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CarPlay Is Additive

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Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#711

Post by hamburglar »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #343
hamburglar wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all think they can do better, and it is sheer arrogance, because even the best of them is utter garbage compared to software that is actually built with fast iteration, UX research, and real user testing. No car manufacturers do a good job of this, and they all bake their atrocious UX into a $50k piece of hardware you keep for decades and which *never* gets a significant software update. The fact that they don’t…

I hear so many complaints here on HN about "car UX". I am not a Tesla fanboy, but lots of people who review Teslas say they have great "car UX". Can you share some specifics about what you don't like?

They are slow. They all feel the need to make a “unique” UX that doesn’t actually work very well. They require some sort of subscription. They have limited functionality because they want to gatekeep functionality on some proprietary app. They require some godawful mobile app. They are just universally inferior.

Tesla’s is probably better than most, but they still lose by not letting me just use my phone, which is what I like.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#712

Post by maxdo »

polarix wrote: post #617
theshrike79 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, Tesla is a computer with a car as an add on. That’s why it works. Traditional companies do it the other way around.

I’m not sure it “works”. I would still drastically prefer if Tesla had CarPlay.

Are you seriously arguing that two loosely integrated systems, one of them needs a proper connection, battery state, ToS agreement accepted before you need to drive is better vs OS that integrate hardware, software, charging network and gives you 99.99% of functionality, including mobile app?

It's not even apples vs bananas. It's a rock vs computer.

- Just a single fact you don't have to deal with cable/bluetooth/charging troubles is already saves you hours of quality life over CarPlay. It's hours of life you enjoy driving, music. and yeah from that standpoint, CarPlay does not work.

- Internet: I use T-Mobile. My car use AT&T with very affordable bill, that single fact helped me to listen to music in remote areas where my cellphone din't work and other way around.

- Features like Joe mode simply not possible with CarPlay. And yes, i use it every time my kid is in the car.

- Theater mode & Karaoke. No brainer for kids. Turns your distant driving from Cry and Fight into fun family experience.

- Navigation + Charging. this integration alone saved me hours of life, because it route me automagically away from busy charging stations.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#713

Post by SirMaster »

neogodless wrote: post #518
SirMaster wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM has not dropped CarPlay. I just checked out some 2026 GM vehicles (Chevy) and they list CarPlay.

GM 100% dropped it in their EVs and announced moving away from it. https://www.theverge.com/transportation/804562/gm-apple-carp...

OK, but EVs are a fraction of their cars... And the OP didn't say EVs, so I was confused.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#714

Post by commandersaki »

artisinal wrote: post #254
commandersaki wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Rivian, but I'm generally less distracted on the road with CarPlay due to Siri & Voice Control. I wish I could extend it to my native car controls such as climate control etc.

> I'm generally less distracted on the road You should be not distracted at all.

Let me put it this way: using my car's console controls are more distracting than using CarPlay with siri/voice control. If I'm uncomfortable though I would be in a worse shape driving, hence there's a need to set climate.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#715

Post by jebarker »

neogodless wrote: post #522
jebarker wrote: post #305

As an R1S owner I feel like the elephant in the room is that the Rivian developed infotainment software is just not very good. For example, the Spotify app has weird scrolling issues and the interface for offline downloads is clunky and unreliable. The maps/route planning is fine but not really any better than Apple/Google Maps (or ABRP). So I find it hard to give much credit to their argument against CarPlay when th…

How well does Pandora work for music?

As far as I’m aware there is no native Pandora app, just TuneIn for internet radio. Do for Pandora you’d have to stream from a phone via Bluetooth.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#716

Post by mschuster91 »

Tagbert wrote: post #692
mschuster91 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it sometimes looks a bit silly (like they glued an ipad on top of the dashboard), but it's a lot more usable ... until there's some child walking right into that visual "dead space".

You really should keep that child strapped into their car seat. If you are concerned about blocking visibility, none of the screens are high enough to block view of the area in front of the car. They only block the upper part of the dashboard or some of the hood.

> You really should keep that child strapped into their car seat.

I'm talking about kids walking to school. Many cars are already tall enough to be a problem for children [1] and the problem is getting worse, there is no need to add giant ass screens inside cars to make the problem even worse than it already is.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/11/ever-rising-he...

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#717

Post by lopis »

alias_neo wrote: post #709
lopis wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotel TV's often have all inputs blocked out actually. It's really stupid.

Interesting, that's not been my experience in various places around the world (not US), and I've often been able to access HDMI ports. In the UK, they'll often put a plate in the wall with hdmi for easy connection, literally to make it easier for you to do.

I once looked up those TV codes and ended up factory resetting the TV just to jailbreak out of the hotel mode and use the Hdmi.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#718

Post by DaSHacka »

Pxtl wrote: post #582
delecti wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a car company. It's not arrogance, it's greed. They do want their own proprietary infotainment to be good, but it's more that they don't want to abdicate control, both out of a possessive feeling over what you're looking at, and over the potential for selling you access to their own stuff on that screen.

Every time I have to cycle through the SirusXM hardcoded ad in the AM->FM->Bluetooth->SirusXM cycle of my car stereo's mode picker, I get angry at Toyota.

Lol, be glad it's not a Subaru. Same issue in the infotainment, but also occasionally shows you a popup box ad that doesn't go away unless manually cleared, which prevents you from using the infotainment or climate controls (since they're part of the screen now). The dealerships also opt your phone number into recieving SiriusXM ads by default.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#719

Post by DaSHacka »

bdavbdav wrote: post #261
grumbelbart2 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly the second point. They already collect and track you, even with car play. I strongly recommend this CCC talk, where they hacked a Volkswagen database that contained unfiltered, high-accuracy, timestamped locations of a large majority of electric cars from VW group. Based on that they were, for example, able to identify cars owned by members of Germany's security apparatus: where they work, where they live, whe…

The frustrating thing is I bet they’re still tracking and collecting this when you stop paying for the tracking / telematics.

They do, you just then don't benefit from the service. At least, that's been confirmed to be the case with Subaru from other security researchers looking at the telematics system.

Re: CarPlay Is Additive

#720

Post by stephen_g »

greentea23 wrote: post #653
stephen_g wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t make any sense… The comment you’re replying to is about people’s desire for a particular feature, but pretty much any car that supports CarPlay also supports the Android equivalent, as well as still having media playback and often some kind of navigation without either! Your comment would only make sense in a hypothetical situation where the car infotainment only worked if you had an iPhone or if there w…

It makes perfect sense. Android Auto is not libre. You need an attested Google device to use Android Auto and an attested Apple device to use CarPlay, so both options are anti-user at their core, forcing you into being non-anonymous and tracked in a myriad of ways that you can only bypass if you run a custom ROM.

That’s nothing to do with the OP’s comment, and ignores the second part which I pointed out too (that nobody is forcing you to use this optional feature that most people want), so swing and a miss on two points…

The OP’s argument is that lots of people wanting CarPlay is evidence some kind of monopolistic anti-competitive behaviour by Apple, which is nonsense. Nothing in your comment relates addresses the argument or the rebuttal!

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