Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45800960

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45676304

There is just no way I would purchase a vehicle that doesn’t have CarPlay or android auto. I suspect many of these automakers are about to find out the hard way. Yes it’s just for music and navigation but those are big enough use cases.

One of my former clients was a top 10 automaker. I had a digital consultancy so was very close to their ICE division. They were obsessed with owning the screen, mostly so they could charge subscriptions for it. We were doing all sorts of wild pilots, like AI-powered language tutors for people stuck in their commutes. I was happy to take their money, but of course if any sane person wanted an AI powered language tutor they'd just install an app on their phone and use the bluetooth to talk to it.

OEM margins aren't great and their C suites are desperate to unlock any new revenue streams they can. This is inevitable, and it's a shame the nice thing we had is going away. The baller move would be for Apple to go buy an OEM and roll out a vehicle, but that seems to have stalled. It doesn't have to be self driving!