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For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself. Its advantages

For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself. Its advantages are mainly these: - Consistency. You get into a new car, all you need to figure out is how to open CarPlay, no need to learning a completely different and often complicated infotainment system. - "It's on your phone". You can decide what playlist to play or where to navigate before you even get into the car. - Stays up to date over the long term. Just look at cars from five years ago. Most built-in infotainment systems are still stuck in that era, no matter how smart they once looked. CarPlay uses your phone as the main computing platform, and the car's infotainment system only needs to act as a thin client for I/O, it keeps updating with iOS.

brookst 3mo ago
You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. CarPlay is user-centric, which is why users like it. All these attempts to force people into a device-centric experience make no sense. I spent an hour or two a day, at most, in my car. My phone is within Bluetooth distance every waking moment. Why in the world would I want my car to be a disjointed experience?
- Mashimo 3mo ago
  > You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. That would still work, as you can use Bluetooth.
  - brookst 3mo ago
    And use the phone’s UI for anything more complex the pause/skip?
    - Mashimo 3mo ago
      Nah, I would not do it.
  - SoftTalker 3mo ago
    Or the aux port.
- IanCal 3mo ago
  I think this is in the same vein as continuity and user centric and what you were describing but it’s a different part - more than one person drives my car. I want my things and my wife wants hers. Having accounts or something extra on a new shared device is annoying.
  - xp84 3mo ago
    My Audi has user profiles and they can’t even get that idea right - for example, a key cant be assigned to a user permanently, it just defaults to the most recent user. So if she hands you her keys to borrow her car because you forgot yours, then her key is now your key until she switches it back. This would be minor except it takes like 30 seconds to “load” settings whenever you switch users… it is like they are being read from a freaking floppy disk or something.
- linzhangrun 3mo ago
  That's right, my 2 point wasn't complete enough
- darkwater 3mo ago
  That can be achieved if you are app-centric as well (i.e. Spotify app in al lthe places), but your point still stand nonetheless.
  - brookst 3mo ago
    Agreed, if you’re a single-app user then something like Spotify works just as well, as long as they do a great job of maintaining to-the-second sync across devices. Audible does a good of that as well. That just puts you in the space of needing all apps to be available on all devices.
  - xp84 3mo ago
    That way also makes it mandatory that you pay for the redundant car data plan that most people wouldn’t need but which they so badly want you to buy for another $30-40 a month.
  - jameshart 3mo ago
    Does the car support different Spotify accounts on each driver profile? If not then you can say goodbye to personal playlists and favorites and podcast progress…
- zelos 3mo ago
  Locations as well. Carplay picks up locations from calendar appointments, messages etc, so very often you just plug it in and click "Go".
- mlrtime 3mo ago
  That still works with apps though. Spotify app in a car would do the same thing. But I get the point.
- ninkendo 3mo ago
  To continue your point, one use case where I’m always glad I have CarPlay is when I searched for the hours of some business on my phone via Maps, then seeing they’re still open, get in my car, and the same business’s address is pre-loaded on the CarPlay maps screen ready for me to tap “go”. Ditto any Calendar event that’s coming up where I have the location field already filled in. Just tap Go. My car’s integrated nav is… fine. But having to re-enter addresses drops the convenience considerably.
  - AlotOfReading 3mo ago
    Some manufacturers are attempting to address this via apps and account syncing, which I think is still much worse than carplay/AA.
- 0x457 3mo ago
  You picked a bad example. You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth. Likewise, you even get controls for music and audio metadata displayed. What you don't (usually) get from car's regular infotainment: - Maps that don't suck - Maps that get updated often - Navigation that is aware of more than just what HD Radio tells about highways - Helpful notification when you get into the car that starts navigating to whatever is next on your calendar - A choice between what navigation software to use - Ability to switch between audio sources (i.e. go from audiobook to spotify) IMO Android Auto and CarPlay generally implemented pretty poorly in pretty much anything, but Mazda.
  - dbt00 3mo ago
    > You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth. Tesla bluetooth UI is pretty ass, actually.
IanCal 3mo ago
Also speed and connectivity. My car needs a screen and some low power chips. It’s ten years old and the maps and everything are snappy (low quality touch screen aside, but that’s not too bad) because it’s all running on my nice fast device I already own that’s much newer than the car.
- linzhangrun 3mo ago
  That is what my 3 point covers: the in-vehicle system is just a thin client handling I/O :)
rkangel 3mo ago
The big thing for me is that the lifetime of a car is a lot longer than the technology development lifecycle. I just bought a 10 year old Toyota estate (station wagon). It's got a reasonable screen and Bluetooth implementation etc. But I'm never going to want to use the built in navigation because it's just not as good as what my phone will do. And the audio integration isn't as sophisticated as it might be - I have to choose the app on my phone. Whereas CarPlay/AndroidAuto is generic from the car point of view, and as phone features and software improve your car capability evolves too.
- titanomachy 3mo ago
  I’m sure the car manufacturers would much prefer if you updated your car as often as you do your phone.
  - linzhangrun 3mo ago
    Current State of Chinese EV Manufacturers
    - HPsquared 3mo ago
      Some of which are also phone manufacturers.
    - xp84 3mo ago
      Source? They’re cheaper, but I’ve seen zero proof they are less long-lasting than our cars. If anything, those who have tried them say they’re better cars, including the Ford CEO, who imported one and can’t say enough good things about it.
      - linzhangrun 3mo ago
        Believe me, I am a Chinese who follows the Chinese car market quite closely. Since the endless price war started in 2023, many cars in the tens-of-thousands to low-hundreds-of-thousands RMB range (affordable by most people) have had serious quality problems because of price cuts, including joint-venture cars (foreign-brand cars produced in Chinese factories). This is the world’s largest car market, where the best-selling ICE car last month could only rank 17th overall. It is also a market where you can buy an Accord for under $20,000, and a Corolla for a little over $11,000. And both are going to be discontinued because it is no longer competitive and sells badly. When the price goes up, the car itself is usually much better. At least it is not like earlier cheap BYDs, which could start rusting everywhere after just one year. But the very short development and production cycle is another big problem. In this fiercely competitive market, sometimes it takes less than half a year from the birth of a car brand to a model launch. Recent examples are Huawei GT7. Because new cars are getting better so quickly, many cars cannot keep sales for more than six months. Some are discontinued in less than a year, like Han L and Tang L. Some cars even get three updates in one year, like Zeekr 001, just to keep up with new cars. This obviously creates maintenance and after-sales problems. By comparison, Xiaomi, which changes generation every two years, is already one of the most traditional and conservative ones. This is also the car Ford’s CEO “imported one and can’t say enough good things about it”. I have driven it too, haha.
dlcarrier 3mo ago
I think that last one is a negative. I remember where the controls are in any given car, and would rather all of the controls in that care stay in the same place, even if that car is a decade old. Learning a different radio interface in each car isn't a big deal, because there's many more much more dramatic differences from car to car, so I have to learn that car anyway.
- sedawkgrep 3mo ago
  Auto manufacturers aren’t likely to provide updates over the long term. Imagine if your ten year old car hasn’t seen an infotainment update in four+ years. Or if you want to buy used. Personally I’d much prefer my phone. It’s baked into Apple/Google ‘s business model to keep it up to date. Also I only need my phone’s subscription, not an additional one with the auto manufacturer.
alerighi 3mo ago
I appreciate my 2011 vehicle that only has a car radio with FM tuner and CDs, and yes, I know that I could easily swap it but I didn't on purpose, let me explain why: - all the controls that I need, that are basically volume, radio station or CD track, are easily accessible trough physical buttons and knobs, that I can use without taking my eyes off the street - I get in the car, insert the key and the radio turns on instantly and start playing music, no things that have to boot, no things that have to connect, etc. I usually listen to the radio and I stay up to date with news, listen to programs, listen to music without the need to create a playlist, or not and always listen to the same songs, or worse paying a subscription to just listen to music - if I want to listen something different I can just put in a CD, and considering it supports mp3 CDs a CD can contain up to 100 songs without a noticeable loss in quality - the UI of the radio in general is well designed, no useless functions, everything is easy to reach, no distractions. The radio is well integrated into the car dashboard, the design has something to say, not like a boring 10' tablet - no distractions, notifications from my phone stay on my phone, calls don't pop up, simply when I arrive at destination I recall saying I was driving, or respond to the message - finally, the sound quality is good, much better than most of integrated infotainment in modern cars that have 2000 useless functions, a shitty touchscreen, and a very poor sound quality. If I turn the volume all way up it shakes the car, the quality of analog FM radio is much better than modern digital radio that have the quality of a low bitrate MP3, and we are talking about the stock radio of a VW Golf 6, a normal car (when I bought it in 2011), not something fancy.
- MikeDods 3mo ago
  who asked?
  - zapzupnz 3mo ago
    Your comment got downvoted for being flippant but I agree. It's an interesting discussion but it really comes off as grandstanding. Doesn't address the main thrust of the article nor the comment to which it replies.
- RealityVoid 3mo ago
  On the other hand, you are limited by having CD's which compared to streaming stuff from Spotify is much much less convenient, take up space and you need to create/buy them, your playlist don't synch up with your other devices. CD experience is much less streamlined than a smartphone. Perhaps nostalgia makes them seem cooler for you, but I am not sold.
zeeZ 3mo ago
Consistency would be nice. YT music on Android Auto moved the buttons around again recently. You can still see where the thumbs up button used to be from my fingerprints. It's not smaller and on the other side.
makeitdouble 3mo ago
To voice an alternative that isn't touched much in this discussion: > - "It's on your phone" Straight use your phone. There is no need for the car to adapt, no updates, no back deal by the car manufacturer, nothing is tied to the car except Bluetooth. Current screens are IMHO big enough, moving to a tablet or foldables is also an option Mounting/unmounting is a solved problem since magsafe (or Peak Design like stronger updates), which also handles charging. Voice commands will be enough for most operations and you're guaranteed to have physical buttons for volume up/down and screen off. You're also 100% efficient with the interface.
- rafram 3mo ago
  CarPlay enables a car-friendly interface with big buttons, shortcuts to navigation/music/communication, and minimal distractions. I don’t know of any way to get that on the phone’s own display.
  - Propelloni 3mo ago
    Can't speak for Carplay, but Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit. The car's (an Audi) system does not, but it fails on many other levels. Both make me angry, albeit for different reasons.
    - simiones 3mo ago
      > Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit. That's not Android Auto, it's Waze doing that (and it would do it on Apple too). And it's not "an attempt at engagement", it's a cost for keeping the real-time map and traffic data that Waze is chosen for up-to-date. Use Google Maps if you don't like the interruptions.
      - swiftcoder 3mo ago
        Tbf, Google Maps also has these prompts. One probably sees them less due to Google having achieved critical mass, but in quiet rural areas I see them quite often
thek3nger 3mo ago
Another advantage of the "it's on your phone" aspect is that it follows you when you switch cars. If I use my friend's car, I still have MY system. If I rent a car for a trip, I still have MY system.
- dataengineer56 3mo ago
  Another advantage of the "it's on your phone" aspect is Consistency. You get into a new car, all you need to figure out is how to open CarPlay, no need to learning a completely different and often complicated infotainment system.
  - danudey 3mo ago
    For people who use car share services, this is a godsend. It feels like every other trip we take is in a new vehicle we've never used before, but all we have to do is plug the phone in (which we would do to charge anyway) and when we bring up maps to check the route to my in-laws' place it already has the address saved, my playlists available, etc.
bheadmaster 3mo ago
I can get the same thing with an aux cable
- jon-wood 3mo ago
  No. No you can't. The specific example of preparing a playlist sure, but Carplay goes way beyond that. You can preload the navigation route, tweak it a bit, then when you sit down and plug your phone into the car its on the navigation screen. You can make phone calls using the microphones in the car. In a sufficiently integrated car you can have turn by turn directions pop up on the dashboard or a heads up display rather than having to look down into the center console while trying to work out which lane you should be in.
- DriverDaily 3mo ago
  Aux cables were ubiquitous when cars were rolling speakers. I wouldn’t buy a car without an aux input, I didn’t care how many cds it could hold. Now that cars are rolling screens, I wouldn’t buy a car without screen mirroring for the same reason.
thih9 3mo ago
“Stays up to date over the long term” is in the “cons” list in my book - I’d prefer to have as few changes and rely on muscle memory as much as possible; and I find updates risky in this context. I don’t mind a built in infotainment system stuck in a previous era, as long as it works.
- xp84 3mo ago
  Just wanting to point out that yours is a valid preference, but as Casey points out: Go right ahead and don’t use CarPlay. No one has ever been forced to use it on any car because it’s optional. If you want to plug an iPhone in for music or charging, you can tap “No” to CarPlay once and never be asked again.
- rjrjrjrj 3mo ago
  I'd definitely mind being be stuck in the previous era of maps/driving directions.
s3p 3mo ago
>For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself I can't find one instance of a car UI being as good or easier to interact with than CarPlay.
- dreamcompiler 3mo ago
  The Tesla UI is pretty good. It's the only built-in car software I consider good enough to use for navigation. In any other car I use my phone. But Tesla also understands that good software engineers need to be paid Silicon Valley wages. The other car companies hire B- and C-level software engineers and then wonder why their customers prefer to navigate with their phones.
  - cosmic_cheese 3mo ago
    I think more often, traditional car companies don’t have in-house talent to work on their infotainment… that’s contracted out to the lowest bidder, to predictable result.
  - AlotOfReading 3mo ago
    Pretty much every major manufacturer has a bay area satellite office these days. Toyota has a research center in San Ramon and a woven office near the broadcom campus in Palo Alto. GM has an office in SOMA and in mountain view. Ford has an office literally a block away from Tesla HQ. Mercedes used to be near Cariad at moffet field, but now they're down by SJC. Nissan is in Santa Clara. Need I continue? And Tesla is generally understood to pay on the lower end among those companies.
    - nswest23 3mo ago
      then why is it that their software is a generation ahead?
      - iosguyryan 3mo ago
        The Rivian R2 makes Tesla’s look old and Android like. It’s very slick. The only thing I miss vs CarPlay is the voice Apple Maps uses, which is more natural.
owlbite 3mo ago
I'm still astounded my Ford's infotainment system takes 5-10 seconds after opening the radio "app" to present me with the station selection UI. Most of that seems to be some sort of startup delay. The mind boggles.
- josefresco 3mo ago
  I'm frankly amazed at the speed at which the Ford and Chevy native UIs will take over from CarPlay for functions like reverse camera, lane camera etc. You'd expect some delay/lag but it's pretty responsive which obviously is essential for safety.
  - spockz 3mo ago
    AFAICT, they always run in the background anyway. CarPlay is mostly just a pass through canvas rendered on the phone. The system can decide at anytime to overlay something on the CarPlay canvas.
  - stockresearcher 3mo ago
    It’s federal regulations. If the reverse camera screen doesn’t appear quickly enough, the car gets recalled and fixed. This has happened to many manufacturers. Ford, Toyota, Lexus, etc. This notice from Tesla actually specifies the regulation: > On affected vehicles, upon vehicle power up, a certain software configuration may prevent camera streams from being sent to the MCU for up to 11 seconds, causing a loss of rearview image for up to 11 seconds for drivers who shift into reverse during this time, which does not comply with FMVSS 111, S5.5.3. https://www.tesla.com/support/recall-loss-of-back-up-camera-feed https://www.tesla.com/support/recall-loss-of-back-up-camera-...
duxup 3mo ago
Agreed, my car is a tool for going places, consistency is a big attraction and I’ve zero interest in some new UI with every vehicle or vehicle software update. Sure I would like the vehicle to have some style but trying to navigate with maps or something I want it to work / look consistently.
nlawalker 3mo ago
Honest question, what are the advantages of an integrated system? These three things are kind of the whole game for me, but I also don't have a very sophisticated taste when it comes to cars.
- linzhangrun 3mo ago
  1. Native car OS can be deeply integrated with the car's own design, both UI and physical controls. eg. - Nio Firefly and the Smart # series are good examples where the UI is strongly tied to the exterior/interior design language. -Xiaomi car system is not only connected with the phone, but also with a whole set of Xiaomi smart home devices, from PCs and TVs to robot vacuums, light bulbs and smart plugs and so much more. They literally made almost all the home appliances, which all can connected with the car. 2. More importantly, it can access lower-level vehicle information and control. For example, different navigation routes can influence different driving styles, and even the basic LLM voice assistant can actually control parts of the car. Some examples from the biggest Chinese EV makers, all with at least hundreds of thousands of annual sales: - Nio can use road data collected by previous cars to predict bumps and adjust the active suspension in advance: https://www.nio.cn/app-articles/532868 https://www.nio.cn/app-articles/532868 It can also navigate to a battery swap station, automatically book the swap, and then use assisted driving / automated parking to complete most of the process: https://www.nio.cn/app-articles/527488 - Li Auto can use the car itself as a physical feedback device when playing games on the in-car screen. For example in a racing game, it can combine the by-wire chassis and active suspension to tilt the body and give a real 4D feeling.Setting aside who really plays racing games this way, but it is basically using the whole car as an expensive moving racing simulator: https://www.lixiang.com/news/159.html https://www.lixiang.com/news/159.html - AITO(Huawei) cars can link the cabin environment with current air quality, sunlight and other sensor data, then automatically adjust the AC, air purifier, electric sunshade and so on: https://aito.auto/model/m9-new/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://aito.auto/model/m9-new/?utm_source=chatgpt.com And many more. Chinese EV makers are doing software in a very deep and sometimes strange way. Compared with them, even Tesla feels very simple and crude.
BatteryMountain 3mo ago
But how will they surveil you if you bring your own device...

brookst 3mo ago

You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. CarPlay is user-centric, which is why users like it. All these attempts to force people into a device-centric experience make no sense. I spent an hour or two a day, at most, in my car. My phone is within Bluetooth distance every waking moment. Why in the world would I want my car to be a disjointed experience?

Mashimo 3mo ago
> You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym. That would still work, as you can use Bluetooth.
- brookst 3mo ago
  And use the phone’s UI for anything more complex the pause/skip?
  - Mashimo 3mo ago
    Nah, I would not do it.
- SoftTalker 3mo ago
  Or the aux port.
IanCal 3mo ago
I think this is in the same vein as continuity and user centric and what you were describing but it’s a different part - more than one person drives my car. I want my things and my wife wants hers. Having accounts or something extra on a new shared device is annoying.
- xp84 3mo ago
  My Audi has user profiles and they can’t even get that idea right - for example, a key cant be assigned to a user permanently, it just defaults to the most recent user. So if she hands you her keys to borrow her car because you forgot yours, then her key is now your key until she switches it back. This would be minor except it takes like 30 seconds to “load” settings whenever you switch users… it is like they are being read from a freaking floppy disk or something.
linzhangrun 3mo ago
That's right, my 2 point wasn't complete enough
darkwater 3mo ago
That can be achieved if you are app-centric as well (i.e. Spotify app in al lthe places), but your point still stand nonetheless.
- brookst 3mo ago
  Agreed, if you’re a single-app user then something like Spotify works just as well, as long as they do a great job of maintaining to-the-second sync across devices. Audible does a good of that as well. That just puts you in the space of needing all apps to be available on all devices.
- xp84 3mo ago
  That way also makes it mandatory that you pay for the redundant car data plan that most people wouldn’t need but which they so badly want you to buy for another $30-40 a month.
- jameshart 3mo ago
  Does the car support different Spotify accounts on each driver profile? If not then you can say goodbye to personal playlists and favorites and podcast progress…
zelos 3mo ago
Locations as well. Carplay picks up locations from calendar appointments, messages etc, so very often you just plug it in and click "Go".
mlrtime 3mo ago
That still works with apps though. Spotify app in a car would do the same thing. But I get the point.
ninkendo 3mo ago
To continue your point, one use case where I’m always glad I have CarPlay is when I searched for the hours of some business on my phone via Maps, then seeing they’re still open, get in my car, and the same business’s address is pre-loaded on the CarPlay maps screen ready for me to tap “go”. Ditto any Calendar event that’s coming up where I have the location field already filled in. Just tap Go. My car’s integrated nav is… fine. But having to re-enter addresses drops the convenience considerably.
- AlotOfReading 3mo ago
  Some manufacturers are attempting to address this via apps and account syncing, which I think is still much worse than carplay/AA.
0x457 3mo ago
You picked a bad example. You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth. Likewise, you even get controls for music and audio metadata displayed. What you don't (usually) get from car's regular infotainment: - Maps that don't suck - Maps that get updated often - Navigation that is aware of more than just what HD Radio tells about highways - Helpful notification when you get into the car that starts navigating to whatever is next on your calendar - A choice between what navigation software to use - Ability to switch between audio sources (i.e. go from audiobook to spotify) IMO Android Auto and CarPlay generally implemented pretty poorly in pretty much anything, but Mazda.
- dbt00 3mo ago
  > You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth. Tesla bluetooth UI is pretty ass, actually.

IanCal 3mo ago

Also speed and connectivity. My car needs a screen and some low power chips. It’s ten years old and the maps and everything are snappy (low quality touch screen aside, but that’s not too bad) because it’s all running on my nice fast device I already own that’s much newer than the car.

linzhangrun 3mo ago
That is what my 3 point covers: the in-vehicle system is just a thin client handling I/O :)

rkangel 3mo ago

The big thing for me is that the lifetime of a car is a lot longer than the technology development lifecycle. I just bought a 10 year old Toyota estate (station wagon). It's got a reasonable screen and Bluetooth implementation etc. But I'm never going to want to use the built in navigation because it's just not as good as what my phone will do. And the audio integration isn't as sophisticated as it might be - I have to choose the app on my phone. Whereas CarPlay/AndroidAuto is generic from the car point of view, and as phone features and software improve your car capability evolves too.

titanomachy 3mo ago
I’m sure the car manufacturers would much prefer if you updated your car as often as you do your phone.
- linzhangrun 3mo ago
  Current State of Chinese EV Manufacturers
  - HPsquared 3mo ago
    Some of which are also phone manufacturers.
  - xp84 3mo ago
    Source? They’re cheaper, but I’ve seen zero proof they are less long-lasting than our cars. If anything, those who have tried them say they’re better cars, including the Ford CEO, who imported one and can’t say enough good things about it.
    - linzhangrun 3mo ago
      Believe me, I am a Chinese who follows the Chinese car market quite closely. Since the endless price war started in 2023, many cars in the tens-of-thousands to low-hundreds-of-thousands RMB range (affordable by most people) have had serious quality problems because of price cuts, including joint-venture cars (foreign-brand cars produced in Chinese factories). This is the world’s largest car market, where the best-selling ICE car last month could only rank 17th overall. It is also a market where you can buy an Accord for under $20,000, and a Corolla for a little over $11,000. And both are going to be discontinued because it is no longer competitive and sells badly. When the price goes up, the car itself is usually much better. At least it is not like earlier cheap BYDs, which could start rusting everywhere after just one year. But the very short development and production cycle is another big problem. In this fiercely competitive market, sometimes it takes less than half a year from the birth of a car brand to a model launch. Recent examples are Huawei GT7. Because new cars are getting better so quickly, many cars cannot keep sales for more than six months. Some are discontinued in less than a year, like Han L and Tang L. Some cars even get three updates in one year, like Zeekr 001, just to keep up with new cars. This obviously creates maintenance and after-sales problems. By comparison, Xiaomi, which changes generation every two years, is already one of the most traditional and conservative ones. This is also the car Ford’s CEO “imported one and can’t say enough good things about it”. I have driven it too, haha.

dlcarrier 3mo ago

I think that last one is a negative. I remember where the controls are in any given car, and would rather all of the controls in that care stay in the same place, even if that car is a decade old. Learning a different radio interface in each car isn't a big deal, because there's many more much more dramatic differences from car to car, so I have to learn that car anyway.

sedawkgrep 3mo ago
Auto manufacturers aren’t likely to provide updates over the long term. Imagine if your ten year old car hasn’t seen an infotainment update in four+ years. Or if you want to buy used. Personally I’d much prefer my phone. It’s baked into Apple/Google ‘s business model to keep it up to date. Also I only need my phone’s subscription, not an additional one with the auto manufacturer.

alerighi 3mo ago

I appreciate my 2011 vehicle that only has a car radio with FM tuner and CDs, and yes, I know that I could easily swap it but I didn't on purpose, let me explain why: - all the controls that I need, that are basically volume, radio station or CD track, are easily accessible trough physical buttons and knobs, that I can use without taking my eyes off the street - I get in the car, insert the key and the radio turns on instantly and start playing music, no things that have to boot, no things that have to connect, etc. I usually listen to the radio and I stay up to date with news, listen to programs, listen to music without the need to create a playlist, or not and always listen to the same songs, or worse paying a subscription to just listen to music - if I want to listen something different I can just put in a CD, and considering it supports mp3 CDs a CD can contain up to 100 songs without a noticeable loss in quality - the UI of the radio in general is well designed, no useless functions, everything is easy to reach, no distractions. The radio is well integrated into the car dashboard, the design has something to say, not like a boring 10' tablet - no distractions, notifications from my phone stay on my phone, calls don't pop up, simply when I arrive at destination I recall saying I was driving, or respond to the message - finally, the sound quality is good, much better than most of integrated infotainment in modern cars that have 2000 useless functions, a shitty touchscreen, and a very poor sound quality. If I turn the volume all way up it shakes the car, the quality of analog FM radio is much better than modern digital radio that have the quality of a low bitrate MP3, and we are talking about the stock radio of a VW Golf 6, a normal car (when I bought it in 2011), not something fancy.

MikeDods 3mo ago
who asked?
- zapzupnz 3mo ago
  Your comment got downvoted for being flippant but I agree. It's an interesting discussion but it really comes off as grandstanding. Doesn't address the main thrust of the article nor the comment to which it replies.
RealityVoid 3mo ago
On the other hand, you are limited by having CD's which compared to streaming stuff from Spotify is much much less convenient, take up space and you need to create/buy them, your playlist don't synch up with your other devices. CD experience is much less streamlined than a smartphone. Perhaps nostalgia makes them seem cooler for you, but I am not sold.

zeeZ 3mo ago

Consistency would be nice. YT music on Android Auto moved the buttons around again recently. You can still see where the thumbs up button used to be from my fingerprints. It's not smaller and on the other side.

makeitdouble 3mo ago

To voice an alternative that isn't touched much in this discussion: > - "It's on your phone" Straight use your phone. There is no need for the car to adapt, no updates, no back deal by the car manufacturer, nothing is tied to the car except Bluetooth. Current screens are IMHO big enough, moving to a tablet or foldables is also an option Mounting/unmounting is a solved problem since magsafe (or Peak Design like stronger updates), which also handles charging. Voice commands will be enough for most operations and you're guaranteed to have physical buttons for volume up/down and screen off. You're also 100% efficient with the interface.

rafram 3mo ago
CarPlay enables a car-friendly interface with big buttons, shortcuts to navigation/music/communication, and minimal distractions. I don’t know of any way to get that on the phone’s own display.
- Propelloni 3mo ago
  Can't speak for Carplay, but Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit. The car's (an Audi) system does not, but it fails on many other levels. Both make me angry, albeit for different reasons.
  - simiones 3mo ago
    > Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit. That's not Android Auto, it's Waze doing that (and it would do it on Apple too). And it's not "an attempt at engagement", it's a cost for keeping the real-time map and traffic data that Waze is chosen for up-to-date. Use Google Maps if you don't like the interruptions.
    - swiftcoder 3mo ago
      Tbf, Google Maps also has these prompts. One probably sees them less due to Google having achieved critical mass, but in quiet rural areas I see them quite often

thek3nger 3mo ago

Another advantage of the "it's on your phone" aspect is that it follows you when you switch cars. If I use my friend's car, I still have MY system. If I rent a car for a trip, I still have MY system.

dataengineer56 3mo ago
Another advantage of the "it's on your phone" aspect is Consistency. You get into a new car, all you need to figure out is how to open CarPlay, no need to learning a completely different and often complicated infotainment system.
- danudey 3mo ago
  For people who use car share services, this is a godsend. It feels like every other trip we take is in a new vehicle we've never used before, but all we have to do is plug the phone in (which we would do to charge anyway) and when we bring up maps to check the route to my in-laws' place it already has the address saved, my playlists available, etc.

bheadmaster 3mo ago

I can get the same thing with an aux cable

jon-wood 3mo ago
No. No you can't. The specific example of preparing a playlist sure, but Carplay goes way beyond that. You can preload the navigation route, tweak it a bit, then when you sit down and plug your phone into the car its on the navigation screen. You can make phone calls using the microphones in the car. In a sufficiently integrated car you can have turn by turn directions pop up on the dashboard or a heads up display rather than having to look down into the center console while trying to work out which lane you should be in.
DriverDaily 3mo ago
Aux cables were ubiquitous when cars were rolling speakers. I wouldn’t buy a car without an aux input, I didn’t care how many cds it could hold. Now that cars are rolling screens, I wouldn’t buy a car without screen mirroring for the same reason.

thih9 3mo ago

“Stays up to date over the long term” is in the “cons” list in my book - I’d prefer to have as few changes and rely on muscle memory as much as possible; and I find updates risky in this context. I don’t mind a built in infotainment system stuck in a previous era, as long as it works.

xp84 3mo ago
Just wanting to point out that yours is a valid preference, but as Casey points out: Go right ahead and don’t use CarPlay. No one has ever been forced to use it on any car because it’s optional. If you want to plug an iPhone in for music or charging, you can tap “No” to CarPlay once and never be asked again.
rjrjrjrj 3mo ago
I'd definitely mind being be stuck in the previous era of maps/driving directions.

s3p 3mo ago

>For pure interaction, CarPlay as a generic solution is very hard to beat infotainment systems that are deeply integrated with the vehicle itself I can't find one instance of a car UI being as good or easier to interact with than CarPlay.

dreamcompiler 3mo ago
The Tesla UI is pretty good. It's the only built-in car software I consider good enough to use for navigation. In any other car I use my phone. But Tesla also understands that good software engineers need to be paid Silicon Valley wages. The other car companies hire B- and C-level software engineers and then wonder why their customers prefer to navigate with their phones.
- cosmic_cheese 3mo ago
  I think more often, traditional car companies don’t have in-house talent to work on their infotainment… that’s contracted out to the lowest bidder, to predictable result.
- AlotOfReading 3mo ago
  Pretty much every major manufacturer has a bay area satellite office these days. Toyota has a research center in San Ramon and a woven office near the broadcom campus in Palo Alto. GM has an office in SOMA and in mountain view. Ford has an office literally a block away from Tesla HQ. Mercedes used to be near Cariad at moffet field, but now they're down by SJC. Nissan is in Santa Clara. Need I continue? And Tesla is generally understood to pay on the lower end among those companies.
  - nswest23 3mo ago
    then why is it that their software is a generation ahead?
    - iosguyryan 3mo ago
      The Rivian R2 makes Tesla’s look old and Android like. It’s very slick. The only thing I miss vs CarPlay is the voice Apple Maps uses, which is more natural.

owlbite 3mo ago

I'm still astounded my Ford's infotainment system takes 5-10 seconds after opening the radio "app" to present me with the station selection UI. Most of that seems to be some sort of startup delay. The mind boggles.

josefresco 3mo ago
I'm frankly amazed at the speed at which the Ford and Chevy native UIs will take over from CarPlay for functions like reverse camera, lane camera etc. You'd expect some delay/lag but it's pretty responsive which obviously is essential for safety.
- spockz 3mo ago
  AFAICT, they always run in the background anyway. CarPlay is mostly just a pass through canvas rendered on the phone. The system can decide at anytime to overlay something on the CarPlay canvas.
- stockresearcher 3mo ago
  It’s federal regulations. If the reverse camera screen doesn’t appear quickly enough, the car gets recalled and fixed. This has happened to many manufacturers. Ford, Toyota, Lexus, etc. This notice from Tesla actually specifies the regulation: > On affected vehicles, upon vehicle power up, a certain software configuration may prevent camera streams from being sent to the MCU for up to 11 seconds, causing a loss of rearview image for up to 11 seconds for drivers who shift into reverse during this time, which does not comply with FMVSS 111, S5.5.3. https://www.tesla.com/support/recall-loss-of-back-up-camera-feed https://www.tesla.com/support/recall-loss-of-back-up-camera-...

duxup 3mo ago

Agreed, my car is a tool for going places, consistency is a big attraction and I’ve zero interest in some new UI with every vehicle or vehicle software update. Sure I would like the vehicle to have some style but trying to navigate with maps or something I want it to work / look consistently.

nlawalker 3mo ago

Honest question, what are the advantages of an integrated system? These three things are kind of the whole game for me, but I also don't have a very sophisticated taste when it comes to cars.

linzhangrun 3mo ago
1. Native car OS can be deeply integrated with the car's own design, both UI and physical controls. eg. - Nio Firefly and the Smart # series are good examples where the UI is strongly tied to the exterior/interior design language. -Xiaomi car system is not only connected with the phone, but also with a whole set of Xiaomi smart home devices, from PCs and TVs to robot vacuums, light bulbs and smart plugs and so much more. They literally made almost all the home appliances, which all can connected with the car. 2. More importantly, it can access lower-level vehicle information and control. For example, different navigation routes can influence different driving styles, and even the basic LLM voice assistant can actually control parts of the car. Some examples from the biggest Chinese EV makers, all with at least hundreds of thousands of annual sales: - Nio can use road data collected by previous cars to predict bumps and adjust the active suspension in advance: https://www.nio.cn/app-articles/532868 https://www.nio.cn/app-articles/532868 It can also navigate to a battery swap station, automatically book the swap, and then use assisted driving / automated parking to complete most of the process: https://www.nio.cn/app-articles/527488 - Li Auto can use the car itself as a physical feedback device when playing games on the in-car screen. For example in a racing game, it can combine the by-wire chassis and active suspension to tilt the body and give a real 4D feeling.Setting aside who really plays racing games this way, but it is basically using the whole car as an expensive moving racing simulator: https://www.lixiang.com/news/159.html https://www.lixiang.com/news/159.html - AITO(Huawei) cars can link the cabin environment with current air quality, sunlight and other sensor data, then automatically adjust the AC, air purifier, electric sunshade and so on: https://aito.auto/model/m9-new/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://aito.auto/model/m9-new/?utm_source=chatgpt.com And many more. Chinese EV makers are doing software in a very deep and sometimes strange way. Compared with them, even Tesla feels very simple and crude.

BatteryMountain 3mo ago

But how will they surveil you if you bring your own device...