I think it's hilarious that I can upgrade my 2004 Honda Accord and add CarPlay into it with a myriad of screen sizes and options, features, cameras. There's an entire world of car stereo / infotainment gear out there that is cheaper and better than ever. Meanwhile, everybody with their new cars are just stuck with the terrible built in systems, or can only upgrade with a $1000 worth of audio processing gear and multi-channel amplifiers.

My "real lived experience" with a CarPlay device that I installed into my 2016 Toyota Sienna is that it was slow, annoying, and I actually removed it. You can have it for free if you are in the Calgary area, my email is in my profile.

The UX difference compared to my phone, and the change in speed / etc.. was infuriating. The experience with my phone was ALWAYS better.

An argument based on the desires of fiscally illiterate people with 19.99% APR loans on oversized cars would make more sense if I worked for an auto company, thankfully I don't.

> You might as well be making the “I’m okay with my 2004 Honda accord with a tape adapter” argument.

I love how authoritatively you say this, as though this is meant to be just so patently absurd it doesn't require any further argument. This is an attempted reductio ad absurdum, but the absurdum in question fails to actually be abusrd.

Not everyone wants to drop $50K every few years on some liquid-glass-operated subscription-based monstrosity. Some people much prefer cars still operated by knobs and dials, that are easy to repair, and dirt-cheap to replace.

I don't know how someone looks as the churning mess that is contemporary consumer software and thinks to themselves, "You know what would be great? If all my devices were this sluggish, invasive, and unreliable."

I don’t know but my best guess is in the low hundreds given the Vline sells for $679. Just installed one in a 2008 Lexus with a resistive touch screen and ancient interface, now I’ve got CarPlay.

https://gromaudio.com/store/vline/

Is it possible Apple/Google initially charged a nominal fee when the technology was brand new, and now that it has widespread acceptance and is mandatory for many car purchasers, they turned the screws and are now charging an exorbitant price?

I think that'll only happen when and if the corresponding drop in sales offsets increases in revenue from the subscription services owners will be forced to use. When they announced this originally for EVs it was clear the underlying motivation was to convert owners from a one-time source of income into an ongoing stream by forcing them into a subscription model for features they would get from CarPlay/Android Auto.

I won’t claim to be a CarPlay expert, but it is my understanding that it just mirrors your device on the infotainment system of the vehicle.