So we've got a 5g router with wifi in there - if that's on whilst you're driving the phone, whether iphone or android, will not connect to the headunit so no Carplay / AA.
These things are still extremely buggy which is hilarious considering how long they've been around.
(not to mention losing the connection on both AA and Carplay when going through a toll booth in France)
Otherwise, CarPlay itself has been solid and I'd never even consider purchasing a car without it.
I won't buy or rent a new car without car play so this is a smart move. Hopefully the OEM customisation is on tight rails so they can't mess up the UX too much.
Same. When GM announced they were going to drop Car Play and Android Auto I was like this is going to be a historically bad move lol.
Google wins this round I’m afraid.
First, at least in the U.S., Apple iPhones are more popular than Android.
Second, there aren't "winners and losers". It's not anywhere near that black and white. And Android Automotive is... annoying when the automakers choose to block actual Android Auto and force you into only using apps that Android Automotive support, and in the case of GM, after 3 years you have to start paying a $40/month subscription to keep using apps. That's not winning in my book. A lot of people (at least on the internet) seem vocally opposed to the GM vehicles that do not support Android Auto.
If automakers are strictly only supporting Android and not iPhone, they will likely lose out on sales to the buyers who really prefer iPhone + CarPlay.
But also, they can block CarPlay and Android Auto, like GM does in their electric vehicles.
Pretty much all my friends feel this way too.
Yes - all-touch controls suck. I know, I have a car that's mostly all-touch. It's so stupid. But the displays are lovely. As long as they don't take over UI in a car and replace physical controls for key functions that you control while driving, like climate, lights, wipers, volume.
Android Automotive, pay attention. GM, I'm looking at you.
Oh god, no.
Not only is this awful, it gives the big tech companies huge leverage over the automakers. It's another industry where they'll embrace-extend-extinguish.
These companies will use smartphones as leverage to crush the automotive giants. It's another reason why we need antitrust enforcement to catch up with 30 years of being asleep at the wheel.
The automotive companies should be in charge of their industry and their destinies. Tech companies shouldn't be ensnaring them.
The phone giants already control how software is made and distributed (and they tax it 15-30%), insert themselves into digital payments and communications, place ads on your maps and navigation, etc. Soon they'll be taxing the car companies for integration, forcing the car companies to do what they want, and those car companies will pass that pain onto you, the consumer.
Of course, that will never happen, because standards take centuries to develop and the cars need to be sold now NOW NOW.
As punishment for what they've been up to over the past few decades of running amok, the DOJ might tell these companies they have to open up app distribution, loosen up on the default payments/messaging/platform services, and allow third party vendors first class software and hardware access that is capable of car automation without needing Apple and Google to "help" (read: dictate and control).
You’re right that phone giants have too much power, but car companies are already selling our data and injecting ads or preferred partners into the infotainment. It’s CarPlay that currently lets you avoid the abysmal and often subscription-based experiences they’re pushing.
I would love to see more open systems that would allow third-parties or users to provide software for vehicles.
Google and Apple are the monopolies, here. Mega monopolies the world has never seen the likes of before. It's unreal how big and how much power they have. Apple and Google are practically God and more powerful than Christianity.
> car companies are already selling our data
It's wild that this is being thrown out as being even within the same order of magnitude as bad. Google and Apple are doing this 1000x worse. And for those that think Apple is a "privacy play", just look what they do to bend over to authoritarian regimes. They're still leveraging your data for advertising, and that play is bringing Apple more and more money year over year.
The phone giants have way too much power. They control people trying to write software, people trying to run software. They control every payment, all the payment rails. They control the communication. The defaults. The search. 98% of your life flows through them.
Your car is a pittance to that.
We need to break up the phone companies or limit what they can do with the devices after they've sold them to you.
Imagine if your car could tell you where you could drive. Or if businesses had to pay a tax to be visible from looking out your windshield. Or if they collected a percentage of everything you bought while you were out driving and shopping. Because that's phones. Google and Apple are our -- and everybody else's -- pimps and masters. You're nothing, I'm nothing. They're gods.
If you're pro-consumer, you want an end to this. If you're pro-business, pro-entrepreneur, pro-innovation capital seeing upside of labor and invention, then you also want an end to this.
These two companies would be worth more as separate entities than the sum of their parts. Their value is being squandered as gigantic conglomerate platform plays. They piss away so many resources and grow fat on the areas they've lodged themselves into and peerlessly destroyed any competition.
I've consistently echoed this sentiment for years. Now lots of people are saying the same thing.
Break them up, and competition will become relentlessly breakneck to fill out the new, healthier ecosystem. It would be a forest fire yielding to new growth.
...in all, I think it should make leaning on CarPlay more palatable for auto manufacturers. Exclusive "Ferrari Red" speedometers (aka: CSS-for-CarPlay), and there's the bland-ish basics that can be provided by Apple and used in any car.
I'm guessing that user customization is waay down the list here.
What I guess I don't agree with is that Apple has a monopoly on car interfaces. There's a similar duopoly here between Google and Android.
Still I think the ideal might be... light integration with the automotive operating system, with that mostly controlled by the automaker, while the entertainment center is largely user-controlled, including options to use the phone-provided in-screen systems like CarPlay and Android Auto.
It hasn't, historically, been a strength of automakers to make great integrated automotive operating systems, but it is somewhat of a differentiator for buyers so we can hope that competition improves things. If someone like Mazda continues to make a fast, fluid, intuitive operating system that also supports Android Auto and CarPlay, that's great.
But... the auto sales model, I think, works against proper competition. Because there are other major factors that buyers use to make their decisions. While every GM electric car article has a few vocal "no carplay, no buy" comments, GM is still steadily increasing their EV market share. It'll never be fully... discrete.
(Not like when it was more popular to rip the whole radio out of the dashboard and put your own Pioneer/JBL/etc system in there.)
What did you end up in?
And if you look at the picture from the article, all the physical buttons are there.
Some better integrations, sure. I can see wanting the carplay maps able to know the charge of the battery/fuel levels to plan out trips that include chargers/gas stations on the way.
But, taking over the entire dash? Nah, let's not overcomplicate things too much.
So even if you never use this feature, you should still want it, because it’s the feature that is meant to keep CarPlay relevant
> Anything that good hackers would find interesting
> Please submit the original source
This fits those two guidelines.
It also seems like every in-car map interface except CarPlay supports pinch-to-zoom these days, including the OEM maps from manufacturers like VW and Tesla, Android Automotive, and Android Auto. VW won't even let you see your backup camera while you're driving because they think it might be too distracting to have another way to see what's happening behind you, but they think pinch-to-zoom is just fine.
https://www.jalopnik.com/the-aston-martin-lagonda-was-a-tech...
Tesla has the most terrible UI of ALL cars by far. I personally think the Volkswagen cars up until 2021/2022 have the best UI (and I even dare to say the only good UI), although some things (like the map) could have benefited from a better design. (Of course, only my personal preferences, but I work with a lot of cars so yeah)
I don't think that you have. (I haven't either!)
I will say my wife's Mazda has a UI I love. You push buttons and turn knobs to control things.
How do you design a widget that car designers might want to give different fonts, different levels of visual density, crammed into unexpected shapes and sizes, that must never get into a situation where information appears glitchy in a way that could cause a real-world accident?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLf44BXd0SE is a WWDC 2024 presentation that speaks to some of these challenges. I recall a great prior discussion thread on HN about this, but can't find it at the moment.
Or really any huge manufacturing industry. If the EU said today "Apple you have to use USB-D now", it would probably take them 3 years. The next 2 years of iPhones are probably pretty close into the bag already.
I've gone so far as to create a Shortcut to play a silent song on Apple Music, but it's a hack and it only works sometimes.
jcims•4h ago
aethrum•4h ago
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fkyoureadthedoc•4h ago
They are certainly all hoovering up any data they can about you and selling to 3rd parties though.
gruez•3h ago
Mistletoe•4h ago
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hiatus•4h ago