GM plunged a fatal dagger into the future of CarPlay--and Android Auto, for that matter--and I'm sorry to say that I don't think there's any going back. It was undoubtedly a ballsy move on GM's part to abruptly abandon support of CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of its own infotainment system that could serve as a new, post-sale profit center by selling subscriptions to desirable infotainment features while also monetizing the tons of consumer data that a modern car is capable of collecting. I was one of many who thought they'd see a significant sales drop because of this decision, but that didn't happen. And even after buyers of GM cars with this new system found themselves facing steep and surprising car insurance increases because GM sold the data it had been collecting on their driving habits--speeds, braking distances, g forces when turning, etc--to their insurance companies (!), THAT didn't seem to hurt sales either. Personally, I don't get why people are okay with this--but then again, idiots are okay with giving Meta a constant video and audio feed of their lives while wearing those RayBan "dumb" glasses--so what do I know?
All of this to say that I'm sure other carmakers were waiting to see how things worked out for GM, and it seems pretty clear that they paid no price to move to their own system and cut Apple out of the picture while earning a steady stream of new profits on every new car sold. I can't imagine that other major carmakers aren't going to follow GM's lead.
I just did a quick online survey of new Chevrolet and Buick vehicles. I couldn't find a single non-EV offering that failed to include wireless CarPlay as a standard feature. EVs don't, but all of GM's internal combustion engines appear to come with CarPlay. So I'd be real interested in any actual data you can share that would support your assertion that there has been no "sales drop" due to GM's decision to go in-house on their infotainment systems (for their EVs). Since the EVs are all pretty much a) totally new offerings and b) probably not a huge share of GM's sales, I'm struggling to imagine how you've come to your cause-and-effect conclusion. Seems like you'd have to first have GM EVs that offered CarPlay and then GM EVs that no longer did so, in order to make any sort of comparison. Then you'd have to have large enough sales volume to even decipher the impact of this one particular decision. I don't think any of that information is available, because it hasn't even been generated. So without that, I think your first assertion about the "fatal dagger" seems a bit hyperbolic.
Nobody sane really thought that Apple Car was going to ship. If you looked at Apple's publicly available autonomous vehicle driving logs available on the California DMV website, they were hardly doing any testing at all. There was a long span of several months when they didn't log a single mile.
Only some of the tech media turned Apple Car into a done deal. Yeah, Apple probably learned something from it, both what to pursue and what not to. For sure some of the gained knowledge would be applicable in other parts of the company. For sure they burned through a lot of R&D dollars on Apple Car/Project Titan/whatever.
Let's remember that the way any Apple Car would be marketed and priced would exclude 99.9% of the planet. Hell, look at Apple Vision Pro at $3500.
The biggest problem with all the Apple Car discussions online was the fact that most people were looking at the project through American blinders, seeing it only from the myopic perspective of the number one car culture on the planet. We know you love walking to your garage, planting your big fat ass in your big fat SUV, attach your iPhone to its MagSafe holder, drive to your company's big fat ass parking lot, and bitch and moan when you have to park more than 50 feet from the front door of your office. We get it.
The rest of the world does not have a car culture like the USA. Plain and simple. Sure, most people want them but for a lot of people, even in technologically advanced countries like Japan, the personal auto is more of a leisure device. Construction workers in Tokyo go to job sites on the subway, not in Ford F-150s or GMC Sierras. In Europe getting a driver's license can be very expensive. It's not like the USA. I think a California driver's license today is $40. Forty years ago it was $2, about the same as three gallons of gasoline.
In the USA, getting your driver's license is a rite of passage for teens. It is not the case anywhere else. ONLY HERE.
Uhhh. O.K. What does that have to do with CarPlay?
Some people online think that CarPlay is a really, Really, REALLY important feature in a car purchase decision. It's not because the rest of the world doesn't have the same car culture as the USA. It's unlikely that CarPlay Ultra will trickle down to mass-market models. Even regular CarPlay won't make to many of these. We've already seen some auto manufacturers pull back from CarPlay or decide not to pursue it. Full integration makes more sense for premium models, trim lines, and EVs that are essentially computers on wheels.
But the average Honda or GM sold in Indonesia or Bangladesh really doesn't need it that much.
Many of these automobile manufacturers are looking at shaving costs from a global perspective. Putting in the extra engineering effort to address a benefit that really benefits a handful of markets isn't a great value proposition, especially when they aren't making money off of it. Infotainment systems are a cost center. Most companies would prefer to put in the least amount of effort without coming in dead last amongst the competition especially on basic trim levels.
Nobody really needs album art thumbnails on their dashboard.
I realize that many of these basic concepts, particularly how different US car culture is compared to the rest of the world is beyond the comprehension of many people online.
In the end, whatever infotainment/UX standard the Chinese (or possibly Indian) car companies come up with will dominate. Not tomorrow, not next months, but give it 10 years.
As Charlesn mentions, having your own proprietary infotainment system gives you the luxury of monetizing driver data and/or upselling subscription services. There's nothing inherently new about this. Car navi systems requires paid upgrades. Even standalone GPS devices (Garmin, TomTom et al.) required payment for new map data. Even early iPhone GPS navi apps had add-on features like lane guidance.
Most companies would like user data under their own TOS not Apple's. I expect more car companies to follow GM's lead and abandon CarPlay and Android Auto in the next few years.
From MotorTrend: "CarPlay Ultra can be ordered today today on 2025 Aston Martins in the US and Canada and Apple says Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis have now signed up in addition to already announced partners including Acura, Audi, Ford, Honda, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Polestar, Porsche, Renault, and Volvo. Those brands will make their own launch announcements in the future."
I'm pretty sure Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Honda and Nissan all count as "mass-market" badges. And most of the others in that list are up-scaled fancy, but still very much mass-market vehicles. Also, as noted in my response to charlesn above, even GM appears to be offering "regular CarPlay" as a standard feature for all of their internal combustion engine cars. It's also currently standard in literally hundreds of mass-market car models right now. Are there markets where people don't want CarPlay or won't care? Undoubtedly. But your suggestion that this means it soon won't be offered in other markets that do want it isn't supported by any actual evidence.
Automakers are not stupid. Who will support CarPlay? Apple once said that Porsche will support CarPlay, but it has never happened yet. Now, Apple claims Kia, Hyundai and Genesis will support (or better: want to support).....
I will believe until I see it.
Mercedes has its own MBUX, BMW? I am not aware tbh as I don´t drive BMW. GM ditching CarPlay more and more for new models, I don´t see how CarPlay could remain relevant in the future.
Aston Martin is just nothing, but a cash burning machine. Their production capacity is so small that Aston Martin does not lead to a domino effect to other car makers.
Who will support Carplay you say? Probably everyone that’s not an American run vehicle corporation.
One thing that could potentially give CarPlay a better chance would be if Apple made it more of an open architecture and provided a way for automakers to personalize the implementation using their own UX design, data models, workflows, logic, and integration with various sensors and actuators on the platform.
I’m thinking a sort of CarOS that serves as the basis for building out custom solutions or modifying a default solution provided by Apple, which is what we have today with CarPlay. Lower tier automakers could stick with the default that Apple supplies while higher tier carmakers could customize the things that are brand specific. This would free individual carmakers from having to build the whole stack, which is more expensive to develop and maintain.
I’ve seen some of these same carmakers try to do everything themselves and when they realize what it costs over the full lifecycle they end up spinning it outside or going with component and subsystem suppliers or a joint venture. GM did this sort of thing with Delphi and New Process Gear.
Apple needs to fix the random CarPlay disconnection issues. Error on the stereo is iPhone is not responding, and there is nothing wrong with the phone, then it reconnects, or sometimes have to unplug and plug back in to get it to reconnect to CarPlay. That wouldn't go over well when the iPhone is trying to take control of everything in the car.
Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis are all the same company. They are not three separate companies.
They are not. It's quite complex and I would recommend going down a Wikihole to see the parent company, partial owners, subsidiaries, etc., which are all separate companies.
avon b7 said: And if you ever get the chance to experience some of the Chinese systems for example, you might even decide CarPlay (in whatever form) isn't the best option.
I would guess Tesla is in a similar situation to the Chinese with its onboard solutions but Tesla doesn't have its own phones. I don't know much about Tesla's software interfaces so that's guesswork on my part. At least Tesla isn't providing its solutions to third parties AFAIK. That could be a slight advantage for Apple in the US at least.
After using many different car makes and stereo head units I've decided that CarPlay is currently the best interface/system of its type. Each carmaker's version has some integration features that Apple can't directly provide (such as displaying which seat belt isn't secured), but as for displaying and controlling phone/music/navigation/notifications Apple's is #1.
Tesla's interface is good but to take full advantage of it you'll need to subscribe to their cellular connectivity -- which adds to the cost because I can't use Spotify (example) over cellular carrying my car in my pocket where I can obtain Spotify on my phone both in my pocket and in my car. Without paying for Tesla's subscription I'm stuck using my phone solely in the car using Bluetooth, and that degrades the user experience.
From what I've seen of CarPlay (in person) and controlling phone/music/navigation/notifications, nothing seems to stand out and the whole point of CarPlay Ultra is to move into a deeper state of integration than the current CarPlay. I can understand why they want that.
However, it is very unlikely to match what can be achieved by actually designing and manufacturing the entire software stack for a smart cockpit that is running on hardware designed by the same company even if that company doesn't actually make the car.
Here is an example of just one of many Chinese models running HarmonyOS. This has been shipping on cars (with far deeper integration than regular CarPlay for years now). Not even CarPlay Ultra will be able to reach as deep into the car because Apple isn't designing the core components.
It's a no-voice-over walkaround and the 'system overview' (simple, but it gives a glimpse of the design) begins around the 7:20 mark.
I'd call it slick, futuristic and minalist but of course there is no accounting for taste.
I think CarPlay Ultra took so long as manufacturers want to be able to punch through with their own branding and Apple had to rethink how that works while still keeping the clean Apple design in the display. Also consider the huge variety of car display systems - all different resolutions, driven by differing NVIDIA chips ( or AMD or ???), that Apple has no control over. If they have pulled this off it's pretty amazing.
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From MotorTrend: "CarPlay Ultra can be ordered today today on 2025 Aston Martins in the US and Canada and Apple says Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis have now signed up in addition to already announced partners including Acura, Audi, Ford, Honda, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Polestar, Porsche, Renault, and Volvo. Those brands will make their own launch announcements in the future."
I'm pretty sure Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Honda and Nissan all count as "mass-market" badges. And most of the others in that list are up-scaled fancy, but still very much mass-market vehicles. Also, as noted in my response to charlesn above, even GM appears to be offering "regular CarPlay" as a standard feature for all of their internal combustion engine cars. It's also currently standard in literally hundreds of mass-market car models right now. Are there markets where people don't want CarPlay or won't care? Undoubtedly. But your suggestion that this means it soon won't be offered in other markets that do want it isn't supported by any actual evidence.
From what I've seen of CarPlay (in person) and controlling phone/music/navigation/notifications, nothing seems to stand out and the whole point of CarPlay Ultra is to move into a deeper state of integration than the current CarPlay. I can understand why they want that.
However, it is very unlikely to match what can be achieved by actually designing and manufacturing the entire software stack for a smart cockpit that is running on hardware designed by the same company even if that company doesn't actually make the car.
Here is an example of just one of many Chinese models running HarmonyOS. This has been shipping on cars (with far deeper integration than regular CarPlay for years now). Not even CarPlay Ultra will be able to reach as deep into the car because Apple isn't designing the core components.
It's a no-voice-over walkaround and the 'system overview' (simple, but it gives a glimpse of the design) begins around the 7:20 mark.
I'd call it slick, futuristic and minalist but of course there is no accounting for taste.