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Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

theturnsignalblog.com

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Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#81

Post by numpad0 »

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 wonder how much of those frustrations has to do with Japanese market share of car industry; I think the touchscreen infotainment is not there because car manufacturers value it as integral and central part of car experience but simply because otherwise their product loses against one of Japanese brands.

Japanese road network is a disorganized weighted node graph and absolutely not a grid, and a bulletproof navigation unit has been a must for a car in Japan since its inception around 1990. It is also preferred that they are 2DIN compatible so it can be later upgraded. AFAIK, those are not high priority checkbox items elsewhere, but all cars nevertheless follow the Japanese manufacturer layout because of manufacturers' collective dominance. Cars before 2DIN navigation units seem to have had 1DIN AM/FM radio units with radio buttons[1], by the way.

That dominance leaves a 4:3 8" diagonal hole in immediate view of driver for all cars globally that must be filled with something of value. That doesn't have to be a touchscreen but usually are, and it ends up being a navigation-audio combo unit, and it's outsourced to the lowest bidder. It is not the primary interaction point for cars by overwhelming global demands or principles of automotive product design. That leads to jarring subpar experience that appear to be but are perhaps not intended to be part of core UX of the whole car. I think.

1: https://www.alamy.com/1956-mercedes-benz-190-sl-steering-whe...

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#82

Post by api »

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…

Auto makers want what everyone else wants: recurring revenue. They want to find a way to sell subscriptions to something. The infotainment system is a potential angle for that. CarPlay makes that irrelevant.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#83

Post by bombcar »

sandworm101 wrote: post #71
baseballdork wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's true for some features (the wife (and I, to be fair) were pretty strongly on the "heated seats" side of things) but things like infotainment were not dealbreakers if everything else lined up.

But CarPlay is darn close; I'd not say I'd never buy a car without it but having it means I don't need to worry if the infotainment setup is crap or not, because I won't be using it.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#84

Post by api »

StephenSmith wrote: post #12

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…

I actually prefer wired. Otherwise when I get in the car and turn it on, it pairs with my wife's phone half the time instead of mine. I also almost always want to charge the phone anyway.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#85

Post by bombcar »

floxy wrote: post #77
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.

The percentages only apply to new car buyers, in my experience.

Once you're in used territory, all bets are off and you'd have to poke around.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#86

Post by ryandrake »

numpad0 wrote: post #81
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 wonder how much of those frustrations has to do with Japanese market share of car industry; I think the touchscreen infotainment is not there because car manufacturers value it as integral and central part of car experience but simply because otherwise their product loses against one of Japanese brands. Japanese road network is a disorganized weighted node graph and absolutely not a grid, and a bulletproof navigati…

Don't Japanese people have smartphones or tablets with navigation on them that they can use? I'd rather cars just have a place I can mount my own device, rather than include any kind of screen whatsoever with crappy un-updated, un-maintained software.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#87

Post by babypuncher »

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…

GM's plan is to sell a subscription service that covers all the things you already pay for on your phone (maps, music streaming, etc). It's why they're killing CarPlay, because they know that even if their service is good, nobody will pay $20/mo for shit they already get for free on their phones.

Basically, their goal in life is to be a worthless middleman who takes peoples money while providing no real value to society.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#88

Post by babypuncher »

ryandrake wrote: post #86
numpad0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of those frustrations has to do with Japanese market share of car industry; I think the touchscreen infotainment is not there because car manufacturers value it as integral and central part of car experience but simply because otherwise their product loses against one of Japanese brands. Japanese road network is a disorganized weighted node graph and absolutely not a grid, and a bulletproof navigati…

Don't Japanese people have smartphones or tablets with navigation on them that they can use? I'd rather cars just have a place I can mount my own device, rather than include any kind of screen whatsoever with crappy un-updated, un-maintained software.

This is sort of the goal of Android Auto and CarPlay, but not as a mount for your phone. Rather, it turns the screen into a dumb terminal for your phone, bypassing all the shitty built-in software and providing a UX designed specifically for use while driving.

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#89

Post by drekipus »

ryandrake wrote: post #86
numpad0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of those frustrations has to do with Japanese market share of car industry; I think the touchscreen infotainment is not there because car manufacturers value it as integral and central part of car experience but simply because otherwise their product loses against one of Japanese brands. Japanese road network is a disorganized weighted node graph and absolutely not a grid, and a bulletproof navigati…

Don't Japanese people have smartphones or tablets with navigation on them that they can use? I'd rather cars just have a place I can mount my own device, rather than include any kind of screen whatsoever with crappy un-updated, un-maintained software.

In car navigation came before mobile smart phones

Re: Apple's risky bet on CarPlay

#90

Post by hx833001 »

s0rce wrote: post #20
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.

Do people do that? I just use my phone beside the old useless infotainment. Honestly, I wouldn't buy a new car that used an in-house infotainment specifically because they go obsolete quickly (<5-10 years) and cannot be economically (or at all) to the latest tech. Carplay seems to be long lived.

No degradation at all for me over seven years. It’s a game changer. Car still feels new
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