Drivers love CarPlay as car infotainment systems get worse overall
CarPlay in iOS 18
As a means to access the services available on an iPhone while behind the wheel, CarPlay is tough to beat. This sentiment is confirmed in the 2024 U.S. Automotive Performace, Execution, and Layout Study by J.D. Power.
The study shows that overall satisfaction for vehicles has grown two points from 845 out of 1,000 in 2023 to 847 in 2024. The increase is a rebound after two years of decline.
While the report is good, infotainment systems are continuing to be a struggling point for consumers. Though the category improved 5 points to 823, it was still one of the lowest-scoring categories across the entire industry.
Drilling down, the figures indicate that in-vehicle infotainment systems averages a score of 805. However, the score is higher for owners who use systems like Apple's CarPlay or Android Auto.
CarPlay users rated their infotainment systems at an average of 840, 35 points above those who use the built-in version. Android Auto also does well but doesn't quite match CarPlay, scoring 832.
According to the report, this shows that consumers prefer to "have the simplistic usability of their phone extended into their vehicle more."
Car makers infotainment systems are too difficult to use
As for why drivers don't like their infotainment systems, the report claims that it's due to them being too complex. Approximately 25% of owners say switching between sources creates a poor audio experience, while 23% blame a difficult menu structure.
"Owners struggle to perform simple audio-related tasks, so it begs the question whether automakers are actually in tune with the desires and needs of their customers," said J.D. Power's senior director of auto benchmarking, Frank Hanley.
CarPlay is receiving a number of updates in iOS 18, including a new UI for Siri queries for weather and sports, as well as the option to route Siri through a media source. A refresh to Messages, new wallpapers, and new accessibility features are also included.
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Comments
Tesla claims to be on the AI bandwagon as well - but it, nor any of the other car manufacturers, have free access to the data on our phones. Only CarPlay and Android Auto do. I especially wish Rivian's CEO was more customer-centric as I really like their vehicles. The guy is smart and should understand this basic issue - his counterpart at Ford has summarized it quite nicely "...the train [of who should provide the infotainment system] has left the station years ago." Rivian and Tesla (and now GM) just can't see past their greed (future revenue from tying their customers to in-car subscription services).
But what you're failing to see is the new data harvesting-driven economy which I've been complaining about for years on here. Where technology is developed and given away for free, in return for it being able to monitor and collect data about everything you do with it. This is what the car manufacturers want a piece of, and is why they're replacing CarPlay/Android Auto with their own systems.
So, what's happening? There have already been several reports by drivers that their Google navigation is suddenly giving them detours from their route. The detours are not to get you around possible traffic issues, but commercials for vendors trying to get you into their stores. Imagine you are trying to get to an important business meeting on time in another city and suddenly your navigation system tells you to take a detour, only to find yourself turning into the parking lot of Clownburgers.
This puts me into a serious conundrum because I was planning on buying a Chevy Equinox EV, currently the most affordable, cross-country capable EV. Now, my choices are narrowed down to EVs that cost at least twice as much, but still offer Apple CarPlay. A serious crimp in my financial planning.
GM has been making some good choices moving towards EVs, but dropping CarPlay was absolutely the dumbest, most shortsighted decision above all.
To be fair, up until recently, auto manufacturers had to worry about the potential of a competing Apple Car. Particularly with the shift to EVs, the idea of GM or Toyota enabling Apple, as a competing car manufacturer, to increasingly integrate Apple’s software into GM or Toyota’s cars might seem like a bad idea. So I actually think it’s understandable that they headed off in a different direction.
With the Apple Car seemingly off the table, those companies might want to reconsider, though that’s a harder decision to make, because they’ve already headed way down the other trail already, and backing out of that will be expensive.
As for the subscriptions some are looking at, they’re facing a difficult business model. Set aside for a moment the very real discussion of the issue of collecting and selling user tracking data. Car manufacturers have historically been working under a business model where their obligations after a customer drives off the lot are pretty limited. Aside from warranties and potential recalls, the buyer received everything they’re going to get when they bought the car.
Apple pretty much introduced a whole new business paradigm with the iPhone, where a hardware purchase comes with free (pre-paid, really) software upgrades for several years, including performance improvements and entirely new features that weren’t even considered at the initial purchase. That was never a thing with a car purchase. Car companies’ first try at that was satnav, and the implementation was always terrible. Now, smartphones are “infotainment systems” that most people already have, and those continuous upgrades set a steep expectation that car companies are not inherently set up to meet.
Worse yet is the economic model required to deliver those updates. For iPhones, the updates feel free, but really we pay for them when we buy a new phone, which is on a three-to-five year typical cycle. Consumers are surprisingly tolerant of spending ~$1,000 every few years for a new phone. That’s a lot harder to figure for a $40,000+ EV. Some people trade in cars every few years, but for that kind of money, many people are used to keeping one for 10 or 20 years. Without a subscription model, how will car companies price out five, ten or twenty years of software upgrades? For that matter, particularly with EVs, will current hardware even be able to run new software a decade down the road? Without the worry over a competing Apple Car, auto manufacturers may quickly see CarPlay (and Android Auto) as the best solution, because a ‘dumb terminal’ will allow the consumer to pay not only for software upgrades, but also to worry on their own about paying for new iPhones capable of running the latest software. All the car manufacturer has to deliver then is a screen capable of displaying it.