On mobile phone side it is supported by number of Nokia Symbian phones and quite many Sony Ericsson smartphones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MirrorLink

says it all. No it doesn't make this conversation interesting. It makes it divisive. It makes people fight each other for no reason. It confuses and disillusions. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, not greedy old white men, you racist.

Just say no to phones (in any form) while you drive.

Multitasking is a myth. Try driving on a new road while chitchatting to someone siting next to you; or, even try walking fast while thinking something hard or even recollecting something.

  CarPlay is compatible with these iPhone models

CD drive on the marketing photo, very retro for a company that reinvented the mp3 player with iPod. USB-port is very common, but will CarPlay support it?

Definitely not onboard with providing drivers another distraction in the car.

A good responsive/adaptive layout will give Apple options for more diverse screen sizes and proportions from cars to watches to other phone and tablet aspect ratios.

Can't wait.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7334479

Who writes this crap? Do they even read the copy back to themselves? Jesus. Lose the taglines!

Mainly because of technology. But more modern systems are doing away with this.

" For operating complex vehicles/apparatus, you just cannot do better than tangible controls."

You're not controlling the vehicle.

" Knobs, switches, sliders can be operated without looking at them while giving rich tactile feedback, they have no modes = 0 risk for confusion, you know where they're going to be located on your dashboard regardless of what you're doing, etc."

Physical controls in airplanes have caused confusion. Wrong switches have been activated by mistake several times (either because someone bumped into them, or switched the one next to the one intended)

It would would be simple to not allow touch interaction while driving. So before you start and if you pull over you can text/call/setup navigation which is easy to do on the touch screen and hard to do with a few buttons.

Once moving the touch screen should dumb down to stupid mode with only one valid interaction: hitting the screen hard a few times should silence the navigation voice (a feature I have found missing in most current models).

I'm not joking around here either. I firmly believe we need safer cars, and self-driving cars would be a great step towards that, but the real issue here is how car-dependent our society is. If more trips could be done on foot or via public transportation, the U.S. would be a much safer place.

Our reliance on car driving makes other forms of transportation unsafe too. The risk of riding a bike is not that you'll fall or hit another bicyclist, but rather that a car will hit you (and probably not even be cited). The biggest risk to walking is that a car will hit you in a cross walk or on a sidewalk (will trying to avoid hitting another car), just because. And we're so cavalier about killing people with cars.

We don't need have to wait (or hope) for technology to save us. We can build better places to live today. Places that are safer and healthier. And that largely starts by making towns and cities more walkable.

When I walk and take the train to work, I can send texts, read news stories, listen to podcasts and check Twitter, all without endangering people's lives. And no futuristic technology is needed to accomplish this.

If society we're a game, I'd be putting my resources to building walking neighborhoods and better public transportation. Even if you have self driving cars, cars are still bad for your health from the lack of exercise and the pollution.

By the way, touch screens in avionics are gaining a lot of traction in the commercial aviation market. See one such example here: http://www.rockwellcollins.com/prolinefusion/

Ubiquitous autonomous roving robots will lead to a revolution at least as big as the Internet, but probably bigger.

Like the printing press, the Internet made distances shorter, but in a low-fidelity way since reality has much higher bandwidth. With self-driving cars, suddenly “real” distances become smaller since 12 hour trips become routine†. The differences between, say, a middle-class Oklahoman, Texan, Missourian, Coloradian, et.al. start to disappear, and this scenario will play out all across the U.S. and other large regions (Canada? India?).

†If we raise the speed limit to 120 mph (mostly afforded by a change in energy policy), then I could trek from Oklahoma to NY or LA every weekend.

The more likely cause is that gas in Europe is far far more expensive than it is here, and manual transmissions are historically more efficient than automatics (may have changed with hybrid e-CVT and newer drivetrains).

Also possibly an explanation is that engines in Europe are far smaller than here (to improve gas mileage) and manual transmissions gives the ability for a driver to play with the torque curve and delay shifts to improve immediate speed/responsiveness.

What it doesn't tell us is whether or not touchscreens pose any significant additional danger.

The following product: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaturallySpeaking

Microsoft Auto uses it http://www.nuance.com/company/news-room/press-releases/ND_00... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Sync

And Apple's Siri is Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking cloud service.

Also, this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Airbus_A380_cockpit.jpg

They control the platform, and people buy the objects for reasons that have nothing to do with the software they run. Until the software is so bad it hurts sales they don't have to do any better.

They are incentivized to keep things in their own little world. Why let Apple sell apps when GM can sell apps? Remember when Tetris on your phone was $5 a month? Yeah, that's just a step away from where we are.

The car companies are probably only doing this for two reasons. First they might get put in an Apple ad, and second they want recent iPhone buyers (who, relative to people taking free phones, are likely to have more disposable income to spend on a car).

Let's just hope this is more iPhone than Motorola ROKR. I think Apple is powerful enough at this point to avoid another mistake of that magnitude.

I wasn't talking about car business. Just in general Samsung is considered more sophisticated and a brand notch above Hyundai.

Contrast this to the sound system, which only has a volume knob. Jumping to the next track requires you to hit a small touchscreen button that offers no tactile feedback. It's frustrating to do it while driving.

IMO, there's a good middle-ground here. There are a lot of settings and features on my sound/navigation system that I don't need to access all the time, or really at all while driving. Bass is too high? I can wait until I come to a light. That stuff can remain touchscreen driven since it offers more flexibility in the design and allows you to build in a lot more features than you'd have otherwise without cluttering your dash with a ton of buttons and knobs. But stuff that I mess with pretty often, like skipping to the next song, should be a physical button. Other head units get this right.

That said, if there's a self driving car, you bet Id rather use that.

and normally leave the lights on auto as well.

Why don't you just leave them always on anyway? Or is that not allowed in the UK?

But this is a minor quip compared to how MS implemented Sync Services. It's 2014 and they use a voice(!) line from a pre-registered cell phone to connect to their services.

I assume you're American (or British), because voice-based systems are nearly useless for non-native english speakers.

I'm a fluent english speaker, but due to my non-american accent, and the fact that my language is not one of the top 10 used in the world I still cannot operate Siri (or other voice systems) properly, and the dictation feature is nearly useless to me.

There was a collision on a runway a while ago that we passed around the news article for, because it could have very easily been prevented by features we had, but were not certified for the airframes that had the collision. It's understandable that we want to ensure that the new glass works just as well as old instruments, but it's frustrating when customers very clearly want functionality that we're not allowed to provide.

Lots of long, straight drives with far less vehicles on the road probably even make it more realistic to accomplish bc it's a less dynamic environment. I know 20+ who drive an hour both ways to work...and on the morning drive you can do it and only see a handful of cars if it's early.

I'd say you are being quite optimistic here. Such major changes will be heavily monitored and regulated, and regulations will make it very hard to market any of these vehicles before a long time. 10 years go by pretty fast, I don't think changes are going to that fast and radical. More likely in the scale of 15 to 30 years. But we'll see.

Not really, as just like with all Google Apps (maps, gmail, now), Google will release an app on iOS so it integrates well. Apple will probably not release something to integrate Carplay with Android phones though so picking Carplay would piss off mostly Android users but picking the openautoalliance shouldn't piss off anyone.

How did you come up with that??

All I can say is that the goal of self-driving cars is to take the occupant out of the picture entirely. I think a lot of public safety officials will welcome this change. Eventually, there will be two classes of vehicle occupants -- those who are qualified to touch the controls, and those who aren't.

For an earlier social model, look at elevators. At one time, to have an elevator in your building, you had to hire an elevator operator. Then there were elevators that the building's occupants could operate if they were careful and knew what to avoid. Now elevators are safely operated by anyone.

Same idea.

But to say that human behavior evolved to meet a specific environmental requirement isn't a purpose, it's an outcome that allowed the genotype to procreate. It's a gray area and one must be careful speaking of goals, but if one is addressing a specific adaptation to meet a specific environmental requirement, it's all right.

This is about the only way to enable intelligent control over device functionality. Absent this additional link, a modern cell phone can't tell a driver from an occupant.

With this, Apple and the car companies offer people a carrot so that they pair their device [1] and now they can limit the distractions: you can control the apps that are available on the car interface, you can pare down the notifications they're receiving (enable DND mode by default while driving), you can disable direct use of the paired device while the car is in motion, etc.

[1] The carrot being GPS and music-selection features already available on many modern car dashboards.

Thereby ensuring a situation where the person takes their eyes off the road and looks at their seat for their phone, picks it up, and starts reading and replying to texts while barreling down the road in a high velocity chunk of steel.

That's what happens now. Apple's technology aims to prevent that.

>Even dictating a text message takes some cognitive load.

Yes it does. It also is much safer than doing it on your phone as people can and will continue to do, even in states where it is illegal. Apple isn't a legislature. They can't tackle unsafe driver behavior by crafting laws, but they can do so via software offerings.

If you can't talk while you drive, then you shouldn't have passengers either.

That figure should be normalised to make the comparison fair. Presumably, there were more cars on the road in 2011 than in 2010.

Sure, every invention is based on work of others, but Apple has still made huge improvements on multiple areas.

As for the second point - in critical situations on the road, I would rather keep my eyes on the road and both hands firmly on the steering wheel - not manipulate gears and clutch.

And I also disagree with the notion that automatic cars don't give you control - with enough experience,you can force precisely the gear you want in an automatic by operating the throttle in a right way. They actually give you way more control - if I find myself at a need to suddenly accelerate, I just press the throttle all the way down and then the transmission just drops down two gears,or one, and does it in less than a second. I am pretty sure that 90% of drivers would not be able to do is as quickly/smoothly/efficiently in a manual, selecting the right gear, declutching and starting at the right rpm - automatic transmission does that for you.

I never had an automatic stall, they don't do jarring shifts between gears, and my left leg is not about to fall off from holding the clutch in a slowly moving traffic jam.

And "serious" cars like sport cars mostly come with an automatic transmission without the manual as an option. You know why Bugatti Veyron comes with an automatic? Because no human would be ever able to change gears as quickly as needed with that car.

And interestingly, the entire off-road market is moving towards automatics as well. You know why? Because you can't burn out a hydrokinetic clutch while starting uphill or in difficult conditions.

I've driven many many cars in my life, and while there are situations where I can see how the manual transmission is "enjoyable", automatics are just objectively better, with new ones offering lower fuel consumption, better acceleration, smoother gear changes and relative lack of maintenance in comparison to manual transmissions.

But I reluctantly disagree with you. Almost all serious sports cars -- hardly "boring" -- now come with automatic transmissions: * All Ferraris are now automatic * All McLarens are now automatic * Porsche's top street car, the 911 Turbo S, is PDK-only * Porsche's top track-ready car, the 911 GT3, is PDK-only * The fastest hypercars, the LaFerrari, the McLaren P1, and the Porsche 918, are all automatic (I recall all 7-speed dual clutch)

Even Lotus, the one company you'd expect to keep the manual faith, on lightness grounds if nothing else, made the Evora available a few years ago with an automatic transmission. And Porsche has been quoted as saying the manual transmission may no longer be available after the 991 is phased out: http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2012/02/porsche-911-manua...

Unfortunately manual transmissions now make the car slower. A stick is becoming an enthusiast's conceit, C&D's campaign notwithstanding, and I hope they're still offered, but I'm now considering a dual clutch automatic for my next car.

I have a Golf with a 7 speed DSG gearbox and trust me, in sport mode, you can have amazing and smooth acceleration.

Regarding point 3, is that really true to an extent that would actually matter for ordinary driving?

(Apart from the back ache)

> I think you have forgotten just how different the iPod was.

It wasn't very different. Jesus Apple fans talk a lot of shit. The first iPhone couldn't even install apps, stop this ridiculous rose tinted view.

Not saying that speed is a factor, just that stopping distance isn't the thing. Perhaps you should discuss kinetic energy instead?

In terms of fuel economy, isn't it just a matter of time before automatics become as economical (then probably more economical) than manuals? Even without anticipating future events? Driving efficiently feels like something a computer could optimise for and that a human has no natural advantage doing.

I have one in my VW Golf!

Now in a high-end car with a sequential gearbox this is different, but for a small town car when you'll be doing a lot of starts and stops you'll see the losses on the hydraulic coupling.

You end up paying a lot more attention to everything, vs being largely on autopilot with automatic transmission. Or at least having the option of being a lot more on auto pilot with auto transmission.

Of course this varies driver to driver, but having driven both types for about 10 years, I personally find mysel way more engaged with the manual vehicles.

Maybe in another 10 years the automatic experience at my price range will be better but at that point we're 25 years on from coldtea's period where European cargo-cult bullshit started.

Apparently.

I've found diesel engines and vehicles to be considerably more reliable and therefore less expensive. Fuel is between 5-7% more expensive here in the UK so things are good there.

The city driving numbers are about the same I found. I regularly drive right into London's congestion charging zone - at least 1-2 times a week.

51 is the expected MPG in city driving scenarios. I can achieve that with no particular effort in London traffic. I don't drive like a crazy person and hang back regularly - that is all.

My vehicle doesn't have piles of expensive electronics, batteries and things to go wrong either (look at recent threads about Toyota stack overflows for example).

The most expensive thing on a Diesel that can go wrong is the particulate filter, EGR valves and timing chains and these are cheaply regenerated and replaced respectively.

I would think my number 1 complaint about the driving experience was the occasional (but not predictable) incredible lag between pressing the accelerator and the car going faster and the ridiculous over-revving when I presume the car got confused about what gear it thought I should be in.