote: post #324
brookst wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. CarPlay is user-centric, which is why users like it. All these attempts to force people into a device-centric experience make no sense. I spent an hour or two a day, at most, in my car. My phone is within Bluetooth distance every waking moment. Why in the world would I want m…

> You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. That would still work, as you can use Bluetooth.

Or the aux port.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#685

Post by SoftTalker »

Propelloni wrote: post #477
rafram wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CarPlay enables a car-friendly interface with big buttons, shortcuts to navigation/music/communication, and minimal distractions. I don’t know of any way to get that on the phone’s own display.

Can't speak for Carplay, but Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit. The car's (an Audi) system does not, but it fails on many other levels. Both make me angry, albeit for different reasons.

You'd think it would be much more efficient for road construction projects to update Apple and Google with their plans, rather than rely on random motorists reporting them.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#686

Post by WorldMaker »

0xffff2 wrote: post #680
WorldMaker wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the things at issue here is that "professional service every six months" with EVs has gone from two oil changes, a tune-up, and a tire rotation to "maybe just a tire rotation". Most people don't do tire rotations that regularly, and any garage can do a tire rotation who needs to go to the dealership for that. They might be hoping that they can use some of that $240/yr to make dealers a little bit happi…

> two oil changes, a tune-up, and a tire rotation What is this, the 60s? Modern gas cars are so computer controlled that the concept of a "tune-up" effectively no longer exists, and they go 10,000 miles between oil changes so most people don't even average a single oil change every 6 months. EVs are even lower maintenance, but the difference isn't nearly as big as you're implying.

I think that is still in agreement to my point. Even ICE maintenance is no longer the same schedule (and cost patterns) as it was when the dealership model was invented. EVs push it to a "crisis mode", but it has been a building misaligned incentives problem for decades.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#687

Post by TacticalCoder »

> They make the experience of being in the car way way better.

> I literally will not buy a car that does not support CarPlay.

I drive more than you, longer distances. I've been to Ibiza by car (with the car on the boat at some point, obviously), to the UK (with the car either on a boat or, later on, inside a train), I've crossed Germany at insane (legal) speeds to go to the end of Poland, I've been to Sweden, to Andorra, Italy, Croatia, etc.

For I hate airplanes and very rarely hop in one (last time was in 2019).

What makes the experience of driving sweet is soundproofing, the quality of the seats, the overall sweetness of the ride.

It's got absolutely nothing to do with how big the screen (that shows you the same thing as your phone) is and zero to do with OS of the car's infotainment (unless the carmaker really fucked up big times and made an unusable system).

The F-segment cars (euro notation) are enjoyable rides and this has nothing to do with Apple or Android CarPlay:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-segment

As a bonus: the soundsystem. People are going to say that listening to music in a car sucks anyway but once you get into high-end luxury cars, suddenly the sound proofing is so good that listening to music while driving is actually enjoyable.

My car runs QNX as the OS for the infotainment. It's got its own memory for songs (I can put either mp3 or FLAC files: I have a mix of both), it's got an audio CD player (which I sometimes use, just because I can) and it's got bluetooth, so I can use Spotify or whatever suits me.

It's mostly "one button / one function": not some distracting touch screen.

It's a sweet sweet ride and I guarantee you that there are very few brand new cars from 2026 that are sweeter rides than my ride from 2013 (which, of course, I bought used --8 years ago now-- and paid less than most brand new cars).

Now my car is 13 years old and has more than 200 000 km (125 000 miles): it's going to be time to change it. I'll sell it for half what I paid it and I'll buy another high-end luxury car, used. Same brand, same model.

This time it'll have CarPlay (because the carmaker moved from QNX to CarPlay): but I guarantee you that it's not what makes that car great not that it's why I'll buy it.

Judging a car, an item that's made for driving, by how easy it is to connect your smartphone to it is just plain face-palming and shows how addicted society is to smartphones.

It's really just freaking sad.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#688

Post by Telaneo »

benrutter wrote: post #681
Telaneo wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (my car does already have functionality like google maps built in though, so I might feel differently if it didn't) See if you care in 5 years when the maps are out of date.

No, I meant literally the car has google maps built in - it's an up to date android app.

So you have Android Automotive? (stupid name)

Where does it get it's internet connection from? It's going to need that to keep the maps updated.

I'm not sure how long the Google Maps app will stay alive in your case. I doubt AA will get updates 10 years after a sale, but even if it doesn't and you're stuck on an old version of Google Maps, assuming the underlying API doesn't change, I guess that doesn't matter?

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#689

Post by swiftcoder »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #658
swiftcoder wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily the pendulum is about to swing back the other way for most brands, as they have to reintroduce physical controls to comply with the updated EU safety regulations

I've been hearing that for years, and I'm still waiting. Incidentally, my 2020 Ford Escape has buttons, which was a strong selector. I hear it's because it was designed for the European market (as the Ford Kuga)

The NCAP rules only came into effect this year. 2026 and later models should all have a decent set of physical controls

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#690

Post by skydhash »

embedding-shape wrote: post #449
skydhash wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP. But a decade ago, my brother’s car didn’t have bluetooth. We burned down a few mixes on CD and that was ok for long trek during town. He replaced that unit but we still used those CD from time to time. It was simpler than deciding which phone to connect. Even today, while I use spotify on my work computer, it’s basically the same albums every day (around a dozen). Playing CDs would be probably better than swi…

> Even today, while I use spotify on my work computer, it’s basically the same albums every day (around a dozen). Playing CDs would be probably better than switching to the UX disaster that is Spotify Why don't you switch to CDs then? Something is telling me this isn't quite the full story. I'm sure lots of people who don't really need to use Spotify use Spotify all the time, if you really do listen to just a few alb…

> Why don't you switch to CDs then? Something is telling me this isn't quite the full story

I don’t have a CD player.

I do have a local library (decently sized) which contains the album I truly like. I play that from my home theater and have part of it on my phone.

Maybe one day, I will buy a CD player and a few of those albums (for the art). And then I can play music without involving a screen.

Spotify is mostly for my SO. It’s cheap where I’m at and good enough for background music when I need some (rarely).

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