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Apple's New CarPlay Becomes Last Hope to Crack the Auto Industry
- adwi 3y agohttps://archive.ph/07JWe https://archive.ph/07JWe
- Razengan 3y agoSpeaking of, I was just wondering the other day: Why did cars never get some sort of networking protocol, that would have let them "feel" the speed and bearing of other nearby vehicles and avoid collisions, jams etc? Something like that could have been implemented with radio tech available half a century ago or even sooner.
- Emoticon4032 3y agoSeems ripe for spoofed data. After all, how would you verify that what you receive from other cars is valid/real?
- Filligree 3y agoThere are a hundred different ways to cause car accidents if that’s what you want to do; this would be adding a single, highly technical one. In practice, people just don’t do that.
- Nextgrid 3y agoI disagree. Most obnoxious things you can do right now require some sort of physical presence and traceability. You can cause dangerous situations/accidents by blinding people with lasers. You can throw bricks or other obstructions on the highway, and so on. The problem is that both of these acts immediately pinpoint you (or at least your general location) as the culprit, so it's pretty risky, not just from a law enforcement point of view but also from a "brick in the face" point of view where you might get a taste of your own medicine by the angry driver whose windshield got destroyed by your mischief. A technology-based attack on the other hand is invisible. By the time someone even uncovers that this was an attack rather than a generic malfunction you're long gone or may not even have been physically there to begin with.
- netsharc 3y agoMercedes has a concept (or maybe they have it on some models: https://group.mercedes-benz.com/innovation/case/connectivity/car-to-x-2.html https://group.mercedes-benz.com/innovation/case/connectivity... ) I look forward to the old trite HN comment of "I don't want my car to be calling home, I drive a 1980's fully mechanical car and I like it that way!"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- calciphus 3y agoYou mean like the traffic monitoring and road hazard reporting of Waze, Google maps Apple maps, etc? Having a car directly implement that protocol instead of software on an internet connected phone is of limited additional value but adds massive complexity.
- carlyfan 3y agoIs that protocol called the brake and signal lights? Up until Silicon Valley got their hairy hands into self driving tech, there was never a need for such data to be communicated to other *cars* (not drivers).
- konschubert 3y agoI wonder if the families of the 19 000 who died in traffic last year in the US alone also consider this a solved problem...
- fiatpandas 3y agoQualcomm developed a tech for this: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/automotive/c-v2x/overview https://www.qualcomm.com/products/automotive/c-v2x/overview
- orev 3y agoThey already tried this probably 20 years ago. The frequencies were allocated to car companies for inter-vehicle communication for exactly this purpose, and the car companies promptly did nothing with the technology except sit on it. Finally the FCC took it back because they clearly had no intention of doing anything with it. I can’t find a source, but I’m fairly sure it has now been allocated as the 6GHz WiFi band.
- woodruffw 3y agoI’m not a driver and so maybe my estimation is wrong here, but the mocked-up interface in the article looks like a disaster for driver distraction: a live map in the middle of the HUD, notification elements in the dashboard, and a touchscreen with actual apps on it (including the Books app?) within reach of the driver. Smartphones have already increased distracted driving; it’s concerning to see both automotive and tech companies seemingly encourage the trend.
- spdustin 3y agoThe Books app is for audiobooks, FYI.
- lokar 3y agoManufacturers are already doing maps in the instrument cluster like you see in the story.
- orev 3y agoThat’s the way car HUDs already look, whether using CarPlay or the built-in one.
- foogazi 3y agoI had not seen one with the map right there behind the wheel
- sircastor 3y agoIt's not - a lot of vehicles already have live map data on the cluster. That is to say, Apple isn't doing anything new here, they're just unifying it under their own system. The Books app you see here is actually Apple's AudioBooks.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- garciansmith 3y agoIt's not Apple, but rather just what all manufacturers seem to be doing. And yes, it is extremely distracting. There is so much noise, so much to take you away from driving. In that one picture at the top of the article, you have of course the distracting colorful app icons (but people are used to those I guess) but also so much needless information. An icon of a garage door? Your schedule for the next couple days (you should not be looking at that while driving!)? Two clocks because you need to see alternate time zones? I can't even stand music apps displaying album art: just one more distraction to take you away from what you should be doing, driving, changing with every new song. But hey, I purposefully sought to purchase a (manual) car a couple years ago that did not have a center screen, so clearly my opinion is in the minority.
- micheljansen 3y agoIt’s all fun and games until Apple wants 30% of your revenue. I feel Apple has seriously harmed the trust of potential partners too much for them to bet the farm on deep integration.
- madeofpalk 3y agoRight - the problem is car companies ceeding that 30% to Apple, when they could be rent-seeking instead.
- tapoxi 3y agoIsn't it rent seeking in both cases?
- sircastor 3y agoI worked for a car company in Infotainment for several years, and while I wasn't privy to any conversations like this, I can say that they (my company at least) are desperately brainstorming ways to come up with anything to make money. This is why we've seen all those crazy ideas like BMW trying to make seat warmers a subscription. They're trying to find some way to maintain a better cash inflow than selling a product.
- tpurves 3y agoI also spent time working with car makers while at Visa. There was a LOT of wishful thinking by carmakers that they could magic-up their own digital app stores (and pay for gas, for parking for drive-thru) all through their own proprietary infotainment platforms. There were these hopelessly unscaleable expectations that brands (McDonalds, Chevron etc.) would want to build and maintain custom apps just for, say, this model year's new 3-series BMW, and then do the same for every other car maker and model type. It was very much like the shortlived mindset of carriers trying to control downloadable mobile apps, prior to the iphone/appstore.
- tpurves 3y agoRent-seeking by apple and rent-seeking by car makers are both legitimate concerns! I guess the sentiment for the rest of us punters and hoopleheads is, if we have to be rent-sook by one of them, at least CarPlay is likely to have a less-unpleasant user experience?
- exabrial 3y agoThis looks like a terrible distraction
- xnx 3y ago> BPC > disable Dark Reader or enable Javascript for site That's a new one for me
- datavirtue 3y agoThe proliferation of these dash screens is very concerning. In multiple models across several manufacturers the replacement cost is astronomical. $2000-$5000 for small screens and $5000-$10000+ for larger screens. When these screens die instantly, and without warning, the vehicle becomes unuseable. You can get used (unwarranteed) screens for about half the price of new but then you are at the mercy of the dealership if they can find it in their hearts to flash it for you using the proprietary OEM software so that it will work in your vehicle.
- testfrequency 3y agoI really hope Apple can find their way home again as the leading consumer hardware business they once were. It feels like they have been in a seemingly never ending spiral of trying to figure out how to make money off services, while abandoning enterprise growth, hardware category innovation, and releasing new revolutionary software experiences. I haven’t been wowed by anything from Apple since the ARM transition, but before then the iPhone X.
- poisonborz 3y agoWho is the leading consumer hardware business you think of if not Apple?
- testfrequency 3y agoSamsung and Sony come to mind. To be clear, I still view Apple as a leader, I just think they’ve lost focus and become lazy on their hardware innovation while they are draining all their resources on trying to be viewed as a serious services company. Personal opinion, but Apple trying to be a News, Medical, Sports, Financial, and Movie company all at the same time is a bit much and is proving to not be executed very well by them. I get why they want it since the profit margins are easier, but I just feel like it goes against the DNA of the company and what I’d expect out of them.
- poisonborz 3y agoThere isn't really a company, especially a hardware company with 1B+ users that doesn't do this. After this size you can't really expand to new users, only to new services to sell. You have that influx of profits and the existing user base you can funnel to. You can't just be a phone/tablet/pc company, there just isn't that much to that segment YoY.
- testfrequency 3y agoAll depends on the companies goals and priorities, right? Assuming Apple’s goal is to be the largest, richest, and most diversified company in the world - then sure, keep chasing honey pots. Maybe they can drill for oil, try to become an ad agency, and get their own bank charter next. I’m obviously being cynical now, I just really don’t like (and think it’s gross) the direction Apple is going in now. It’s all shareholder and board appeasement, meanwhile employee retention and convictions are at the lowest I’ve seen from them. They just keep launching subpar devices and services hoping consumers will just follow them along for the ride, without actually offering any innovation in return.
- r00fus 3y agoThe article was interesting until the “bbbut apple has to make money from CarPlay” without any assertions from Apple itself. CarPlay is a feature not a revenue source. It drives device sales and increases retention for the ecosystem. I have no clue why it needs to suck additional money from consumers.
- sircastor 3y agoI agree. Apple's play here is not as an additional revenue stream, but and additional means to be central in your digital life. Instead of using Bluetooth to the car's system or using built-in maps, you're using their tools.
- lttlrck 3y agoI hope that mock-up isn't from Apple. It's terrible. Ironically, it demonstrates why nobody needs a huge screen like that. If Apple can't figure out how to fill it sensibly I'm not sure who can. Then there's that huge gear indicator and the tiny climate controls right at the bottom...
- sco1 3y agoIt's from their 2022 WWDC presentation: https://youtu.be/q5D55G7Ejs8?t=2271 https://youtu.be/q5D55G7Ejs8?t=2271
- blindriver 3y agoI will never buy or rent another car that doesn’t support CarPlay. It’s not perfext but it’s pretty good and provides a uniform, dependable interface across many different cars. This is especially useful with rental cars, I won’t use a car without it anymore.
- LinAGKar 3y agoIt's too bad cars are getting these proprietary things that are tied to a specific OS.
- rekoil 3y agoIt's a significant R&D investment for sure, but it basically boils down to building a modern interface to talk to CAN-bus driven hardware from high-level software, and providing that data, along with audio/video output and user input, to an Apple smartphone. If you do it right, the effort should be re-useable for an improved Android Auto experience as well, not that I know if anything like that is in the making as of now.