GM’s replacement for CarPlay is due at the end of 2023, but its dealers are in the dark about when that will be and what it will do to sales when buyers figure it out.
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When I was at a Holden dealer, CarPlay (and Android Auto) would sell cars.
Customers would wander in, drooling over a cars performance, styling, economy, luxury etc. they’re oils then ask about CarPlay (or Android Auto): if the car did not have it, they would go cold straight away and just walk straight out the door, without even thanking the salesman for their time.
Carplay was on a very short list of requirements for me when I bought my car a few years ago, so I totally understand this.
It was basically:
- Is a standard
- Has Carplay
- (of course some other things, but those two were very high)
No car manufacturer’s in-house stuff will be as useful to me. It just won’t.
Same here after dealing with shoddy infotainment software in the past. CarPlay, AWD and preferably a manual was all it needed
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Ditching features that consumers desire could lead to lower sales. More at 11.
I have a Chevrolet. I won’t buy another vehicle that I can’t use my Android phone in.
It’s hilarious to me that these car companies think consumers will put up with their shitty infotainment just so they can hopefully open a new revenue stream with subscriptions. Consumers are just going to pass over your shit for competitors that do have Carplay/Android Auto.
Especially when you’re GM. It’s already an extreme longshot that I was ever going to buy another GM car, but this is 100% the final nail in the coffin.
I’ve only ever owned GM vehicles. After having had rental cars with Android Auto, I care a lot more about my next vehicle having Android Auto than I do about it being a GM.
BRB, Resurrecting the aftermarket radio.
Between this bullshit and touchscreen-only controls, I’ve ruled out quite a few models.Especially for new car buyers. It’s a much more iPhone heavy group than the general population.
At least in countries where I’ve lived, there were two expensive phones that are popular: Samsung Galaxy, and iPhones. The only GM could have boned this harder is if they somehow nerfed the experience on Samsung flagships too.
They did, they aren’t supporting car play or android auto
Idiots. This is a “don’t you guys have phones” moment, but about the GM management and I mean it unironically.
What’s even worse is GM hired a VP who failed at Apple.
I wish I could fail upwards like that.
Me too, me too.
Going from VP at Apple to one at GM feels like a proper fail to me.
For the individual it doesn’t matter what the company name is. It matters what they’re paid.
I assume that’s a reference to Mike Abbott, as he’s a software VP at GM and used to work at Apple. He was only hired this year so I don’t see salary data for him, but other “Executive Vice President” positions are paid ~$8.8m as of 2022. No idea what he was paid at Apple, but it’s hard to consider a salary that is likely in the high 7 digits or low 8 digits to be a “proper fail.” If it is, I would love to sign up for this kind of failure.
I own a GM car and the head unit is buggy as hell. There’s no way they are going to be able to pull this off.
I’ve seen CarPlay used once. However, I much prefer Tesla’s system. Something about CarPlay seemed laggy and limited. Like, you couldn’t even a read a text; it had to be read to you, even while stopped.
Tesla’s button free UI makes me want to tear my hair out when driving. Like it was designed by phone guys not drivers.
I get that, but I like having the UI be customizable. In the video mode, when parked and charging, I don’t need to see buttons.
Apple fan boys are gonna lose their minds.
Android Auto is being removed as well. They are implementing a forked-Android-based interface that is incompatible with mainstream Android.
Imagine new GM EVs as the FaceBook or Amazon Fire phones with 4 wheels and a marginally more reliable battery.
Please do the world a favor and die already, GM.
Oh look, another reason for me to not buy GM cars. Not that I was going to buy one either way.
They really should get together and come up with some standard protocol, instead of having cars use proprietary protocols tied to a specific mobile OS.
If they did, Apple wouldn’t adopt it and we’d be in exactly the same place as we are now.
Probably. At least it would allow connecting to your car without iOS or Google apps.
My Miata shipped without CarPlay. When Mazda added support it later they had to replace one USB port ($12 part) and an hour of labor.
They charged $350. I didn’t hesitate for a second. I haven’t met an OEM interface that didn’t make me want to stab myself in the eye.
Can someone explain what exactly carplay/Android auto do? I’ve seen a lot about them recently but have yet to fully understand what they are, besides that they are for interfacing with a car.
My experience with connecting phones to my (parent’s) cars is just using Bluetooth to connect and play music from the car speakers and receive calls and texts over it but that’s about it. The cars are both Toyota RAV4s, one fully ICE one hybrid.
It lets you use the apps from your phone on the screen in the car, instead of having to download separate apps for the car system if that is even possible. The apps are installed on the phone but used through the car touch screen.
This is handy for navigation, music selection and phone calls and texting (using voice to text), because you can continue your stuff from where you were on the phone before entering the car.
You can also use the Google Assistant while driving, so you can do everything that it can do. Some people use Google home for various stuff, so f.i. it’s possible to start your coffee maker and set the temperatures in your house by talking to your car while driving home. Technically you could do that with the assistant without any connection whatsoever but it makes sense to have it on the screen.
And its legal. Touching a phone is illegal while driving, but touching the car screen is not… so there’s that.
Personally I think it would be easier to just use the phone in a holder. However android auto or Apple car play lets you use the buttons on the steering wheel though. Bluetooth also does that to some degree, but not for all apps.
I think it’s a fad, but as of now it’s the most complete integration between the car and whatever services you normally use on your phone.
I feel like a big plus of it too is not requiring additional subscriptions to internet, especially to get live info. Once you reach 2-3 years of your included internet with cars then, its time for the subscriptions for internet and other services to begin. IMO most would want to avoid paying for more subscriptions when you have a perfectly good phone in your pocket that can be hooked up to do everything the car is asking you to pay for monthly. Another thing for me is being able to use your phone or phone keyboard to look stuff up, before you start driving, to find stuff much quicker rather than typing on the infotainment system. Also updates don’t rely on the car manufacturer to continue updating their system.
This is a way to get consumers to go to a subscription based system for getting features they already have on the supercomputer in their pocket.
Other articles about GM’s plan include things like “Google Maps included free for 8 years!”
Well what happens after 8 years? What about if I sell the car? Tesla already has AutoPilot as a non-transerrable item. Even though you might have paid for it, the person you sell the car to has to pay for it again.
“Free” to you likely just means that GM has paid Google for access, and that cost is built into the cost of the car. So it’s not really free.
OnStar costs like $30/mo and is probably required for an internet connection so you can use the “free” Google Maps. Or they’ll sell you some overpriced cellular plan. Or you’ll need to add your car as a separate device on your cell plan for some extra monthly fee.
Do I have to sign in to the car’s version of Google Maps?
What if you prefer Apple Maps and have locations saved there?
The car integration lets me use hands free to initiate streaming music. Using a Bluetooth connection for that means I might need to pick up my phone and unlock it while driving in order to be able to.
But really they want to sell you a Sirius XM plan instead.
Thanks, that seems pretty cool! Not a whole lot more than what I can currently do with my phone on a holder, assuming it isn’t using Android auto for the Bluetooth connection and I just don’t know. it already reads texts aloud and can do calls from the car screen, and music can be controlled through it too. I think there is a way to speak back to it too but we’ve never bothered to do the voice recognition training on it
All that bullshit goes away with android auto and carplay. Your car simply is your phone UI, so no more needing to train it, integrate it, sync it, etc… It just does everything as well as your phone does, because it is your phone.
yeah that does seem pretty nice. definitely looking forward to it on any future cars i own!
My daughter has it. It makes the cars touchscreen a customized extension of the apps interface. So maps or whatever is running on the car’s screen. Some of the controls on the side of the screen also interact with the phone. It’s more integrated than a bluetooth connection.
GM has previously said that people who buy a new GM electric vehicle will get access to features such as Google Maps for free — for eight years. After that, GM expects people to subscribe for what they used to get free with CarPlay, and ultimately sees it giving GM a potential $25 billion revenue stream.
My ten year old Chevy Volt just lost connectivity a few months ago because of the 3g phase out, leading me to unsubscribe from Onstar. How many years of subscriptions are GM planning to have before the next network phase out?
And anyone who used GM’s in-dash maps knows they can’t be trusted to keep their products updated lol
Yeah that’s some crap. At that point I’d just have my maps on my phone in the cupholder, no chance in hell I’m paying a subscription for something my phone already does, hands free laws be damned.
As someone who dosn’t have carplay but whose next vehicle will 100% have it. Yeah… as much as I dislike using my phone as a GPS sometimes compared to have android auto or carplay in a work truck there is zero chance of me spending money on any kinda of GPS while google maps exists.
Thanks for further solidifying the fact that I’ll never buy a GM car or truck. Good job, ya idiots.
