4 reasons Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto still aren’t ubiquitous

[ZLoth]

From VentureBeat:

4 reasons Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto still aren't ubiquitous

Theoretically, pairing a popular smartphone with any new car should be easy: Apple's and Google's in-car platforms have been out for nearly four years, and should be ubiquitous by now. But as the Detroit Auto Show (aka NAIAS) demonstrated this week, it's not that simple – CarPlay and Android Auto are still on shaky ground with some major automakers. Why? Between Amazon's Alexa, Tesla envy, some financial considerations, and the imminent arrival of 5G networking, a multi-year battle is underway to control the center consoles of future cars, and our phones are caught in the crossfire.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Personally, if I was shopping for a new car, two of the requirements would be Bluetooth integration and Android Auto. Sure, I can have navigation from my phone screen, but the screen on my dash is bigger, plus Google Maps is (in my not-so-humble opinion) cheaper and better than the automotive manufacturer's proprietary system.

[formulanone]

Good, they're annoying. Charge my device and allow me to make/take phone calls...that's all I want.

Can't listen to music and get GPS directions from Google Maps from two different sources when CarPlay is active. Can't truly deactivate it, because Apple insists on asking the same questions each and every time, without remembering your answer (if it's NO). Meanwhile, every other non-Car Play system can do this.

They're okay if you only like Apple's suite of apps. But it doesn't easily relinquish control back to the user for functions you can't perform on the nav/mutilfunction screen, presumably due to safety concerns. But the car should know I'm at a halt, correct? There's a bunch of sensors in there (wheel speed sensors, neutral safety switch, yaw/traction control, radar sensors) which tell info to the dashboard and in turn, the infoentertainmentrearscreen that should tell it to leave me literally to my own devices in that situation.

The automotive sector is slow to accept new tech, because new models take 2-3 to plan, and they have a production life cycle of 4-7 years.  Selling these things as their own "features" for higher-end vehicles means less profits, and automakers have their own tie-ins with their tech partners. The media loves to make the unequal comparison between computers or portable electronic devices and automobiles; people have tried to make these comparisons for 25 years now, and they still fail. (We get it, they move along at a rate of change and speed that nothing else does, yet I don't see thousands of 15-year-old computers still roaming around in daily duty; Likewise, if we wanted vehicles with a 1-year-production cycle until planned obsolescence and less than 36 months of practical use, we can go drive racing cars.)

I've still driven Cadillacs that had Car Play, so they've started to realize that less people are interested in paying $150-300 for updating a map guide which offers no guarantee that the new sub-division you moved into or office park you started working at will actually be coded into the files. It was probably just easier for GM to integrate it on 90% of their models and keep it relatively simple. Nissan offers the same thing. A few others, too. Good for some applications, annoying for others.

Like all fancy tech, it will take a few years to iron out the bumps and wrinkles, although there's a part of me that just thinks there will be more imperfections in future iterations.

[ZLoth]

Good, they're annoying. Charge my device and allow me to make/take phone calls...that's all I want.

I disagree. In the palm of my hand, the smartphone is a phone, audio player, navigation device, and personal organizer. Sure, the primary reason is to send/receive calls. But, I also want to listen to audio books and my music on a long drive.

Can't listen to music and get GPS directions from Google Maps from two different sources when CarPlay is active. Can't truly deactivate it, because Apple insists on asking the same questions each and every time, without remembering your answer (if it's NO). Meanwhile, every other non-Car Play system can do this.

They're okay if you only like Apple's suite of apps. But it doesn't easily relinquish control back to the user for functions you can't perform on the nav/mutilfunction screen, presumably due to safety concerns. But the car should know I'm at a halt, correct? There's a bunch of sensors in there (wheel speed sensors, neutral safety switch, yaw/traction control, radar sensors) which tell info to the dashboard and in turn, the infoentertainmentrearscreen that should tell it to leave me literally to my own devices in that situation.

I can't comment on CarPlay, as I'm an Android man. I prefer the open environment of the Android ecosystem verses the extremely closed system and limited system of iOS. Having said that, on the two occasions that I've rented a car and had access to Android Auto, once it was set up, it was easy to use. However, there were some hooks that were missing because the automotive makers are unwilling to cede control (and a possible revenue stream). Toyota has been notorious in this aspect, as they insist on using their own interface, and only announced support for CarPlay at CES earlier this month.

The automotive sector is slow to accept new tech, because new models take 2-3 to plan, and they have a production life cycle of 4-7 years.  Selling these things as their own "features" for higher-end vehicles means less profits, and automakers have their own tie-ins with their tech partners.

To be fair to the automotive manufacturers, the technology has to survive an environment from the bone-chilling Michigan winters to the oven-like summers of Arizona. I'm sure an automotive engineer is secretly thanking the day when car CD players are gone, as they are mechanical nightmares in comparison to home CD players.

The big problem, however, is that the leading edge technology tends to be birthed at the luxury-end vehicles, and, over the period of several years, migrates itself downward to the lower-end models. It has something to do with the automotive budgets.

I've still driven Cadillacs that had Car Play, so they've started to realize that less people are interested in paying $150-300 for updating a map guide which offers no guarantee that the new sub-division you moved into or office park you started working at will actually be coded into the files.

I've bolded the big thing right there. If this was 2011, my response would be "Why should I pay $300 for a static map update when I can pay $120 for a handheld GPS where I can download lifetime map upgrades?" This is 2018, so my response would be "I get free map updates from Google."

Like all fancy tech, it will take a few years to iron out the bumps and wrinkles, although there's a part of me that just thinks there will be more imperfections in future iterations.

That's true of all technology.

[briantroutman]

Unless the cost to implement is unreasonably high, I don't understand why all automakers aren't offering CarPlay and Android Auto at least as an option. If anything, it at least removes one potential objection that customers might use as a reason to buy a competitor's vehicle.

Soon after CarPlay was released, I bought a CarPlay-enabled aftermarket head unit for my car at the time, a several-year-old Toyota Matrix. In fact, the head unit was little more than a dumb terminal for the phone–I think it may have had an AM/FM tuner that could be accessed on the touchscreen without the phone being plugged in, but that was it. But it was such an improvement over the limited, kludgy control of my iPhone through the car's Toyota stereo that I decided I wouldn't consider buying a new car that didn't have CarPlay. (And I'd never want to butcher a new car by installing aftermarket equipment in it.)

When I did buy a new car two years ago, I already knew I wanted a VW, and so the fact that CarPlay is built into all 2016 and newer VWs provided no roadblock. For contrast: Even though I had all but decided to buy a Golf, I briefly considered a Mazda 3–perhaps the Golf's closest competitor. And I once was a happy owner of the 3's ancestor, the Protegé. But Mazda's complete omission of CarPlay through its lineup made that thought a nonstarter.

I also don't understand why an automaker would adopt a "wait and see"  attitude. Perhaps Amazon will launch an upcoming Alexa Auto service, or perhaps 5G connectivity in the car may make use of the phone as a gateway unnecessary. But the bottom line is that people are walking into dealerships today to buy cars now. If customers want this option and can't get it, they'll look elsewhere.

[ZLoth]

Unless the cost to implement is unreasonably high, I don't understand why all automakers aren't offering CarPlay and Android Auto at least as an option. If anything, it at least removes one potential objection that customers might use as a reason to buy a competitor's vehicle.

Talk to BMW then. They want a yearly fee for CarPlay. From cNet:

BMW's Apple CarPlay annual fee is next-level gouging
Commentary: Putting a paywall in front of a free service is a terrifying glimpse of what a world without net neutrality could look like.

While GM and other manufacturers happily include Apple's CarPlay service for free even on their most attainable models, BMW and plenty of others have levied upgrade fees to enable CarPlay, or bundled the service inside pricey packages of widgets you may or may not want. That, sadly, is par for this margin-rich golf course, but when we learned this week that BMW would change from a single, up-front fee to an annual fee, in my mind that changed everything.

Instead of a one-time, $300 fee, starting on 2019 models BMW will charge $80 annually for the privilege of accessing Apple's otherwise totally free CarPlay service. You do get the first year free, much like your friendly neighborhood dealer of another sort, but after that it's pay up or have your Lightning cable metaphorically snipped.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

[hbelkins]

I don't have any great desire to integrate my phone with my vehicle. I don't use my phone to play music; I have an iPod Classic for that. If I'm in a nanny state that doesn't allow for the use of handheld phones, I have a set of Bluetooth headphones for that. I will use Google Maps or Waze for routing, but in general I leave that to my Garmin Nuvi. If I want to stream iHeart Radio, I generally do that from my iPad.

[ZLoth]

So, I'm counting the following devices:

• Smartphone
• iPod Classic
• Pad
• Bluetooth headset

I prefer one device, and my Samsung S8 does a great job. Yes, I still have my Garmin nüvi 265WT, but since Google Maps has a offline mode where I can pre-download the maps, that nüvi does a good job of collecting dust, and when it breaks or map updates are no longer available, it won't be replaced. I've also converted the few music purchases from iTunes into MP3s for playback using a MP3 player.

But, to each their own.