6 ms·

Smartphone maps are so superior because they are always up to date, can provide real-time traffic data, can tell you to take an alternative route and can provid

Smartphone maps are so superior because they are always up to date, can provide real-time traffic data, can tell you to take an alternative route and can provide other data about places to eat, etc. While a lot of car GPSs have some of this, they are no where near what Google Maps or Apple Maps (or a targeted app like Waze) has. I bought a new car last year, and intentionally didn't get the GPS, even though my car has a 7-inch touchscreen. I would never use those crappy maps when I have my phone with me. If the car supported Carplay, I would 100% use maps through that. This is why Carplay and Android Auto are the future. Their apps, APIs and data are so superior to whatever car companies can come up with.

rhinoceraptor 10y ago
And even if the auto companies could do something as well as Google/Apple, it would still be several years out of date once it finally shipped in new cars.
FireBeyond 10y ago
I know my Audi has Google Maps, and real time traffic. I think one of the other issues is how many GPS systems refuse to let you enter addresses en route and make you stop and / or pull the handbrake. This increases frustration hugely. The Audi system says "please don't do this while driving" - you say "Okay" and are able to do so.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  The other thing I find infuriating is having to agree to some license agreement every time the car is started.
seanp2k2 10y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure why car companies invested at all in attempting to build their own mapping software. It's a hard thing to do well, and I had been using GPS in the car since Windows 98 + Microsoft Streets + Garmin eMap + serial adapter running NEMA days. PC or smartphone navigation software has always been better than what is available in cars. Additionally, while the upgrade cycle for phones is yearly for some people, the upgrade cycle for cars can be 10 years or more, and good luck ever getting a software upgrade after buying a car. Whatever car I buy next, I wouldn't buy without CarPlay. There are also replacement stereos which support this (e.g. Pioneer appradio) but given how most cars don't still use a 2 DIN slot for the radio and have much more integrated systems (drive modes, HVAC controls, etc on the "radio"), it's not even possible to upgrade many without losing significant factory functionality. My hope is that auto mfgs wise up and realize that they've been wasting billions developing these in-house systems, and instead switch to just having the car be a dumb monitor + speakers with a connection to your phone which runs all of the non-critical systems.
- tracker1 10y ago
  Even then, the AC and other integrated controls could easily be ios/android apps and integrated into the device's connection... Yes, a given app for a/c might suck, but the rest of the ux doesn't have to.
- hx87 10y ago
  I've always wondered why it took manufacturers so long to put in a 3.5mm jack into head units--it would have saved us a lot of awful tape adapters in the 90s and CD changer emulators in the 2000s.
  - eric_h 10y ago
    Ha, and apple just removed the 3.5mm jack from their phones. Perhaps the entire reason for it was to get CarPlay into more cars :P
    - Bud 10y ago
      No. It wasn't. And by the way, the iPhone 7 can still output to a 3.5mm aux jack just fine, which you probably already knew, or should know.
      - stuffmatters 10y ago
        And then you can't charge it. Terrible trade-off.
        josephg 10y ago
        I know its trendy right now to hate on the removal of the 35mm headphone jack but this comment is simply false. You can charge it while using the headphone jack - you just need a silly dongle or a dock to do it. http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F8J198/ http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F8J198/ http://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightning-dock-white http://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightn...
lordnacho 10y ago
And the UI on the apps seem to be better. I have an old Land Rover, and whoever wrote the software didn't consider that you need to be showing the current location of the car when displaying a junction. It's no use to me seeing a junction, which can be very complex in the UK, and then not giving an indication of how close I am to it. Am I a mile away? 100m? Oh, I missed it. Seems to have traffic info though, even though it's quite old. Around London it basically displays a huge jumble of arrows, to the point where you can't see the Thames. Seems to me what they need to do is just let the phone use the touchscreen in the car. You want to show movies to the kids anyway, and your media will all fit on the phone.
- derekp7 10y ago
  > Seems to me what they need to do is just let the phone use the touchscreen in the car. You want to show movies to the kids anyway, and your media will all fit on the phone. That's exactly what Android Auto and Carplay do. On my Ford with Sync 3, I installed the Android Auto app on the phone. Then I plug the phone's usb cable into the car's usb port, and the dash display transforms to something controlled by the phone.
teej 10y ago
Acura wants me to spend something like $179 to update the maps for my in-car navigation system. For that money I can buy a windshield phone mount and a nice cable with cash leftover to take the wife out to dinner.
- swillis16 10y ago
  They're not the only one, I recently bought a Nissan and I have to pay around the same amount for a new sd card which contains the update to be shipped which is a waste of time and money compared to just opening Google Maps every morning.
- hx87 10y ago
  It's not just the money, it's the time. Lexus wants me to wait two days to special order navigation software for my car. Which leads to the question: why the hell do I need to wait 2 days for software in 2016?
  - flukus 10y ago
    Try being international, you get bounced around to a bunch of broken links on their website trying to find the "correct" software version. Then half the time you can't download it because your country (Australia) is a "security risk" and they can't export software for a device on retail shelves.
gutnor 10y ago
You also forgot that they are fast with responsive UI. And that's only if you compare the best of the car built-in GPS. If it is not the top of range (which btw is not related to the price of the car), the UI is generally awful. If you are a google/apple map user. Searching for an address is a million type easier: roughly type some part of the address and it will find it. No such luck with car gps. At this stage you wonder why car manufacturer even bother. They should just allow to plug a tablet and run software made by people that understand software, and restrict themselves to providing a simple interface to car metric, hud and maybe cameras.
- briffle 10y ago
  I really don't understand why they bother with most of the 'fancy' systems they put in.. Its like everything is half-assed. I have a 1 year old truck, that has Satellite audio, Radio, 4G wifi hotspot, etc, and somehow, I have to set the clock manually in the settings, using crappy buttons..
  - eric_h 10y ago
    Hahaha, that's amazing. I made a pledge to myself years ago that I would never buy another clock/watch/timekeeping device that didn't set itself. Somewhere in that car you purchased is a clock that sets itself, it just doesn't cooperate with the rest of the car. Bummer.
- samsonradu 10y ago
  This 10x! Car manufacturers are reinventing the wheel. I wonder how Tesla does this though, its display looks pretty cool but never had the chance to play with it.
  - dreamcompiler 10y ago
    Tesla's system is pretty good, and it's the only one that is. Then again, Tesla is the only car company that employs people who actually understand software.
- 10y ago
Yaggo 10y ago
I once asked what it would cost to update my Prius' built-in navigator maps: cirka 200 €. And after few years it would be again out of date. I'm not sure whether to blame the car manufacturer or navigator software supplier for the situation, but at least this is very short-sighted thinking from Toyota. By the way, I still prefer the built-in unit because it has better integration with audio system and windscreen HUD. The usability is actually pretty good despite its age. Similar issue: the built-in navigator can show realtime location-aware traffic warnings from TMC broadcast, but only if they are non-encrypted. In my country they switched to commercial / encrypted TMC broadcasts few years ago, rendering the feature unusable for my car, and Toyota won't update the navigator unit to support encrypted TMC.

rhinoceraptor 10y ago

And even if the auto companies could do something as well as Google/Apple, it would still be several years out of date once it finally shipped in new cars.

FireBeyond 10y ago

I know my Audi has Google Maps, and real time traffic. I think one of the other issues is how many GPS systems refuse to let you enter addresses en route and make you stop and / or pull the handbrake. This increases frustration hugely. The Audi system says "please don't do this while driving" - you say "Okay" and are able to do so.

seanp2k2 10y ago
The other thing I find infuriating is having to agree to some license agreement every time the car is started.

seanp2k2 10y ago

Yeah, I'm not sure why car companies invested at all in attempting to build their own mapping software. It's a hard thing to do well, and I had been using GPS in the car since Windows 98 + Microsoft Streets + Garmin eMap + serial adapter running NEMA days. PC or smartphone navigation software has always been better than what is available in cars. Additionally, while the upgrade cycle for phones is yearly for some people, the upgrade cycle for cars can be 10 years or more, and good luck ever getting a software upgrade after buying a car. Whatever car I buy next, I wouldn't buy without CarPlay. There are also replacement stereos which support this (e.g. Pioneer appradio) but given how most cars don't still use a 2 DIN slot for the radio and have much more integrated systems (drive modes, HVAC controls, etc on the "radio"), it's not even possible to upgrade many without losing significant factory functionality. My hope is that auto mfgs wise up and realize that they've been wasting billions developing these in-house systems, and instead switch to just having the car be a dumb monitor + speakers with a connection to your phone which runs all of the non-critical systems.

tracker1 10y ago
Even then, the AC and other integrated controls could easily be ios/android apps and integrated into the device's connection... Yes, a given app for a/c might suck, but the rest of the ux doesn't have to.
hx87 10y ago
I've always wondered why it took manufacturers so long to put in a 3.5mm jack into head units--it would have saved us a lot of awful tape adapters in the 90s and CD changer emulators in the 2000s.
- eric_h 10y ago
  Ha, and apple just removed the 3.5mm jack from their phones. Perhaps the entire reason for it was to get CarPlay into more cars :P
  - Bud 10y ago
    No. It wasn't. And by the way, the iPhone 7 can still output to a 3.5mm aux jack just fine, which you probably already knew, or should know.
    - stuffmatters 10y ago
      And then you can't charge it. Terrible trade-off.
      - josephg 10y ago
        I know its trendy right now to hate on the removal of the 35mm headphone jack but this comment is simply false. You can charge it while using the headphone jack - you just need a silly dongle or a dock to do it. http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F8J198/ http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F8J198/ http://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightning-dock-white http://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightn...

lordnacho 10y ago

And the UI on the apps seem to be better. I have an old Land Rover, and whoever wrote the software didn't consider that you need to be showing the current location of the car when displaying a junction. It's no use to me seeing a junction, which can be very complex in the UK, and then not giving an indication of how close I am to it. Am I a mile away? 100m? Oh, I missed it. Seems to have traffic info though, even though it's quite old. Around London it basically displays a huge jumble of arrows, to the point where you can't see the Thames. Seems to me what they need to do is just let the phone use the touchscreen in the car. You want to show movies to the kids anyway, and your media will all fit on the phone.

derekp7 10y ago
> Seems to me what they need to do is just let the phone use the touchscreen in the car. You want to show movies to the kids anyway, and your media will all fit on the phone. That's exactly what Android Auto and Carplay do. On my Ford with Sync 3, I installed the Android Auto app on the phone. Then I plug the phone's usb cable into the car's usb port, and the dash display transforms to something controlled by the phone.

teej 10y ago

Acura wants me to spend something like $179 to update the maps for my in-car navigation system. For that money I can buy a windshield phone mount and a nice cable with cash leftover to take the wife out to dinner.

swillis16 10y ago
They're not the only one, I recently bought a Nissan and I have to pay around the same amount for a new sd card which contains the update to be shipped which is a waste of time and money compared to just opening Google Maps every morning.
hx87 10y ago
It's not just the money, it's the time. Lexus wants me to wait two days to special order navigation software for my car. Which leads to the question: why the hell do I need to wait 2 days for software in 2016?
- flukus 10y ago
  Try being international, you get bounced around to a bunch of broken links on their website trying to find the "correct" software version. Then half the time you can't download it because your country (Australia) is a "security risk" and they can't export software for a device on retail shelves.

gutnor 10y ago

You also forgot that they are fast with responsive UI. And that's only if you compare the best of the car built-in GPS. If it is not the top of range (which btw is not related to the price of the car), the UI is generally awful. If you are a google/apple map user. Searching for an address is a million type easier: roughly type some part of the address and it will find it. No such luck with car gps. At this stage you wonder why car manufacturer even bother. They should just allow to plug a tablet and run software made by people that understand software, and restrict themselves to providing a simple interface to car metric, hud and maybe cameras.

briffle 10y ago
I really don't understand why they bother with most of the 'fancy' systems they put in.. Its like everything is half-assed. I have a 1 year old truck, that has Satellite audio, Radio, 4G wifi hotspot, etc, and somehow, I have to set the clock manually in the settings, using crappy buttons..
- eric_h 10y ago
  Hahaha, that's amazing. I made a pledge to myself years ago that I would never buy another clock/watch/timekeeping device that didn't set itself. Somewhere in that car you purchased is a clock that sets itself, it just doesn't cooperate with the rest of the car. Bummer.
samsonradu 10y ago
This 10x! Car manufacturers are reinventing the wheel. I wonder how Tesla does this though, its display looks pretty cool but never had the chance to play with it.
- dreamcompiler 10y ago
  Tesla's system is pretty good, and it's the only one that is. Then again, Tesla is the only car company that employs people who actually understand software.
10y ago

Yaggo 10y ago

I once asked what it would cost to update my Prius' built-in navigator maps: cirka 200 €. And after few years it would be again out of date. I'm not sure whether to blame the car manufacturer or navigator software supplier for the situation, but at least this is very short-sighted thinking from Toyota. By the way, I still prefer the built-in unit because it has better integration with audio system and windscreen HUD. The usability is actually pretty good despite its age. Similar issue: the built-in navigator can show realtime location-aware traffic warnings from TMC broadcast, but only if they are non-encrypted. In my country they switched to commercial / encrypted TMC broadcasts few years ago, rendering the feature unusable for my car, and Toyota won't update the navigator unit to support encrypted TMC.