Discussion summary
Discussions around CarPlay highlight mixed opinions on in-car screens, with some preferring traditional controls and others valuing CarPlay's convenience. Users mention issues like device control, car functionality, and brand loyalty.
What the discussion says
- Some users prefer traditional buttons over screens.
- CarPlay is seen as essential by some despite dislike for Apple.
- Concerns about driver distraction and device control are common.
- People acknowledge CarPlay's utility, especially for navigation and media.
- Brand loyalty influences opinions on in-car tech choices.
“I dislike plugging my iPhone into my car and losing control of it.”
“CarPlay is almost a must-have for me despite disliking Apple.”
Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- I can’t be the only one who thinks we’re going a bit too far with the attention grab of vehicle infotainment.
CarPlay is a fantastic system because it keeps you off your phone.
But some of these new infotainment systems, and the complete lack of physical controls, are starting to feel extremely unsafe.
by whh - I agree with the author: CarPlay is table stakes for me. Whenever an automaker says a car won't support CarPlay, I mentally cross it off my list. Which is fine, because there are plenty of other viable options.by symfoniq
- I used to refuse to buy cars without carplay. For many of the reasons I expect others do.
I have a rivian, and my wife has a car with carplay. I've had rivians for years now. I don't miss carplay when i drive my Rivian.
In truth, I used carplay for 3 main things - navigation that didn't suck, listening to music on the apps i wanted to, and reading text messages out loud.
Rivian has made those things not suck. So i don't miss carplay.
On my wife's car, those things suck, badly, without carplay.
I'm sure there are people out there who heavily depend on carplay for other things, and thus, it really does matter if they have carplay or not.
and maybe a day will come when the features carplay could provide me are as shitty on the Rivian as they are on my wife's car, and i'll start demanding it again.
But at least right now, that's not true, and so I think Rivian's choice is fine.
by DannyBee - I’m fully bought into the Apple ecosystem, and I’ve had Teslas for 8 years and we currently also have car that supports CarPlay. The CarPlay interface is overall far inferior, especially with navigation. First of all, searching for destinations is terrible on CarPlay compared to Tesla! Even worse, Apple didn’t even add multi-touch support to CarPlay until iOS 26, and the vast majority of cars (including ours) don’t support it, so you have to hunt for and tap the zoom controls, which is pretty barbaric compared to the fluid pinch and zoom gestures that work on Tesla and our other devices. Also on our CarPlay car, it never seems to know the direction the car is facing until it starts moving, which becomes incredibly frustrating navigating out of a parking lot. The final major downside is having to switch apps out of navigation to control music then switch back, whereas on Tesla (and Rivian) you can choose and control music while keeping navigation on your screen.by appden
- I am clearly in the minority here but I have driven cars with and without CarPlay and honestly do not care whether a car has it. I use my phone for navigation and mount it such that when I look at it I am not taking my eyes off the road. I find this to be far better than having to look down at the center of my dashboard but CarPlay navigation UI via Google Maps or Waze also works fine so it’s not a huge difference.
Realistically the only navigation UI have seen that was better was a 2012 or 2013 BMW 5 series which had a HUD that projected my location, speed, heading and turn by turn navigation (with lane info!) onto the windshield. That system rocked because of how the projected UI had your eyes focus farther out so you had a very easy time perceiving the road ahead while getting the next direction info.
I assume my next car will have it and I might even upgrade the radio in my current car to have it but it is to me entirely optional.
by IgorPartola - Author says "I literally will not buy a car that does not support CarPlay."
From July 2022: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/22/apple-carplay-could-be-a-tro...
Apple engineering manager Emily Schubert said 98% of new cars in the U.S. come with CarPlay installed. She delivered a shocking stat: 79% of U.S. buyers would only buy a car if it supported CarPlay. “It’s a must-have feature when shopping for a new vehicle,” Schubert said during a presentation of the new features.by valgaze - Surprised no one's mentioned it so far, but CarPlay / Android Auto aren't just features, they're consistency. Across makes, models, years. I know what I'm getting when I connect my phone - and if anyone uses my car with their own device, they get their own dashboard, as well. One interesting use case I saw was a couple where one used a left-to-right interface and the other a right-to-left UI. CarPlay makes this easy, because the interface is linked to your own personal device.by faitswulff
- For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself. Its advantages are mainly these:
- Consistency. You get into a new car, all you need to figure out is how to open CarPlay, no need to learning a completely different and often complicated infotainment system.
- "It's on your phone". You can decide what playlist to play or where to navigate before you even get into the car.
- Stays up to date over the long term. Just look at cars from five years ago. Most built-in infotainment systems are still stuck in that era, no matter how smart they once looked. CarPlay uses your phone as the main computing platform, and the car's infotainment system only needs to act as a thin client for I/O, it keeps updating with iOS.
by linzhangrun