AppleZulu

radarthekat said:

With data from the car l, like remaining charge (EV) and range, Apple can not play a trump card by creating Ramirez hailing dispatch system that any Apple CarPlay Ultra equipped car could join, whether ICE or EV, driverless or human driven.  A car’s location and remaining range can be used to determine whether the car can serve a nearby ride hail request and still have sufficient range remains to make it to a fuel or charging station after the end of the ride, or continue to take subsequent rides.  Great thing about this is that Apple would not be liable for crashes or injuries as the car’s autonomous system, or human driver, would be responsible for serving the rides. 

Also, I do wish Apple would buy Mazda, or partner with Mazda to create a joint venture to build cars that show off the full CarPlay Ultra capabilities.  Plus it would get Apple back into the automotive game where they could use some of those patents while having the excellent Mazda design and engineering and factories to build cars at affordable prices. 

I think there is an either/or proposition here for Apple. Either they can continue making CarPlay work with lots of car brands (and do so even more brilliantly with Ultra), or they can make an Apple Car. Ultimately, they can't do both. I'm sure there were lots of reasons they dropped the Apple Car project, but I think this was a significant one. 

CarPlay supports the Apple 'ecosystem.' In a nutshell, it helps sell iPhones. Having maps, music and other applications seamlessly follow you into your car makes the iPhone a more desirable device. 

Making an Apple Car not only cuts that off, it actually undermines it. The day Apple announces that it will be producing an Apple Car is the day that every other car manufacturer decides to drop CarPlay. No carmaker is going to provide dashboard real estate to a direct competitor. Cars are the first or second most expensive possession for most people. When, as is the case now, there are literally hundreds of options for cars that include CarPlay, that feature can be a first pass filter in selecting a car. This in turn motivates more car brands to include the feature.

If, on the other hand, that changes to only one option - chose an Apple car to go with your iPhone or choose literally any other car- compatibility with your iPhone becomes a much, much lower priority. Then everyone who doesn't choose an Apple car is motivated to also get a different brand phone that actually is compatible with their car. So with that calculus, there isn't going to be a resurrected Apple car in the foreseeable future.

Rogue01 said:

Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis are all the same company.  They are not three separate companies.

They are separate badges of the same company, like Honda and Acura, or Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac, or Toyota and Lexus, et cetera ad nauseum. 

charlesn said:

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.

mpantone said:

AppleZulu said:

mpantone said:

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.

mpantone said:

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?

mpantone said:

AppleZulu said:

Is there any indication that this might eventually be enabled on existing vehicles?

This is addressed in the last paragraph of the article:

"...and will be available for existing Aston Martin vehicles in the U.S. and Canada featuring the brand's next-generation infotainment system in the coming weeks through a software update available at local dealers."

It is safe to assume that it will be up to each manufacturer to decide whether or not to do the extra programming work to bring the CarPlay Ultra to vehicles already on the road. Most likely it will be a model-by-model decision with a higher chance of it being deployed on more expensive, premium trims.

In the old days, the car you bought is the car you live with. I don't think anyone should be entitled to think that they deserve all of the latest features when nothing like that was promised when they signed the sales contract. I certainly don't expect CarPlay Ultra to magically appear in my 20-year-old Toyota. 

However most people aren't in the habit of changing their automobiles often so bringing the CarPlay Ultra feature to existing recent vehicles demonstrates some goodwill. 

It is clear there was a fundamental shift about ten years ago about what constitutes an automobile. They're basically computers with wheels these days. At some point, manufacturers may start charging extra for infotainment software upgrades in existing vehicles. It's not like software engineers work for free.

It's really up to the individual manufacturer who will have to assess the value of the additional engineering effort. There is plenty of precedence for this. Tesla Full Self-Driving Mode (FSD) is an extra charge and GM's OnStar satellite connectivity was a recurring subscription fee after a complimentary first year. Today's consumers are now accustomed to recurring charges (like streaming music/video or satellite connectivity on phones) so at some point car infotainment upgrade fees might be tolerated (albeit not embraced with open arms). It'll take just one manufacturer to start imposing fees and then soon the most of their competitors will follow suit.

In the old days, everything you bought was the thing you live with. Apple upended that paradigm when they introduced the iPhone and proceeded to include several years' operating system updates with the purchase price. Also, these updates include brining new features that weren't even available when you bought your phone. OS updates only came at a price before that, even for Macs.  Apple changed all that, and it was easier for them to do it, because they sell the hardware and operating system as a unit. Others still struggle with that. 

In the automotive industry, the introduction of satellite navigation began to push this problem into their market as well. Roads change and maps have to be updated. Early on, this involved going to the dealer, and/or using CDROMs to update their bespoke satnav systems. The introduction of CarPlay and its Android competitor was welcome, I think, because it moved that responsibility and cost off of the carmaker's ledger. They just had to sell a compatible platform. My question about CarPlay coming to existing models wasn't about 20-year old cars, but rather recent ones like mine that appear to have a multi-screen platform already there, possibly in anticipation of CarPlay 2.0. So we'll see.

teejay2012 said:

GM is not offering CarPlay in many models, not because people don't want it, or that CarPlay is not great, but because GM can not gouge their buyers with lucrative subscriptions. It is a gamble as some buyers will not consider cars without CarPlay or Android Auto.

I've speculated previously on this elsewhere, but I think the decision by GM (and some others) to move back to bespoke 'infotainment' systems had a lot to do with the looming expectation of an Apple Car. As I noted just above, automotive manufacturers were glad when CarPlay came out, because it moved the expensive responsibility for regular software updates off their books. Their business model is, after all, still built around the old "the car you bought is the car you live with" idea. Then Apple started looking seriously like a future competitor as an automaker. It's one thing to hand over dashboard real estate to an Apple that sells iPhones. It's another question if Apple is going to start selling cars. Then their prominence right there in front of a GM driver stars to look like a perpetual ad to convert buyers of GM (and other) cars to buyers of Apple cars. So GM made the switch with their future EVs. The GM proposal may indeed be gouging, but it's also at least on some level just looking for a way to pay for the cost of doing software updates for years, without resorting to a large up-front increase in the sale price of their cars. The average lifespan of a car is a lot longer than it is for an iPhone. Competitors that use CarPlay don't have to worry about that. Their customers pay for the software updates when they buy their iPhones.

Then Apple dropped out of the car making business. Now GM is in the awkward position of having made a decision and spent money on their bespoke system, when they otherwise might've been glad just to keep going with CarPlay. Turning that ship around will take time, but will be incentivized by customers who won't even test drive a vehicle that doesn't have CarPlay.