Both Renault and Volvo are mentioned in the article, and both of them are flagship partners implementing Android Automotive. So it is not a question of total control, I guess, but in what way the product is offered.
There's a good reason for that. Android Automotive does not require the manufacturer to commit to Google services. It can offer most if not all the same UX benefits of Car Play Ultra while letting the manufacturers determine the services. Android Automotive is also user-friendly for both iPhone and Android owners. Want to use CarPlay under Android Automotive, no problem.
I don't know whether Car Play Ultra offers the same freedom, but perhaps someone here knows the facts. My sense is it does not, thus more reticence on the part of automakers to rely on Car Play Ultra integration.
A lot of modern automobiles have become so cookie cutter that there are fewer areas left to add differentiation that's unique to the brand. The shapes are all similar because of wind tunnel testing. Colors are largely limited to various shades of uninspiring white, black, gray, and silver. It's all made for extreme difficulty in distinguishing one brand from the other, at least in certain categories, like the ones that have a "sport" thrown in their categorization naming scheme.
With so many cars being virtually indistinguishable from one another on the outside, the push now is to add brand distinction on the inside. The cupholder wars seem to have subsided, so it's now become more of a battle of techno-wizardry and user experience to grab potential buyers' attention. If companies are struggling with differentiation, why would they want to allow an outsider to infiltrate their brand differentiation design choices? From their perspective they will nearly always believe that their choices and implementations are better, whether of not they actually are better. I don't think Apple would be eager to have a third party supplier jumping in and offering to redesign Apple's iOS or macOS user interface.
One of the motivations behind differentiation, whether it's an automaker or a tech giant like Apple, is to avoid having to compete based on pricing. They will do everything within their power to avoid price wars, especially when the functionality or purpose of competing products is very similar. If Apple jumps in and takes over more of the design and implementation process, and is not exclusive to the company itself, this starts to whittle down areas that can be leveraged for differentiation.
You could argue that CarPlay Ultra is simply a platform that the automakers can build on and heavily customize to their individuality. That's an accurate statement, but all platforms have inherent limitations. These limitations will be common to everyone who uses the same platform. Whether that turns out to be a problem is yet to be seen, but I do understand why some automakers, perhaps the overwhelming majority of them, see this as a limitation that erodes their ability to differentiate. For example, how will CarPlay Ultra play with non-Apple devices like Android smartphones? If there is any friction in users' ability to choose whatever devices or apps they want to use, that would be a big deal. If the answer is that there are no issues with non-Apple devices, then it begs the question of why Apple would build a system or framework that doesn't help sell more Apple devices?
I like the idea of car play, wish I had it in my car, but I don't understand why Apple bothers with it. I assume it's pretty niche and low revenue. Is there a long-term play they need to keep the foot in the door for?
Some of these comments are absolutely clueless. Car infotainment systems by and large SUCK. I own two Porsches and their infotainment systems are trash; I’d be using Ultra from day one. The digital dash on a Mercedes and Audi are an abortion…CarPlay Ultra would be a dramatic improvement. They know this and that’s why they’re blocking it.
GM changed the game when--recognizing that car companies suck at infotainment--it partnered with Google to develop its own system and abandon support for both CarPlay and Android Auto. I was not only hoping this would fail in terms of car buyers rejecting the lack of support for these interfaces, but felt pretty sure it would--this seemed like a bridge too far, but I was wrong. GM sales haven't suffered at all. And this, not surprisingly, has opened the floodgates for other car companies to follow: partner with a tech company and develop your own system. Not only does this open the door to a consistent, new and ongoing revenue stream via subscriptions for the most desirable features, but it also provides what may be an even greater source of income: there is a ton of consumer data to be mined from inside a vehicle, which can be sliced, diced and sold off ad nauseam to interested third parties. And guess what? The million page EULA you hastily sign when picking up the car gives car companies the right to do that.
I expect support for the limited, current version of CarPlay will continue here and there in new vehicles, but this is the beginning of the end for CarPlay Ultra. And Apple, with its core focus and marketing about maintaining consumer privacy, won't be part of designing a system that allows car makers to sell the data its system gathers. Google, which has never had an issue with profiting from the use and abuse of consumer data and privacy, feels no such contraints.
Come on Apple. Just stop futzing around with this. In 2021, the window for a new car maker looked to be closing, with Tesla, Rivian and maybe Lucid surviving. I can see why a retreat on being an EV maker and going with the CarPlay Ultra strategy looked like a good course of action.
In 2025? The window on being an EV maker has remained open. Tesla has burned down all the bridges with its buyers, Rivian and Lucid are still late, and automated driving isn’t a thing.
They never should have tried to do automated driving. That should have been a big no. An EV maker though? That still is possible, and something they should have continued to fund. The number of vehicles who will let you use CarPlay, not CarPlay Ultra, but CarPlay, will continue to dwindle.
It’s like back in the 80s when you can buy aftermarket stereos and install them in your car. Automakers gradually made doing this all but impossible and just not worth doing. Heck, even the phone mount accessories need to be specifically designed now, as the things they can mount to are always changing or can’t be mounted to.
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...
But unlike "classic" CarPlay, Apple doesn't completely control the interface. Users can choose the manufacturer's interface, one of Apple's interfaces, or some custom mix of them. At least that's what the Aston Martin demo showed.
So if the automaker thinks they can make a world-class interface, nobody is stopping them. And if their customers agree, they will use it. But if it sucks, the will change it to what they want.
And I think that's a lot of the resistance. The worst thing (to them) they could possibly do is prove to the world that their own designers can't make something drivers actually want to use. Apple is going to force them to put up or shut up.
I might even go so far as to say that this is why they no longer make cars where the radio can be swapped-out. Because everybody knows that aftermarket radios from big audio manufacturers like Sony, Kenwood and Pioneer are lightyears better than anything any automaker bundles with the vehicle.
Apple's latent plans to build its own car undoubtedly drove at least some other carmakers to develop and begin implementation of a plan to do their own dashboard software. Letting an actual competing carmaker live in your dashboard would indeed be nuts.
Then Apple dropped the car plans. I suspect that decision was at least in part due to other carmakers starting to back away from CarPlay. CarPlay reinforces the Apple ecosystem and sells iPhones. Trading that for a gamble on a new car in a densely competitive market, maybe not so much.
With that question out of the way, some companies like GM may now be feeling double-crossed, because CarPlay really does provide a huge service to carmakers. For the one-time cost to the car manufacturer of including a dummy terminal, Apple provides updated software for satnav, music, phone, and more in perpetuity. Any future need for more powerful hardware to run that software is also handled by Apple, by selling updated iPhones.
Carmakers are used to selling cars as finished products, with no expectation that they will ever update anything on a car that has left the showroom. Sure, scraping customer data and selling subscription services could be a whole new revenue stream for carmakers, but that comes with the huge costs of creating a new division that must develop, manage and update all of that for years after a consumer buys a car (while also creating something slightly newer and better but yet still backward compatible for new car models). Apple is able to include the cost of years of software updates, including new features, in the price of an iPhone, and users are accustomed to buying a new iPhone every four-ish years to accommodate even more new features. For a car, people expect the average lifespan to be a lot more than four years. Consumers are also unlikely to be enthusiastic about paying to replace a head-unit or some $1,000 computer component every few years just to run new software in the car they already paid $30,000+++ for.
So I think even with the expanded CarPlay Ultra, a lot of carmakers will start to adopt it. Late-model Honda/Acura cars (and many others, no doubt) already have digital instrument-cluster screens that can interface with CarPlay. With "regular" CarPlay, mine already displays podcast or song titles and album covers inside the tachometer. It seems pretty likely that CarPlay Ultra will be rolled out there soon enough.
Both Renault and Volvo are mentioned in the article, and both of them are flagship partners implementing Android Automotive. So it is not a question of total control, I guess, but in what way the product is offered.
There's a good reason for that. Android Automotive does not require the manufacturer to commit to Google services. It can offer most if not all the same UX benefits of Car Play Ultra while letting the manufacturers determine the services. Android Automotive is also user-friendly for both iPhone and Android owners. Want to use CarPlay under Android Automotive, no problem.
I don't know whether Car Play Ultra offers the same freedom, but perhaps someone here knows the facts. My sense is it does not, thus more reticence on the part of automakers to rely on Car Play Ultra integration.
And for the tier-1s, who do all the dirty work for the OEMs, the open source nature of Android Automotive is s major factor, as they can tailor the OS to the SOC and hypervisor architecture they build. Not sure what freedom there is with Apple's solution.
I'm the S5 coupe owner you helped with my ordered S5 showed up with multiple dents in my Audi. We plan to replace my wife's A4 with the new SQ9 which I have been following for at least the last couple of years. One of our requirements is our new car had to have the new Apple CarPlay Ultra, I've read this morning that Audi has backed out of their original commitment to the enhanced CarPlay. If that decision is true Audi will not be included in our search after owning (5) Audis we're moving on Not a big fan of Kia but Kia has now been added to our list. I thought you should know our feelings. Thank you Russell. PS, I still love my red S5 coupe which might be my last race car! Sent to an Audi VP I know.
I can understand that it is a desired feature and might be a tipping point in a final decision, but going from an Audi to Kia for that reason alone, is like choosing your heart surgeon based only on his or her hair color.
it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better.
Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?
Branded audio is nowhere near as involved or complicated as a complete handover of the car's entire user interface. Of course, the car companies use subcontractors for many subsystems, but they still retain control over the way they operate, look and feel in their own vehicles. For example, Harman (parent company of Harman Kardon audio) provides the basic electronics infrastructure for many car brands, but the car companies control the integration and UI aspects.
Again, it's not a handover. CarPlay Ultra is a toolkit of UI components for the company's designers to use to create their user experience.
it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better.
Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?
Branded audio is nowhere near as involved or complicated as a complete handover of the car's entire user interface. Of course, the car companies use subcontractors for many subsystems, but they still retain control over the way they operate, look and feel in their own vehicles. For example, Harman (parent company of Harman Kardon audio) provides the basic electronics infrastructure for many car brands, but the car companies control the integration and UI aspects.
First off Harman Kardon's parent company is Samsung and the audio systems are highly integrated in the cars infotainment systems and is often designed to look like a part of the overall "experience"
The article states: Car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Polestar, and Renault told theFinancial 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.
Funnily enough those are all Google worshipers in the sense that the all have based their systems om Android Automotive, one could easily suspect that there is a clause in the contract with Goole that states that CarPlay Ultra is not allowed (or they have made it very difficult to implement)
it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better.
Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?
Branded audio is nowhere near as involved or complicated as a complete handover of the car's entire user interface. Of course, the car companies use subcontractors for many subsystems, but they still retain control over the way they operate, look and feel in their own vehicles. For example, Harman (parent company of Harman Kardon audio) provides the basic electronics infrastructure for many car brands, but the car companies control the integration and UI aspects.
First off Harman Kardon's parent company is Samsung and the audio systems are highly integrated in the cars infotainment systems and is often designed to look like a part of the overall "experience"
The article states: Car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Polestar, and Renault told theFinancial 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.
Funnily enough those are all Google worshipers in the sense that the all have based their systems om Android Automotive, one could easily suspect that there is a clause in the contract with Goole that states that CarPlay Ultra is not allowed (or they have made it very difficult to implement)
A vehicle cannot use BOTH Android Automotive and CarPlay Ultra at the same time, as both are infotainment OS'es. One or the other. Google wouldn't be paying an OEM using Android Automotive not to use CarPlay Ultra too. I suspect you don't understand what the two systems are. CarPlay will run happily with Android Automotive, Google doesn't restrict it.
it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better.
Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?
Branded audio is nowhere near as involved or complicated as a complete handover of the car's entire user interface. Of course, the car companies use subcontractors for many subsystems, but they still retain control over the way they operate, look and feel in their own vehicles. For example, Harman (parent company of Harman Kardon audio) provides the basic electronics infrastructure for many car brands, but the car companies control the integration and UI aspects.
First off Harman Kardon's parent company is Samsung and the audio systems are highly integrated in the cars infotainment systems and is often designed to look like a part of the overall "experience"
The article states: Car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Polestar, and Renault told theFinancial 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.
Funnily enough those are all Google worshipers in the sense that the all have based their systems om Android Automotive, one could easily suspect that there is a clause in the contract with Goole that states that CarPlay Ultra is not allowed (or they have made it very difficult to implement)
A vehicle cannot use BOTH Android Automotive and CarPlay Ultra at the same time, as both are infotainment OS'es. One or the other. Google wouldn't be paying an OEM using Android Automotive not to use CarPlay Ultra too. I suspect you don't understand what the two systems are. CarPlay will run happily with Android Automotive, Google doesn't restrict it.
I think you are getting it mixed up. Android Auto is the internal system integrated by the Car OEM. AA systems often play just fine with Car Play, that runs on a phone. OEMs using AA have to build a system that works if the user does not have a phone with them. So even if an OEM offers Car Play Ultra, they also have their default system available. CPU becomes a customer option to use, a choice. The reason not to implement CPU would include plans to monetize the interface or user data, or to 'control the customer U/I experience'. Apple does plenty of the latter itself, but from a user perspective the OEM offering CPU is pure upside for the user - they can use either option.
it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better.
Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?
Branded audio is nowhere near as involved or complicated as a complete handover of the car's entire user interface. Of course, the car companies use subcontractors for many subsystems, but they still retain control over the way they operate, look and feel in their own vehicles. For example, Harman (parent company of Harman Kardon audio) provides the basic electronics infrastructure for many car brands, but the car companies control the integration and UI aspects.
First off Harman Kardon's parent company is Samsung and the audio systems are highly integrated in the cars infotainment systems and is often designed to look like a part of the overall "experience"
The article states: Car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Polestar, and Renault told theFinancial 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.
Funnily enough those are all Google worshipers in the sense that the all have based their systems om Android Automotive, one could easily suspect that there is a clause in the contract with Goole that states that CarPlay Ultra is not allowed (or they have made it very difficult to implement)
A vehicle cannot use BOTH Android Automotive and CarPlay Ultra at the same time, as both are infotainment OS'es. One or the other. Google wouldn't be paying an OEM using Android Automotive not to use CarPlay Ultra too. I suspect you don't understand what the two systems are. CarPlay will run happily with Android Automotive, Google doesn't restrict it.
I think you are getting it mixed up. Android Auto is the internal system integrated by the Car OEM. AA systems often play just fine with Car Play, that runs on a phone. OEMs using AA have to build a system that works if the user does not have a phone with them. So even if an OEM offers Car Play Ultra, they also have their default system available. CPU becomes a customer option to use, a choice. The reason not to implement CPU would include plans to monetize the interface or user data, or to 'control the customer U/I experience'. Apple does plenty of the latter itself, but from a user perspective the OEM offering CPU is pure upside for the user - they can use either option.
Please be careful with the terminology -- Android Auto and Android Automotive are different things. The former is screen projection, just like Car Play, while the latter is a OS running in the car itself. Confusing naming. Absolutely.
it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better.
Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?
CarPlay Ultra is not just the display of car metrics, it also is the interface with, e.g., A/C, suspension settings, drive modes, alarm modes, etc. Apple CarPlay Ultra is upstream from the control systems and chips; before long, Apple will be dictating which chips the car manufacturers should use and what software architecture they should build. There is a big difference between buying batteries from Bosch and letting Apple control the central nervous system of the car.
Apple's latent plans to build its own car undoubtedly drove at least some other carmakers to develop and begin implementation of a plan to do their own dashboard software. Letting an actual competing carmaker live in your dashboard would indeed be nuts.
Then Apple dropped the car plans. I suspect that decision was at least in part due to other carmakers starting to back away from CarPlay. CarPlay reinforces the Apple ecosystem and sells iPhones. Trading that for a gamble on a new car in a densely competitive market, maybe not so much.
With that question out of the way, some companies like GM may now be feeling double-crossed, because CarPlay really does provide a huge service to carmakers. For the one-time cost to the car manufacturer of including a dummy terminal, Apple provides updated software for satnav, music, phone, and more in perpetuity. Any future need for more powerful hardware to run that software is also handled by Apple, by selling updated iPhones.
Carmakers are used to selling cars as finished products, with no expectation that they will ever update anything on a car that has left the showroom. Sure, scraping customer data and selling subscription services could be a whole new revenue stream for carmakers, but that comes with the huge costs of creating a new division that must develop, manage and update all of that for years after a consumer buys a car (while also creating something slightly newer and better but yet still backward compatible for new car models). Apple is able to include the cost of years of software updates, including new features, in the price of an iPhone, and users are accustomed to buying a new iPhone every four-ish years to accommodate even more new features. For a car, people expect the average lifespan to be a lot more than four years. Consumers are also unlikely to be enthusiastic about paying to replace a head-unit or some $1,000 computer component every few years just to run new software in the car they already paid $30,000+++ for.
So I think even with the expanded CarPlay Ultra, a lot of carmakers will start to adopt it. Late-model Honda/Acura cars (and many others, no doubt) already have digital instrument-cluster screens that can interface with CarPlay. With "regular" CarPlay, mine already displays podcast or song titles and album covers inside the tachometer. It seems pretty likely that CarPlay Ultra will be rolled out there soon enough.
For our second and third cars we went with cars old enough that you could still swap out the entertainment unit with a kenwood wireless CarPlay after market unit.
Both Renault and Volvo are mentioned in the article, and both of them are flagship partners implementing Android Automotive. So it is not a question of total control, I guess, but in what way the product is offered.
There's a good reason for that. Android Automotive does not require the manufacturer to commit to Google services. It can offer most if not all the same UX benefits of Car Play Ultra while letting the manufacturers determine the services. Android Automotive is also user-friendly for both iPhone and Android owners. Want to use CarPlay under Android Automotive, no problem.
I don't know whether Car Play Ultra offers the same freedom, but perhaps someone here knows the facts. My sense is it does not, thus more reticence on the part of automakers to rely on Car Play Ultra integration.
I have a car with Android Automotive (Perhaps the most confusing name ever) and it's an abomination. And no it does not, at least on GM, work with CarPlay or Android Auto. The whole system in confusing to use and horribly laid out and after over a week at the dealer, over the course of a year, for software updates, is still buggy as hell. I would suggest that anyone thinking of buying a car with "Automotive" consider their tolerance and patience for crappy software. And to be clear, The UX benefits are not what make CarPlay so useful. It's the fact that I have my information, usage records, everything on one device - my phone and don't have to transfer it between the car and my phone. I'm not an Android user and probably never will be so I don't know if "Automotive" makes this simpler with those phones. But, I'm pretty sure it would do it through Google's cloud services with all privacy concerns and connection issues that implies as you must be logging into Google all the time to us any of there services in the car.
it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better.
Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?
Branded audio is nowhere near as involved or complicated as a complete handover of the car's entire user interface. Of course, the car companies use subcontractors for many subsystems, but they still retain control over the way they operate, look and feel in their own vehicles. For example, Harman (parent company of Harman Kardon audio) provides the basic electronics infrastructure for many car brands, but the car companies control the integration and UI aspects.
That’s exactly what CarPlay Ultra does - the companies can customize the look while taking advantage of CarPlay’s superior interface.
Both Renault and Volvo are mentioned in the article, and both of them are flagship partners implementing Android Automotive. So it is not a question of total control, I guess, but in what way the product is offered.
There's a good reason for that. Android Automotive does not require the manufacturer to commit to Google services. It can offer most if not all the same UX benefits of Car Play Ultra while letting the manufacturers determine the services. Android Automotive is also user-friendly for both iPhone and Android owners. Want to use CarPlay under Android Automotive, no problem.
I don't know whether Car Play Ultra offers the same freedom, but perhaps someone here knows the facts. My sense is it does not, thus more reticence on the part of automakers to rely on Car Play Ultra integration.
It’s really an apples to oranges comparison. The car would have it’s basic interface that it comes with. When an iphone is connected the user can either select ‘CarPlay Classic’ which would operate just like it currently does or they can select CarPlay Ultra which has the unified interface. The manufacturer’s OS is still running in the background.
When manufacturers use Android for their interface they’re using it as the base OS.
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I don't know whether Car Play Ultra offers the same freedom, but perhaps someone here knows the facts. My sense is it does not, thus more reticence on the part of automakers to rely on Car Play Ultra integration.
With so many cars being virtually indistinguishable from one another on the outside, the push now is to add brand distinction on the inside. The cupholder wars seem to have subsided, so it's now become more of a battle of techno-wizardry and user experience to grab potential buyers' attention. If companies are struggling with differentiation, why would they want to allow an outsider to infiltrate their brand differentiation design choices? From their perspective they will nearly always believe that their choices and implementations are better, whether of not they actually are better. I don't think Apple would be eager to have a third party supplier jumping in and offering to redesign Apple's iOS or macOS user interface.
One of the motivations behind differentiation, whether it's an automaker or a tech giant like Apple, is to avoid having to compete based on pricing. They will do everything within their power to avoid price wars, especially when the functionality or purpose of competing products is very similar. If Apple jumps in and takes over more of the design and implementation process, and is not exclusive to the company itself, this starts to whittle down areas that can be leveraged for differentiation.
You could argue that CarPlay Ultra is simply a platform that the automakers can build on and heavily customize to their individuality. That's an accurate statement, but all platforms have inherent limitations. These limitations will be common to everyone who uses the same platform. Whether that turns out to be a problem is yet to be seen, but I do understand why some automakers, perhaps the overwhelming majority of them, see this as a limitation that erodes their ability to differentiate. For example, how will CarPlay Ultra play with non-Apple devices like Android smartphones? If there is any friction in users' ability to choose whatever devices or apps they want to use, that would be a big deal. If the answer is that there are no issues with non-Apple devices, then it begs the question of why Apple would build a system or framework that doesn't help sell more Apple devices?
I expect support for the limited, current version of CarPlay will continue here and there in new vehicles, but this is the beginning of the end for CarPlay Ultra. And Apple, with its core focus and marketing about maintaining consumer privacy, won't be part of designing a system that allows car makers to sell the data its system gathers. Google, which has never had an issue with profiting from the use and abuse of consumer data and privacy, feels no such contraints.
Then Apple dropped the car plans. I suspect that decision was at least in part due to other carmakers starting to back away from CarPlay. CarPlay reinforces the Apple ecosystem and sells iPhones. Trading that for a gamble on a new car in a densely competitive market, maybe not so much.
With that question out of the way, some companies like GM may now be feeling double-crossed, because CarPlay really does provide a huge service to carmakers. For the one-time cost to the car manufacturer of including a dummy terminal, Apple provides updated software for satnav, music, phone, and more in perpetuity. Any future need for more powerful hardware to run that software is also handled by Apple, by selling updated iPhones.
Carmakers are used to selling cars as finished products, with no expectation that they will ever update anything on a car that has left the showroom. Sure, scraping customer data and selling subscription services could be a whole new revenue stream for carmakers, but that comes with the huge costs of creating a new division that must develop, manage and update all of that for years after a consumer buys a car (while also creating something slightly newer and better but yet still backward compatible for new car models). Apple is able to include the cost of years of software updates, including new features, in the price of an iPhone, and users are accustomed to buying a new iPhone every four-ish years to accommodate even more new features. For a car, people expect the average lifespan to be a lot more than four years. Consumers are also unlikely to be enthusiastic about paying to replace a head-unit or some $1,000 computer component every few years just to run new software in the car they already paid $30,000+++ for.
So I think even with the expanded CarPlay Ultra, a lot of carmakers will start to adopt it. Late-model Honda/Acura cars (and many others, no doubt) already have digital instrument-cluster screens that can interface with CarPlay. With "regular" CarPlay, mine already displays podcast or song titles and album covers inside the tachometer. It seems pretty likely that CarPlay Ultra will be rolled out there soon enough.
The article states: 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.
Funnily enough those are all Google worshipers in the sense that the all have based their systems om Android Automotive, one could easily suspect that there is a clause in the contract with Goole that states that CarPlay Ultra is not allowed (or they have made it very difficult to implement)
Confusing naming. Absolutely.
And to be clear, The UX benefits are not what make CarPlay so useful. It's the fact that I have my information, usage records, everything on one device - my phone and don't have to transfer it between the car and my phone. I'm not an Android user and probably never will be so I don't know if "Automotive" makes this simpler with those phones. But, I'm pretty sure it would do it through Google's cloud services with all privacy concerns and connection issues that implies as you must be logging into Google all the time to us any of there services in the car.
When manufacturers use Android for their interface they’re using it as the base OS.