shamino
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Drivers love CarPlay as car infotainment systems get worse overall
Unfortunately, automakers have decided to integrate the "infotainment" features into the car's main computer. There is no longer a radio you can replace - it's all integrated with the rest of the computer's interface. If there's a discrete radio at all, it's going to be a bare-bones tuner and antenna, controlled by software on that computer.And this is why infotainment systems today are so bad. There's literally no competition. Back when you could rip out the GM (or Honda or Toyota or whatever) radio and replace it with a good one from Sony (or JVC or Pioneer or whatever), there was some competition. Radio manufacturers had to compete with each other, and customers would compare these aftermarket radios with factory radios (which were always significantly worse).But today, the manufacturers don't even have to pretend to care. It is physically impossible to replace what they give you, and they know it. So they'll install complete junk and either tell you to pound sand, or they'll offer an "upgrade" for several thousands of dollars in order to give you what you used to be able to buy for $300 from Best Buy or WalMart.Xed said:
Apple doesn't charge anything for CarPlay. I don't see how they could since the UI is in your iPhone and everything it run from your iPhone.rob53 said:Does anyone know how much Apple charges for CarPlay?There is still a proprietary communications protocol running over that USB or Bluetooth connection. Apple may require payment for access to its specification. There is probably a mandatory certification program for any product to use the "CarPlay" branding, which is probably not cheap. It is also likely that the firmware running in the car's radio is (in whole or in part) using library code licensed from Apple.Even if auto manufacturers are able to download a free spec and develop the software from scratch, it is highly unlikely that they actually will, since that development work would likely cost more than licensing software from Apple and hiring an Apple consultant to assist them with the integration.sflagel said:At some point, regulators will require to separate devices, UI and data, enabling car manufacturers (and others) to develop their own apps that have access to all the users data (appointments, contacts, music files, FB friends, etc). That’s when we will see real competition.Not likely to happen. The industry trend is in the exact opposite direction. Fewer and fewer components can be replaced at all, even by a skilled mechanic. And the government doesn't care.sflagel said:Does this mean that Tesla has access to iCloud to sync Contacts and Calendar? To be honest, that would be pretty nice.I don't know what Tesla, specifically, is doing, but the ability to sync contacts via Bluetooth is nothing new. We had a 2012 Kia Sedona do this as a part of its normal speakerphone integration, and without anything remotely resembling CarPlay either. It pulled the data from the phone via Bluetooth (not iCloud) as a part of the Bluetooth connect process. It did that so the car's built-in voice system for making calls could look up numbers. It worked remarkably well.
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Apple is trying to reinvent group audio chat with no cell or WiFi needed
jallison said:
There are also two levels of 'long range' in Bluetooth 5 - Coded Phy S2 and S8. They increase the range between handsets to ~100m.Yes, but as with all things, there are tradeoffs.The Coded Phy systems gain greater range and reliability through transmission of additional (quite a lot of) error-correcting data. So the overall bandwidth goes way down. The high-speed 2Mbps data rate has a range of about 80% of the "standard" 1Mbps rate. The Coded S2 PHY doubles the range, but cuts the bandwidth in half - to 500 kbps. Coded S8 doubles that range (4x the standard range), but reduces the bandwidth by another 75% - to 125 kbps.Now, 125 kbps is sufficient for a voice call (voice land lines digitize to 56 kbps), but would that be enough for modern users who are used to the quality of a VoLTE call?
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Apple is trying to reinvent group audio chat with no cell or WiFi needed
AppleZulu said:I would be willing to bet a dollar to a donut that the devices would link directly using the iPhones' WiFi radios.The article and the abstract of the patent say just that. The devices establish a connection over an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network, much like how AirDrop works.rare comment said:My vision was that one could create ad hoc voice groups in small geographies that allowed regular people to have the same sort of always on communications as you see for security teams (like in the movies, but in less exciting situations). My use case was for situations like crowds or walking with a group down a city street where, with noise cancellation, you could have a conversation without yelling or needing to stand right next to someone.The patent has several diagrams of a hypothetical UI. See the collection of "Figure 6" drawings, and text starting from paragraph 95 (page 12).From my quick scan of the text, they are describing a UI where you are an icon in the center of the screen. Surrounded by two circles, one representing the range within which you can detect people and open connections (e.g. Wi-Fi range), and an outer one representing the range within which you can detect people but not open ad-hoc network connections (e.g. Ultra Wideband range). Nearby people are presented as icons in locations corresponding to their distance and direction from you.It then depicts you tapping on a person to initiate a conversation, the other person getting a confirmation, after which a connection is established. They seem to be describing a separate point-to-point ad-hoc network link for each such conversation.They also depict connections over a public network to reach users further away than an ad-hoc network can reach, but without (I think) going through a central server. Basically a peer-to-peer Internet link.It looks like they are deliberately not establishing multicast connections for group conversations, but are sticking with multiple unicast connections. Which probably makes sense since you may want to selectively add/drop people, have multiple private conversations, and permit roaming/handoff between networks as your peers move closer and further away.If the UI for this feature is sufficiently, convenient, this could easily implement your vision.
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Apple Weather's heatwave predictions probably won't apply to you
blastdoor said:The realistic goal for a weather app is to be right the fraction of times it claims. So for all the times the app says there’s a 70 percent chance of rain, it ought to rain 70 out of 100 times.That's not what the term usually means. When a weather service says there's a "70% chance of rain", they aren't saying that statistically, it will rain 70% of the time they observe these conditions. What they are actually saying is that their models predict that it definitely will rain in 70% of their coverage area. Depending on how large the coverage are is, that may or may not be particularly meaningful.
This is usually done because all airports have on-site weather stations. I don't think it's required by law, but the local control tower definitely wants to know things like the immediately-local wind, rain, temperature, pressure, etc. in order to properly direct departing and arriving traffic, calibrate altimeters, etc.coolfactor said:I dislike how airports are often the default source of weather data, particularly temperature. The geography alone — flat, devoid of vegetation — often results in temperatures far higher than surrounding areas for regions that are very mountainous.Not necessarily the best source for predicting future weather for the surrounding population, but they collectively comprise a uge collection of valid data points. It's definitely better to include this data, along with all other sources, than to reject it. -
Apple Weather's heatwave predictions probably won't apply to you
I've also found Apple Weather to be pretty inaccurate.I much prefer to use AccuWeather, but I don't trust their app - the privacy lists location and usage data as "data used to track you". I understand that a weather app needs my location, but they don't need to associate it with my account, and they don't need to used it "to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies". That's just spyware.So I have a bookmark set to open the AccuWeather web site in Safari, and I get my forecasts from there (relying on an ad blocker to minimize the privacy intrusions).
