5 ms·

If I were an auto manufacturer, I'd be pushing Apple to open up the standard for interfacing this with phones. iOS and iPhones are great, but are still only use

by beloch 13y ago

If I were an auto manufacturer, I'd be pushing Apple to open up the standard for interfacing this with phones. iOS and iPhones are great, but are still only used by a fraction of potential customers. Why limit your market so Apple can score some lock-in?

mbel 13y ago
I believe car manufacturers already have a cross platform standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MirrorLink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MirrorLink Carplay seems to be just Apple reinventing the wheel.
- josteink 13y ago
  Carplay seems to be just Apple reinventing the wheel. To be fair, that's basically Apple's business models. Just add some proprietary standards and some software patents and you are good to go.
  - mbel 13y ago
    Yeah, I'm absolutely aware of this; it just seems to be so wasteful from engineering point of view.
    - gnaffle 13y ago
      Well, if you look at Airplay, they had a technology that worked well for _years_ until the "leading standard" caught up. They do support other standards such as A2DP though.
    - furyofantares 13y ago
      A drop in the bucket. Thinking just about code, the amount of redundant code or code that will never ship or will only ship to a few people or will be replaced in 5 years must be enormous
  - annnnd 13y ago
    This comment is a bit dismissive. Can you really claim that for iPod, iPhone and iPad? Sure, every invention is based on work of others, but Apple has still made huge improvements on multiple areas.
    - collyw 13y ago
      Marketing and gaining widespread adoption seem to be the areas that Apple excels at. In most cases where something is heralded as "revolutionary" by Apple, it has been done before. Maybe not as well or as polished, but usually it has been done before.
      - interpol_p 13y ago
        It's pretty hard to see the iPhone and iPad as anything other than a revolution. Similar to how Windows was a revolution in desktop computing (whether you liked it or not). "Gaining widespread adoption" was never an area Apple was very good at. They were always good at creating consumer-focused PCs. The initial line of MacBooks and iMacs are good examples of this — minuscule user base compared to Windows, but built to Apple's standards of what a computer should be. Their initial aim for the iPhone was to capture 1% of the market, they hardly expected the success they received.
        LunaSea 13y ago
        The Ipad definitely wasn't a revolution.
        collyw 13y ago
        It was marketed as one though. And to be fair it was the first tablet to gain widespread adoption.
        interpol_p 13y ago
        What is your criteria for "revolution" in the tech industry?
      - 13y ago
- dataking 13y ago
  The steering-wheel to be precise :)
jcheng 13y ago
Seems unlikely this will be standard equipment on any car (for several reasons, but mostly the one you stated).
netcan 13y ago
Or (probably more Apple-like approach) make it stand-alone and interact well with iPhones and leave it open to Android support later on or maybe start by offering the kind of support for android other mid-high end systems offer. So the thing is usable without a phone: GPS, music, etc. You can answer calls for any bluetooth enabled phone. Advanced functionality like siri would only work with an iPhone. This is a new market with new use-cases. Starting by making the basics work well is a good starting point. I think that what iPhone (and Android shortly after) did for phones can be done for a bunch of things, including conventional PCs. Apple is uniquely capable of targeting the high end but they are not the only ones capable here. They'll need to execute very well.
tjogin 13y ago
There is no auto manufacturer, or manufacturer of any kind, really, that is in a position to push Apple.
_djo_ 13y ago
From the brief amount of information available so far, CarPlay doesn't seem to preclude the in-car system from supporting other mobile phone OS's. For instance it seems possible to equip a vehicle with, let's say, the Open Automotive Alliance's in-car Android system that can use Project Mode with Android phones and also implement CarPlay for when iPhones are present. After all, CarPlay appears to be dependent on the phone's OS for all displays and whatnot, with CarPlay just being the protocols to link the in-car system to iOS in the necessary manner. This is just speculation, we can't know for certain until some of the technical details emerge, but it seems unlikely that car manufacturers would limit their systems interoperability to one platform.
- smackfu 13y ago
  Seems like it mainly depends on Apple's licensing terms.
  - _djo_ 13y ago
    True.
eddieroger 13y ago
Or, they can continue making their head units an upsell and offer a tightly integrated experience to people who want it, while also making a little extra money on the sale. They've been doing it witn nav upgrades for years.

by beloch 13y ago

mbel 13y ago

I believe car manufacturers already have a cross platform standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MirrorLink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MirrorLink Carplay seems to be just Apple reinventing the wheel.

josteink 13y ago
Carplay seems to be just Apple reinventing the wheel. To be fair, that's basically Apple's business models. Just add some proprietary standards and some software patents and you are good to go.
- mbel 13y ago
  Yeah, I'm absolutely aware of this; it just seems to be so wasteful from engineering point of view.
  - gnaffle 13y ago
    Well, if you look at Airplay, they had a technology that worked well for _years_ until the "leading standard" caught up. They do support other standards such as A2DP though.
  - furyofantares 13y ago
    A drop in the bucket. Thinking just about code, the amount of redundant code or code that will never ship or will only ship to a few people or will be replaced in 5 years must be enormous
- annnnd 13y ago
  This comment is a bit dismissive. Can you really claim that for iPod, iPhone and iPad? Sure, every invention is based on work of others, but Apple has still made huge improvements on multiple areas.
  - collyw 13y ago
    Marketing and gaining widespread adoption seem to be the areas that Apple excels at. In most cases where something is heralded as "revolutionary" by Apple, it has been done before. Maybe not as well or as polished, but usually it has been done before.
    - interpol_p 13y ago
      It's pretty hard to see the iPhone and iPad as anything other than a revolution. Similar to how Windows was a revolution in desktop computing (whether you liked it or not). "Gaining widespread adoption" was never an area Apple was very good at. They were always good at creating consumer-focused PCs. The initial line of MacBooks and iMacs are good examples of this — minuscule user base compared to Windows, but built to Apple's standards of what a computer should be. Their initial aim for the iPhone was to capture 1% of the market, they hardly expected the success they received.
      - LunaSea 13y ago
        The Ipad definitely wasn't a revolution.
        collyw 13y ago
        It was marketed as one though. And to be fair it was the first tablet to gain widespread adoption.
        interpol_p 13y ago
        What is your criteria for "revolution" in the tech industry?
    - 13y ago
dataking 13y ago
The steering-wheel to be precise :)

jcheng 13y ago

Seems unlikely this will be standard equipment on any car (for several reasons, but mostly the one you stated).

netcan 13y ago

Or (probably more Apple-like approach) make it stand-alone and interact well with iPhones and leave it open to Android support later on or maybe start by offering the kind of support for android other mid-high end systems offer. So the thing is usable without a phone: GPS, music, etc. You can answer calls for any bluetooth enabled phone. Advanced functionality like siri would only work with an iPhone. This is a new market with new use-cases. Starting by making the basics work well is a good starting point. I think that what iPhone (and Android shortly after) did for phones can be done for a bunch of things, including conventional PCs. Apple is uniquely capable of targeting the high end but they are not the only ones capable here. They'll need to execute very well.

tjogin 13y ago

There is no auto manufacturer, or manufacturer of any kind, really, that is in a position to push Apple.

_djo_ 13y ago

From the brief amount of information available so far, CarPlay doesn't seem to preclude the in-car system from supporting other mobile phone OS's. For instance it seems possible to equip a vehicle with, let's say, the Open Automotive Alliance's in-car Android system that can use Project Mode with Android phones and also implement CarPlay for when iPhones are present. After all, CarPlay appears to be dependent on the phone's OS for all displays and whatnot, with CarPlay just being the protocols to link the in-car system to iOS in the necessary manner. This is just speculation, we can't know for certain until some of the technical details emerge, but it seems unlikely that car manufacturers would limit their systems interoperability to one platform.

smackfu 13y ago
Seems like it mainly depends on Apple's licensing terms.
- _djo_ 13y ago
  True.

eddieroger 13y ago

Or, they can continue making their head units an upsell and offer a tightly integrated experience to people who want it, while also making a little extra money on the sale. They've been doing it witn nav upgrades for years.