CarPlay Is Additive

Join the discussion

• Hacker News
• And here I am, ideally not wanting any screen in my car, but just the good ole buttons and knobs of yesteryear... sigh...
  by kleiba2
• You can have a screen and buttons. If anything, a rear view camera is really useful, and you kind of have to have a screen for that to be of any use.
  by Telaneo
• I don't listen to the opinions of people who try to sell me a podcast subscription
  by slowmotiony
• Wonder how GM is doing it
  by rootsudo
• The author is in a podcast that I classify as Apple apologist. They feel because they have used Apple products for 8+ years the world should bend to their knee. And anytime new non-apple tech comes up on the podcast they do not give any opportunity to acclimate to new tech, because they drink the apple kool-aid. Which is fine, but just admit some products are not for you then if you want the Apple ecosphere, where they dont respect their customers, their developers or their partners.
  by ProAm
• Why do people want so much to be distracted from and while driving? Is there still a single responsible driver left on the road?
  by prmoustache
• Am I the only person who hates plugging their iPhone into their car to charge and completely losing control of it?

  When I plug it into the USB socket, my Peugeot 207 starts playing a random podcast track on my phone. No way of stopping it. If I stop it, it starts again. I can't select a different audio output, e.g. the phone speaker. There are plenty of people complaining about this on the forums.

  Yes, it's a bug in either the iPhone or the car. Yes the bug shouldn't be there, but it is. I should be able to disable it.

  I'm in the habit of bringing a spare battery with me so I can use phone sat-nav.

  by afandian
• Your car is broken, and was apparently sold as such. I'd return the car for that, or just never buy it in the first place if I noticed it during research or a test drive.
  by Telaneo
• It's difficult for me to admit - because I really dislike Apple, Google, and the other predatory monopolies - but I wouldn't buy a car without CarPlay either.

  Like I said, it's not because I'm a fan of Apple. Honestly, fuck Apple. Fuck their stupid walled garden and their $99/yr developer fee and their planned obsolesence and their lack of a headphone jack and everything else. But fuck Google too. And especially fuck all the car makers with their crappy infotainment software.

  The truth is, I put up with an iPhone and with CarPlay simply because it is slightly less shitty than all the other shitty options.

  by wackget
• As a disclaimer, the three iPhones I've ever purchased have all been used. I keep them for as long as possible. I don't use iCloud. I don't buy apps. In fact, I don't give Apple any money as far as I know.

  I wish a Linux phone was a viable option but they are years away from being truly usable and decades away from any hope of mass integration with cars.

  by wackget
• CarPlay is for cars with shitty software
  by wilg
• So all of them.
  by NetMageSCW
• I’m with OP, here: CarPlay is additive to the experience, but also is something that provides me a degree of consistency across my automotive experiences - when vendors bother to implement it properly.

  I have an old Honda Fit that I installed one of Pioneer’s “app radio” units into, which included replacing the dash facia. I use CarPlay on it almost exclusively, but if I want Pioneer’s incredibly mediocre UI/UX, it’s a single button-tap away - either on the left side of the radio via a capacitance button, or on the first page of CarPlay’s app icons.

  When I rented a car to drive to visit family, it had CarPlay. The infotainment experience was familiar, so I could focus more on the road ahead instead of fussing with some newfangled vendor-specific infotainment shitshow.

  When I rented Nissan in Canada, it too had CarPlay - but with a nasty bug where using voice commands or making a call would crash the whole unit. I figured out very quickly not to do that, and the rest of CarPlay worked a treat for the trip - a far cry better from Nissan’s UI/UX.

  This is why I didn’t hop on board infotainment systems until CarPlay and Android Auto were mature options, opting to stick with my phone over USB for audio/iPod controls instead: none of the major manufacturers except maybe Panasonic actually give a shit about the UI/UX. They don’t build intuitive systems that can be operated without looking, and they scoop up far too much superfluous data to enable simple features. I refuse to buy the vehicle maker excuse of “superior experience” anymore when time after time, the reality is these car companies think the infotainment data is some sort of goldmine of revenue and letting Apple or Google have any say over the experience is tantamount to leaving money on the table.

  If I cannot have CarPlay, and your EV or vehicle won’t let me swap the infotainment unit for an aftermarket one that does, then I am not buying your fucking spyware on wheels. I don’t think anyone else should tolerate that bullshit either, especially on what averages to be a $70k+ purchase nowadays.

  by stego-tech
• > Let me help you, [Rivian Chief Software Officer] Wassym

  Casey Liss, let me help you:

  Apple and Google are monopolies.

  You are boot licking an invasive species trillion dollar company.

  These two megacorps are trying to put their greedy tendrils into the automotive industry and extract even more money from an industry that is not healthy and very difficult to succeed at.

  It's high time the governments of the world told Google and Apple to fuck off and leave both consumers and other industries alone. Told the both of them that it's time for their platforms to become an open standard.

  That phones themselves must be an open standards. With open web installs without scare walls and deeply hidden settings.

  The inversion of control needs to make Apple and Google the bitch here. Not the automotive industry that can't even dream of the insane margins the tech industry has.

  Cars should be able to interface with any phone without having to subjugate themselves to Google and Apple. Because this is a perverted inversion of control.

  People own cars. Not two tech titans.

  by echelon
• Um, my favorite feature of CarPlay is that I can just not use it.
  by frollogaston
• > Cars should be able to interface with any phone without having to subjugate themselves to Google and Apple. Because this is a perverted inversion of control.

  Bluetooth?

  by canthonytucci
• Geez, did Apple CarPlay burn down your house and kill your livestock or something?
  by tonypapousek
• The car industry is currently in the "rodeo" phase that the telcos where in when it came to the internet. Loosing power- and very soon tamed, because the Chinese competition has no such qualms.
  by 21asdffdsa12
• Rivian sees Apple (CarPlay) as competition. So what is surprising?
  by slashdave
• There are a bunch of CarPlay devices on Amazon, for example, with all kinds of screens, designed for Tesla and other cars that don't support it, that cost about $200 for a nice one. Why not just buy one of those and who cares if it's natively supported?
  by yostrovs
• Why buy a car where you need to do this and get a more janky experience, when you can buy one with it integrated, with no downsides?
  by Telaneo
• In most cases it puts the CarPlay screen in a more difficult to reach location than the OE screen.

  The one that interests me now is the one that selectively takes over the Tesla screen.

  by rootusrootus
• I don't particularly care about Android Auto (I generally prefer standard bluetooth for audio, and directly setting the phone up for navigation), but if a manufacturer supports CarPlay and not Android Auto, they can get lost. I hate how Apple stuff is an assumed default.
  by flax
• Effectively no one does that. I think there might be one or two ultra luxury cars that do, but in general no one does. Because they don’t wanna cut off any of their audience.

  And at this point it seems like 80% of car manufacturers just ship android automotive anyway. You really think they’re gonna do that and turn off android auto support?

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

  I think you mean addictive.

  by pluc
• Won’t buy a car without CarPlay is crazy… lol CarPlay head units are like $200 tops
  by Footprint0521
• Every time I've used CarPlay or Android Auto, I just remember how much better the experience was with a tablet velcro'd over the main display. Immediately obviously better in every single way, and dramatically cheaper and easier to replace if desired.

  I get the goal, and I'm glad there's at least some semblance of a standard. But it's still bad.

  by Groxx
• Carplay is a convenient - FREE solution to car infotainment that car makers cannot control. They cannot sell you subscription based services for in-car stuff if you can get that from another app, and that's not in their interest. The CEO here knows well what he's saying is BS. We are lucky if something like Carplay will survive in the car subscription based era. They might charge you for the use of Carplay in the future, or free access to their infotainment that is complemented by subscritions. Car makers sell cars with thin margins so they need to find ways to increase them.
  by pi-victor
• Author: I literally will not buy a car that does not support CarPlay.

  Me: I literally will not buy a car that does.

  by anticorporate
• Read about half of the article wondering when it was going to explain why carplay is addictive
  by ml_basics