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Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

theturnsignalblog.com

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Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#71

Post by sandworm101 »

baseballdork wrote: post #66
sandworm101 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 man…

> Remember that many people are not buying cars for themselves but for other people, usually family. Can you explain this? I guess maybe the devil is in "many"?

Unless you are single, and even then you carry occasional passengers, many/most cars are used by multiple people. So people who buy cars are thinking not just about the primary driver but about all the other people who will drive/ride in the car too. Nobody buying a car actually wants in-dash 4k movies, but they think that their partner/kids will.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#72

Post by 51Cards »

>Continuing with the above example, let's imagine I just downloaded a new podcast app on my phone (one that is also available in the automotive Play Store). The next day I have to go on a long drive and I want to listen to a podcast episode I downloaded on my phone. When I enter my car, I have to go to the Play Store, find the app, download it, log in, and then download the episode. When I use CarPlay, I only have to connect my phone.

Does the author have no experience with Android Auto? The same happens there, if the app is on my phone and it supports Android Auto then it will automatically be available in the car, along with all media on my phone. This isn't a CarPlay only functionalitiy, it's just how phone mirroring works on both platforms. Author seems to think there is an extra step involved on Android. Perhaps by "Play Store" they mean the car manufacturer's own app store?

Source: I use Android Auto constantly in my own vehicle and in the 15+ rental cars I have every year.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#73

Post by throwaway11460 »

moduspol wrote: post #25
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 mean, theoretically they could make money by selling additional services. Tesla sells "Premium Connectivity" for ~$10/mo, though it might be against the license agreements traditional manufacturers have with dealers to sell enhancements directly to the consumer. IMO it's more about control over the user experience. You don't want your customers' UX to be dependent on the whims of Apple or Google, because now you're…

Every traditional European car manufacturer sells services directly to customers. Not sure about the US/Japanese/Korean, though.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#74

Post by mcfedr »

I really hope the lock in with have with car/phone a connection is something the EU addresses next.

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.

The reason is that only Apple apps have the required permissions and system access to do it.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#75

Post by robertoandred »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #5

Article is really about the unofficially called "Carplay 2", a deeper integration that Apple announced in 2022 but hasn't been heard about since. As the article itself says, CarPlay Original Flavor is a massive success, I'm in the " 79% of drivers only consider a car if it has CarPlay " (bye-bye GM!)

Huh? There were updates a few months ago https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/27/apple-confirms-next-gen...

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#76

Post by Jtsummers »

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…

> Let's turn the question around: why would car makers want to spend millions of dollars a year rolling their own infotainment system? So they can make incremental revenue selling ads and user data? So they have control? Control over what, exactly?

There's an interesting (and apparently often misunderstood) article called "IT Doesn't Matter" [0]. In it, Carr is largely arguing that IT, as a business differentiator, was over for many of the things people thought were differentiators. That is, things that helped a company (say American Airlines) get a lead on their competitors in the 1960s had become commoditized. Now every airline was offering flight search and booking online (directly and through aggregators). The IT edge had become table stakes, you didn't do it to beat out a competitor but just to stay in the game. And, even more importantly, many of the things that used to be IT differentiators became commoditized.

Car infotainment was once a differentiator for car manufacturers or for classes of vehicles within the same manufacturer. Today, it's table stakes. Not all the manufacturers have figured that out (have any?).

[0] https://hbr.org/2003/05/it-doesnt-matter and https://www.nicholascarr.com/?page_id=99

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#77

Post by floxy »

yabones wrote: post #34

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,…

>(for less than they're worth, since only 21% of people will buy a car without carplay!)

...is there a handy list of which models these are? I'm in the market for a used car, and I'm perfectly happy to pay less for something without CarPlay.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#78

Post by anthony_d »

potatolicious wrote: post #61
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…

> "So they have control? Control over what, exactly?" I think a key thing to consider is that there are in fact three separate questions at play here: 1 - Does infotainment/software UI differentiation matter in the car market? Is there a significant enough market advantage for having better UI that anyone should care? 2 - If there is an advantage for better UI, is it enough of an edge that would compel you to build y…

For what it’s worth I agree on #1. I really like RR/Jaguar’s current UI. When I’m in a rental or someone else’s car and I’m forced to use CarPlay I hate it. Feels like I’ve been pushed to kindergarten and given crayons… any car manufacturer that just expects me to use CarPlay is probably not on my potential buy list.

I might be unusual in my preference but I really expect people to have preferences as strong.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#79

Post by Jtsummers »

51Cards wrote: post #72

>Continuing with the above example, let's imagine I just downloaded a new podcast app on my phone (one that is also available in the automotive Play Store). The next day I have to go on a long drive and I want to listen to a podcast episode I downloaded on my phone. When I enter my car, I have to go to the Play Store, find the app, download it, log in, and then download the episode. When I use CarPlay, I only have to…

>> Continuing with the above example, let's imagine I just downloaded a new podcast app on my phone (one that is also available in the [Android A]utomotive Play Store).

They lost a capitalization which makes it a bit ambiguous but their scenario is this:

There are two app stores being discussed: iOS (for CarPlay), and Android Automotive (the infotainment system's play store).

If you have Android Automotive on an infotainment system and an iPhone and can't connect your iPhone to the infotainment system, you have to download the app twice: iOS App Store and Android Automotive Play Store.

I don't know the numbers, but Android Automotive infotainment systems don't universally support CarPlay. Some only got it via updates over the last couple years (that's also a selling point of them, though, that they could do it via software updates and not a whole hardware refresh).

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#80

Post by the_snooze »

com2kid wrote: post #42
the_snooze wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Control over what, exactly? Planned obsolesence. Without proper CarPlay/AA integration, car manufacturers get to decide when those whiz-bang infotainment features stop working. You'd have to replace the whole car to get those features back instead of just buying a new phone.

Heck simple bluetooth audio playback has degraded year over year in my car. After an android update a few years back I don't get to see the track name any more, pause/play sort of works, and thankfully audio still comes through and I can go to the previous/next track. Without constant updates, software that is part a a larger ecosystem will eventually breakdown.

>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 remote APIs shift out from under you.

Durable goods manufacturers have little skill or interest in long-term software upkeep (maybe they like the profits and the rent-seeking, but not the actual maintenance), so the most sustainable design is one where the software is easily seperable and replaceable from the core durable item. Manufacturer-specific internet-connected infotainment in cars ain't it.

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