Car makers reject CarPlay Ultra as an Apple overreach
Apple's CarPlay Ultra faces a long road to becoming a widely-used feature, as car makers are pushing back on supporting Apple's system in favor of their own solutions.
CarPlay Ultra on Aston Martin - Image credit Apple
The shift from CarPlay to CarPlay Ultra is a big one for car manufacturers to make. Instead of occupying just the main infotainment system's screen, CarPlay Ultra spreads out to other areas of the dashboard, as well as having more direct control over the vehicle's various features.
While Apple introduced CarPlay Ultra as a concept three years ago, and finally became a reality in Aston Martin cars in May, consumers have even more of a wait before using it in other vehicles. To blame are the car makers themselves, resisting because they prefer their own creations.
Car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Polestar, and Renault told the Financial Times that they have no interest to include CarPlay Ultra support in their vehicles. The list includes manufacturers that Apple previously indicated were going to use the software.
A drive too far
The reasoning for the resistance is fairly clear. Car producers are not excited about offering up in-car screen estate and access to car functions to outside companies.
Rather than just providing features like an enhanced car stereo hooked up to an iPhone, the CarPlay Ultra experience is more integrated into the vehicle system. This includes replacing the instrument cluster in front of the driver with more customized and interactive versions.
CarPlay Ultra also has the capability to control in-car systems, such as air conditioning, or provides a way to access a manufacturer's own controls in a pass-through mode. Despite this, car makers would rather stick to their own software, which consumers may not necessarily prefer over Apple's designs.
One Renault executive reportedly said to Apple "don't try to invade our own systems."
While Volvo is among those rejecting CarPlay Ultra, chief executive Hakan Samuelsson did admit that car makers don't so software as well as tech companies. "There are others who can do that better, and then we should offer that in our cars," he insisted.
While design and interface discussions are the more obvious reasons for holding off from CarPlay Ultra, manufacturers also have another incentive. It is said that the infotainment system and in-car services are still a possible revenue source for car makers.
This was one of the reasons why GM ditched CarPlay in favor of its own system in 2023, due to the potential to sell subscriptions to drivers.
For some car manufacturers shying away from handing over control to CarPlay Ultra, they are stopping short of blocking Apple entirely. In most cases, the current limited CarPlay will still be offered, in tandem with their own systems.
BMW insisted that CarPlay will be used in its infotainment system. Meanwhile, Audi believes it should provide drivers "a customized and seamless digital experience" of its own creation, while still maintaining CarPlay support.
CarPlay Ultra's still a good prospect
Despite the setback, there are still some manufacturers who are open to CarPlay.
Apple initially named 14 car producers who were interested in CarPlay Ultra back in 2022. Though not on that list, Hyundai and Kia were later said by Apple to be considering support for the software.
Porsche is also expected to add support to future models, Apple said to the report. However, Jaguar Land Rover, which was named on that brand list, said it was still working to evaluate CarPlay Ultra's viability.
Ford and Nissan declined to talk about CarPlay Ultra to the report.
One element that should encourage manufacturers to use CarPlay Ultra is consumer demand. Consumers have frequently expressed that they want to have CarPlay in their vehicles.
In one 2024 survey, in-car infotainment systems had an approval rating of 805 out of 1,000 as an average. However, drivers who used systems with CarPlay support scored higher at 840.
As for why drivers disliked their infotainment systems, 25% complained about switching audio sources, and 23% were unhappy about menu structures. These are issues that CarPlay easily solves.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
So it is not a question of total control, I guess, but in what way the product is offered.
“[Volvo’s] chief executive Håkan Samuelsson did admit that car makers don't so software as well as tech companies. ‘There are others who can do that better, and then we should offer that in our cars,’ he insisted.” It’s rather ironic that he admits that while at the same time refusing to adopt CarPlay Ultra.
“Audi believes it should provide drivers ‘a customized and seamless digital experience.’” Another hypocritical statement. CarPlay Ultra does just that - integrates so the experience is more seamless rather than the rather clunky parallel setup they have now.
GM provides a classic example and warning. They decided they wanted to ditch CarPlay and try to make money on their own system and botched it so bad they had to issue a stop sale order to fix the problems. Then people found out GM was using the system to spy on them and was selling their driving data. No thanks, GM. You make second-rate cars to begin with and for this you can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQlLjVraA9g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzfpbVzSBFg
I hope more auto execs mull over the Aston Martin experience. Why should each car maker invest in their operating systems for user controls when a company like Apple can give them a much better system for their designers to build with? It's like a game designer who opts to use the Unity engine as opposed to coding from the ground up.
Anyway, here's the video:
There will be one car maker or two worldwide that will use Apple Carplay. Why because there’s fierce competition within the car manufacturing industry, remember when Apple Pay first came out, after designing it, Apple had to do the hard work of going around the world trying to get it established, later on when it became popular all the other financial institutions started to cry foul for their shortsightedness.
History is repeating itself again.
The car manufacturers were pretty much like a large portion of the financial industry, who also believed that they didn’t need a tech/software development department within their company, they initially believed that they could just outsource for the expertise on a case by case basis (to save money), and that attitude has put them into a position where they were unprepared, and now they’ve complaining about it.
The times have changed and you have to have the people in house who know what they’re doing tech-wise, and that includes a software development team going forward because of the fierce competition from other companies, particularly the new Chinese companies who are probably open to trying anything.
And no, you don’t have to use Apple or anyone else, in house software development is now a part of your remit but if you’re going to do it, you have to do it in a world class level and don’t make the mistake of getting rid of buttons, dials, switches and latches like Tesla or Volkswagen. Oh and subscriptions here there and everywhere for multiple items won't work either.
Why isn't an Apple edition available with one or more of the OEMs? Car Play Ultra on it. Apple's design aesthetic.
The answer to all of your questions is money, and makers view the infotainment system as a potential revenue stream in the era of more connected cars. Anything that gets in the way of that will be problematic for them. Ultra would mean Apple is a mediator for the data they want to monetize.
Volvo is using Google’s system which is Android based.
Maybe Apple should pull an Epic Games and sue to get on the dashboard.