It's called Android Automotive OS (not to be confused with Android Auto). Many OEMs are now using Android Automotive for infotainment, but also support CarPlay/AA. This is a terrible move, but GM is just trying to copy Tesla by controlling the entire UX and putting it some of it behind a subscription (like Tesla's Premium Connectivity).
I have seen quite a few add on modules for Tesla's that enhance the head unit functionality for minimal cost/effort. Eg. Wired and wireless "boxes" for Tesla's that allow CarPlay and Android Auto on aliexpress for $70.
I used to say "in the future your car is unlikely to start start without wifi", but now that promise has come true, I'll just say "your fridge is unlikely to make ice without wifi".
Source?
Impossible within our current understanding of physics: I mean... You could do it, but the added delay for reaction times would literally have many people killed.
Guiding a drone / missile is kiddie stuff compared to remotely driving a car in trafic.
Or "I see you're navigating to McDonalds, would you rather go to Burger King and get half off your Whopper meal?"
The allure of money made via stalking and influence is hard to resist.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/06/gm-aims-to-build-netflix-s...
Assuming this is not a maintenance contract, who in their right mind will spend 135$ per month on "products and services" for their car?
Once you throw in Tesla-like subs for automation, etc., it's reasonable to make that a goal for 2030.
GM's actions seem logical to me. But there's no way in hell I'm ever buying a GM if they stop me from using CarPlay. It's well demonstrated that they can't make good software.
1. It's electric. 2. It has CarPlay.
So no Chevy Bolt now. I guess it is a Ford Mach-E then.
To make this even better, route the touch input of the screen back to the device, in some simple way (for example, as a mouse position, not sure of any touch protocols).
Any software has a pretty good chance of getting deprecated or irrelevant during the lifetime of a car. Just think of what is still actively supported in the mobile world from 10 years ago. My 2013 car doesn’t have Android Auto or CarPlay, but has built-in “apps” for Stitcher and Pandora, which I never used. The bluetooth connection still works, but is really flaky with newer iPhone (a 2013 Android worked exceptionally well, however).
Why is this happening? Car executives aren’t stupid, and must realize software is not core to their business. Unless they plan to start selling phones down the line they can never ‘win’ this battle. It’s clearly a huge waste of internal effort.
Does Apple try and take a % of the car sale as a license fee? Even if the fee were $2000 per car… that could be passed on to the car buyer. I would pay $2000 today to get CarPlay into my Rivian.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24841937/I...
Oh god. It's the Cadillac from the article.
The large pillar-to-pillar screen is pretty cool but the text doesn't specify whether it's touch or not. Squinting at the image a bit, pretty obvious that it is. Same for the center console.
I suppose it's a given that all screens have to be touchable now. Such a drag, input challenge is dangerous when hurtling down the highway. Prefer to have physical controls I can grab onto.
I'm sure data is being sold, too.
And no one is paying an extra subscription on their car for entertainment.
CarPlay does everything I want and the best part is it just works. A large part of that "it just works" is the fact that it's all based directly on my phone.
* That restaurant we just decided to go to. Already in navigation. AND! the maps are all current with road closures/traffic issues.
* The music that I was playing, it just keeps going
* The garage door opener/lock/etc that I just added to HomeKit - automatically pops us.
For better or worse, the smartphone is a vault of almost everything about a person, including the ability to impersonate them.
Obviously, Apple and Google already have access to all of this, but I see no reason to let yet another entity have it.
There is no way they are going to be able to compete with Apple or Google. Literally the worst software engineer at either of those companies is better than anyone GM has.
Will make an interesting Harvard MBA case study.
The insanity goes both ways: I refuse to use a cellphone, so I will not buy a car that has Android or Apple stuff.
Hopefully I'll have other options than this $130k Cadillac, but it's good to know some automakers cater to my preferences too.
> That restaurant we just decided to go to. Already in navigation. AND! the maps are all current with road closures/traffic issues
Funny enough, getting a GPS without auto updates and offering a full offline experience is now a premium, but I'm happy to pay for the exact opposite of what you want: a GPS without auto navigation / user tracking / not being happy to work with old maps if I decide it should (customer is king, except for apps!)
What they're missing is that I don't stream my music from GMTunes, I don't store my photos on GMPhotos, I don't have my files on GMCloud, and I don't have easy access to all of this from my GMPhone, GMPad, GMBook, and GMWatch.
They either fundamentally don't understand why people want Carplay or Android Auto, or have delusions that they can become a bigger ecosystem than Apple, Google, or Microsoft.
If they are unsatisfied with the recurring revenue they currently get via selling car, parts, and electric charging partnerships, maybe they should start pivoting towards public transit.
GM is moving to Google Automotive and doesn't want to enable Carplay or Android Auto, but Google is already in there deep. No other legacy manufacturers have announced plans to take away Carplay/Android Auto. Quite a few are basing their systems on Android Automotive, though (BMW, Volvo/Polestar, GM as mentioned, off the top of my head), so even if you don't use a Google phone, Google is going to have your data.
There is no difference here between ICE vehiclws and BEVs, other than the two startups I mentioned.
I understand this from the carmakers point of view. They want to extract every dime from my pocket that they can. But I don't want it. Having a screen for the backup camera is fine, but I don't want any ongoing services connected to it.
Agreed that it isn't something you could do solely over the public Internet.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if it also somehow ended up MITM'ing / screen scraping / OCR'ing apple services.
The only solution at this point is legislation.
I think the CEO's gambit here is that she can keep the reality distortion field up long enough to land $100-150M in compensation by waving hands and saying the word AI.
EDIT: I think I was incorrect. The law says "an altered vehicle that was completed on or after this date that was equipped with a rearview camera that already meets the new rearview requirements must continue to meet these requirements after the alterations."
https://www.camerasource.com/industry-news/understanding-new...
But I'm not sure how broadly that actually applies. So I don't know.
It sounds like installers won't be able to do this modification moving forward either, so you would have to do it DIY.
I want (some) infotainment features. I do NOT want them baked into the car. Some of my main reasons:
1. Honestly, the reasons are long (I'm a gearhead, I know cars better than I know code, and I've been coding for 20 years), and largely centers around the idea that in my opinion, EVERY single modern automotive manufacture is terrible at UX in their infotainment. Tesla's UI (not UX) is okay. It doesn't deserve the praise it gets imo but at least it's usable, but that's a pretty low bar imo, but the fact that Tesla wants the touchscreen to be the primary interface ruins anything they have going for it.
2. Additionally, one of the beautiful things about Android Auto/Apply CarPlay is that you bring your accounts and media with you in your pocket. When your car is a separate device as opposed to something you just stream to like with Carplay/Auto, that's another thing to trying to sync accounts/creds and manage data, and I refer you to my above complaint on why I have an issue with that. I mean, it could literally INSTANTLY sync the things that I want flawlessly, and that still doesn't actually add any value to me. It at best reaches parity with the phone that's already in my pocket with android auto, and that's assuming the entire rest of the infotainment functions well.
3. I quite simply don't trust ANY automotive manufacturer to do competent user facing software, and I can't think of a single automotive manufacturer I would trust personal data/credentials to (yes I'm already aware they do that to extent, it's why I'm against it, they already suck at it, last thing I want to do is hand over more data into yet another walled garden).
4. Walled garden's suck, and as this is a value add service with no announcements yet (that I'm aware of) of any other manufacturer working with GM's initiative to establish/adhere to standards/specs or facilitate any sort of portability or openness or flexibility. If it's not a walled garden, great, but I'm assuming it will be, and I don't want it.
The only fancy thing I would like to have in my car is the ability to connect the sound system in it to my phone or computer via bluetooth as if it were headphones -- but I can add that easily as an aftermarket thing with the bonus of having actual knobs on it.
I really only have two reasonably hard lines. I don't want my car to be able to talk with any external servers (it's a car, not a smartphone on wheels), and I don't want a touch screen interface instead of physical knobs and buttons.
The presence of infotainment systems is a pretty solid indication that the car won't satisfy either of those things.
I think you are firmly in the minority here and probably not the market they are building for. I bet much less than 1% of people who will buy a car in the next year refuse to use a cell phone.
FYI, a car that supports CarPlay/Android Auto and a car that does not is indistinguishable to the person who does not connect a phone to the car. It is just an interface that allows your phone to use the touchscreen, but if you do not connect a phone, it continues to work.
Then, you're also not buying an EV it sounds like... All of these fancy headunits require a cell phone modem....
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CarPlay is entirely optional. Your headunit will have all of the basic still built in.
Then I won't?
Instead, for a fraction of the price I may get a nice second hand muscle car, with no feature I don't want to be present. It may even have an old school CD player, I like retro :)
Sucks, but that's how things are shaping up. Too late for the proverbial pebbles to vote.
Like at all? That immediately puts you in a pretty niche category.
Like at all I guess? Or at least least 99% of the time?
I'm not opposed to the idea owning a cellphone: I can have one, if it's without a cellphone plan and spends most of the time powered off inside a drawer.
Then, as long as I'm not forced to interact with it say more than once a month, it's fine.
I guess this technically doesn't qualify for the "not at all" since I sometimes use a cellphone to run magisk to root my android ebook
It's more of a want than a need. Otherwise, I agree, but not being able to buy an EV was presented as a bad thing?
There are fewer alternatives than I'd like, but there're still plenty to get the basic "car" need satisfied with my special "no phone use required" preference.
Also why do you care if your car has a computer on it or not? Seems overly paranoid, bordering on luddite…
I haven't seen an in-car system that provides a better UI. Regardless, that's not actually important because I'm not interacting with the device or screen while I'm driving anyway.
A larger screen doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm not spending much time looking at the screen anyway.
> why do you care if your car has a computer on it or not?
I don't. I care about the connectivity, not the presence of a computer. It's all but certain that connection will be used to funnel data back to the manufacturer or someone.
> Seems overly paranoid, bordering on luddite…
No need to start with the personal insults here. I'm expressing my own desires, I'm not saying I want to deprive others of theirs. That I don't want things that you do doesn't diminish or harm you in any way.
And "overly paranoid, bordering on luddite" is no insult, it's a description that your comments fit. If these words are insulting, stop fitting so well to them!
For me, I don't care about my car having a computer, but I don't want it to talk to services without my permission and building their own thing shows a disregard for that desire. I love CarPlay/android and not offering those two most popular options doubles down on that disregard for customer interests.
But the default of "privacy good at all cost" seems like massive overkill IMO.
If there's specific evidence that a car is doing something that will specifically cause you harm in some way via data sharing, that's one thing. If it's a vague, general distrust, that falls into the "luddite paranoia" category.
Everything else you've said is asking me for details about my opinion and stating that you disagree with my opinions. Which is totally fair, but I'm not sure what response you expect from me about that aside from "I disagree".
> you find it important to ape the "pro privacy" line, as that's what you see others do online.
Another personal attack.
This is your ~60th comment on HN today. Maybe take a break, go outside, touch some grass. Not one thing you wrote here is reflective of the conversation you and I were having.
There's nothing vague or general about it. We have years of examples of how such data gets used. You may be fine with that, and that's OK. I don't understand why you get so upset that others aren't fine with it, though. Why is this so emotional for you?
It's not about what I'm fine with or not, it's about what you're posting on HN in advocacy of. You claim "years of examples" but you have literally nothing specific, because nothing specific to you exists.
You fear new technology because it is unfamiliar to you, and that is the very definition of luddite.
That might be because I never made such an assertion.
> You claim "years of examples" but you have literally nothing specific
I'm specifically referring to years of data collection by companies without consent. Typically for marketing or other monetization purposes.
> You fear new technology because it is unfamiliar to you, and that is the very definition of luddite.
Another personal attack. You don't know me. Everyone who does would be laughing at how ridiculous this assertion is. I very strongly embrace new technology (and the tech we're talking about here isn't actually all that new) and I'm very familiar with it. I even develop some of it. My house, my car, and even what I carry with me is riddled with high tech stuff. I am the opposite of a luddite.
You're making a whole lot of incorrect assumptions about me here. And it's odd that you do, because it would be so easy to talk to me about what I'm actually saying rather than building a straw man representing me in your mind so you can attack it.
The last decade has worn out my optimism and tolerance about privacy concerns. If a company wants my trust, they have to proactively earn it by excessive transparency, at least GDPR level, on their part.
If they can do that, I’ll consider it; otherwise, no thank you.
Your mental health will improve once you log off of this site for the day. I highly recommend it.
