I seriously wouldn’t buy a car at this point if it didn’t have CarPlay or Android Auto in it. Navigation with Google Maps or Waze is vastly superior to anything a car company is ever going to come up with (props to Apple Maps too for making big improvements in the last several years). Integrated music experiences where I can directly see my Spotify playlists or favorite tracks without touching my phone is just something I’m used to and couldn’t go back. Having a voice assistant that works from Google / Apple (I know Siri is rough sometimes lol) will always be better than any voice controls a car company comes up with. Oh, and huuuge points to Overcast for just reliably being the best podcast app for many years and having a super easy to navigate CarPlay app. I’d lose all of that and more if there was no integration with my phone and we went back to the awful bluetooth pairing that we had before with terrible UI design and no support for third party apps.
At this point, that’s more important to me than whatever engine they’ve stuck in it. Just give me good mileage, pass inspection and last at least 150k miles and we’re good. I’m not drag racing so I don’t need a rocket ship lol
My biggest thing with CarPlay is that I drive a lot of cars. I own two with CarPlay. If I go back and visit my parents both of their cars have it. If you drive a lot of rental cars for work or whatever. I get in, plug in my phone, and boom. Now every car’s radio looks identical and I can pick up whatever I was doing last time(podcast, book, playlist, etc). I don’t have to fumble through Bluetooth pairing menus or familiarize myself with whatever infotainment software they have for a ton of different makes of cars.
Not sure how you haven’t had to familiarize yourself with whatever radio the manufacturer sticks in your face. Even just to figure out how to change the input to aux or whatever. CarPlay/Android Auto takes over the entire screen so whatever the stock radio UI happens to be is completely replaced.
You get to use the cars screen vs using your phone as a screen (which is statistically smaller).
Auto/Carplay UI is also optimized for driver with better legible text and fewer auxillary buttons that could distract you from driving.
And who are you going to trust more updating the car software experience, 2 companies who is in the business of making full fledged operating systems and software, vs a car manufacturer whose software division miniscule compared to the big companies.
Car companies essentially have 0 history of offering a good software experience. Why would anyone trust them now. Its like the Nintendo paid online stuff. Why would you trust Nintendo to have a better online experience if its paid when they have 0 history of actually making it good. Its just there to dime you for subscription money.
I seriously wouldn’t buy a car at this point if it didn’t have CarPlay or Android Auto in it. Navigation with Google Maps or Waze is vastly superior to anything a car company is ever going to come up with (props to Apple Maps too for making big improvements in the last several years). Integrated music experiences where I can directly see my Spotify playlists or favorite tracks without touching my phone is just something I’m used to and couldn’t go back. Having a voice assistant that works from Google / Apple (I know Siri is rough sometimes lol) will always be better than any voice controls a car company comes up with. Oh, and huuuge points to Overcast for just reliably being the best podcast app for many years and having a super easy to navigate CarPlay app. I’d lose all of that and more if there was no integration with my phone and we went back to the awful bluetooth pairing that we had before with terrible UI design and no support for third party apps.
At this point, that’s more important to me than whatever engine they’ve stuck in it. Just give me good mileage, pass inspection and last at least 150k miles and we’re good. I’m not drag racing so I don’t need a rocket ship lol
Thanks for going over reasons!
I’m still curious though - how are car play or android auto different from just using your phone in your car?
My biggest thing with CarPlay is that I drive a lot of cars. I own two with CarPlay. If I go back and visit my parents both of their cars have it. If you drive a lot of rental cars for work or whatever. I get in, plug in my phone, and boom. Now every car’s radio looks identical and I can pick up whatever I was doing last time(podcast, book, playlist, etc). I don’t have to fumble through Bluetooth pairing menus or familiarize myself with whatever infotainment software they have for a ton of different makes of cars.
Ah, got it. I’ve never used either of those things so I’ve never had that issue.
Not sure how you haven’t had to familiarize yourself with whatever radio the manufacturer sticks in your face. Even just to figure out how to change the input to aux or whatever. CarPlay/Android Auto takes over the entire screen so whatever the stock radio UI happens to be is completely replaced.
I just turn the knob to NPR. 🤷 Apart from knowing the frequency there’s no familiarizing needed.
You get to use the cars screen vs using your phone as a screen (which is statistically smaller).
Auto/Carplay UI is also optimized for driver with better legible text and fewer auxillary buttons that could distract you from driving.
And who are you going to trust more updating the car software experience, 2 companies who is in the business of making full fledged operating systems and software, vs a car manufacturer whose software division miniscule compared to the big companies.
Car companies essentially have 0 history of offering a good software experience. Why would anyone trust them now. Its like the Nintendo paid online stuff. Why would you trust Nintendo to have a better online experience if its paid when they have 0 history of actually making it good. Its just there to dime you for subscription money.