Apple CarPlay to be whole car OS?

electricAK

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This is interesting. Looks like Apple is trying to take over your car's OS and re-skin it to look and act like an iPhone. This is of course a brilliant move by Apple...the goal may be that the vehicle manufacturer doesn't need to develop its own UI, and pays apple for it instead?

But how does this benefit the car manufacturer? Half of their users already hate Apple's UI (Maybe. That's my own biased opinion). And this only works if you use iPhone. But on the other hand it's probably better than the native Ford UI.

And this opens up a whole host of liability, security, data use, regulatory, and safety issues for Apple.

As for Tesla, I'm thrilled that they will never integrate this CarPlay option into their vehicles, and that they already produce industry leading UI/software that rivals anything apple can do.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/next-generation-apple-carplay-wwdc-2022-preview/
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In context to failed Titan program, one has to frame this CarPlay as Apple’s “Hail Mary”OS.

Apple could have chosen to be the CarOS of the future rather than spend it proving that they know nothing about cars, building one and much less managing development of a car - OS or not!

Will CarPlay OS win? Not by Tesla. Tesla is the only car mfgr that matters. OEM’s are EOL. Attrition will be brutal and simply glomming onto a #1 technology company isn’t buying any BEV mfgr salvation. Not from an economic incentive, success by association(read fail) or technological layer can Apple bring anything BEV mfgr’s need.

SteveJobs missed the car and the EV transition. Tim Cook didn’t have the chops but took-on the challenge his way. He treated it as one big supply chain then proceeded to fill-in the gaps with Apple. It is too late. To comeback around now as first production cars are hitting the road to say Oh, BTW Apple will make your in-car layer of technology. Introducing CarPlayOS! The familiar CarPlay you already know is the new operating system of the car future.

No one! Not a single soul worth his salt is going to open its barn doors to let that GOAT technology company into the BEV race. They know exactly how the experience with Apple CarPlayOS plays out.
 

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This is interesting. Looks like Apple is trying to take over your car's OS and re-skin it to look and act like an iPhone. This is of course a brilliant move by Apple...the goal may be that the vehicle manufacturer doesn't need to develop its own UI, and pays apple for it instead?

But how does this benefit the car manufacturer? Half of their users already hate Apple's UI (Maybe. That's my own biased opinion). And this only works if you use iPhone. But on the other hand it's probably better than the native Ford UI.

And this opens up a whole host of liability, security, data use, regulatory, and safety issues for Apple.

As for Tesla, I'm thrilled that they will never integrate this CarPlay option into their vehicles, and that they already produce industry leading UI/software that rivals anything apple can do.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/next-generation-apple-carplay-wwdc-2022-preview/
It would be interesting to take a poll of Tesla users to see how many use an iPhone vs an android device. Tesla has a very complete UI, much more than Apple is thinking about providing. I have a Toyota and they have fought to keep CarPlay out of their infotainment systems. I removed my 2013 POS system, replaced it with an Alpine deck that uses CarPlay. It works with my iPhone a whole lot better than anything Toyota provided. Part of the Alpine deck also displays OBD settings separate from CarPlay. Apple is working on expanding CarPlay so it includes more OBD features, like tire pressure, speed, rpm, and as much as they can. These features are all part of every car, accessible through the OBD port. This isn't something Apple designed, it's part of every car since ~1971. Expanding to the electronic dashes could be really nice and it's the same thing car manufacturers are doing right now. The car's computer controls everything and a majority of those controls are available right now through the OBD port so all Apple is doing is following what companies like Alpine have done. Right now, I could display what currently is on my mechanical console on my Alpine deck and Toyota can't stop me from doing it. I highly doubt Alpine had to go through any regulatory hoops (don't know if they did) to simply display what offered by the OBD port but of course Apple will have to because lobbyists challenges everything Apple does already.

As for Microsoft and/or Google doing this, Microsoft has always had too many issues putting together a good UI and Google needs to derive money from ads so there's no incentive for them. Apple's DNA is a good UI no matter what PC users want to say.

disclaimer: I have been in computerized publishing system operations since the early 1970's. Bought my first Macs for work in the late 1980's and managed an in-house system with at least 300+ Macs on a gigabit ethernet network in the early 2000's. Windows systems were only used when there was not a choice from Apple. You want to do spreadsheets, go ahead and get a Windows PC, they're good at that but creating visual displays belongs to Apple. It would be interesting to try adding an old iPad to my dash and see whether there's any difference between Toyota's mechanical system and Apple's in-development CarPlay expansion.

Tesla Cybertruck Apple CarPlay to be whole car OS? IMG_8352
 
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Google already does this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Automotive

Apple is just getting around to completely integrating themselves. Its better to have car manufacturers license software manufacturers for their car OS than do it themselves. What will suck is that will now be a deciding factor in which car brands you buy similar to how it goes now with buying a TV.

I hate roku OS.. so I specifically buy tv's with android TV OS.

I hate apple iOS and OS.. so I would hate to have my car or truck with apple iOS because I will never buy another apple phone... and they are hardline strict about having to use their hardware to connect into their ecosystem. Similarly if amazon did their own auto os, they would refuse to allow android phone users to connect and use it the same way they lock android phones out of chromecast sharing on their fire sticks. We need more end user choices, not continuing the manufacturer silos that restrict users to a specific os or hardware that they hate.

It would be better if there was an auto os api standard This way the manufacturer can offer the same model car but with os designed by each individual car os software company, giving the end user choice of apple/android/tesla os themselves. Or a standard car os developing/deployment package so that the manufacturers software developers could design the ui themselves within the constraints of each brand of car os from Android, apple, Tesla, etc and export/deploy the design to all os variants at once from their own in house software teams. Similar to how phone app developers can design their apps for both Android and apple phones within the ui constraints of each os and deploy their one app for both os's at the same time.
 
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Google already does this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Automotive

Apple is just getting around to completely integrating themselves. Its better to have car manufacturers license software manufacturers for their car OS than do it themselves. What will suck is that will now be a deciding factor in which car brands you buy similar to how it goes now with buying a TV.

I hate roku OS.. so I specifically buy tv's with android TV OS.

I hate apple iOS and OS.. so I would hate to have my car or truck with apple iOS because I will never buy another apple phone... and they are hardline strict about having to use their hardware to connect into their ecosystem. Similarly if amazon did their own auto os, they would refuse to allow android phone users to connect and use it the same way they lock android phones out of chromecast sharing on their fire sticks. We need more end user choices, not continuing the manufacturer silos that restrict users to a specific os or hardware that they hate.

It would be better if there was an auto os api standard This way the manufacturer can offer the same model car but with os designed by each individual car os software company, giving the end user choice of apple/android/tesla os themselves. Or a standard car os developing/deployment package so that the manufacturers software developers could design the ui themselves for all available auto OS's and export/deploy the design to all os variants at once from their own in house software teams. Similar to how phone software is done on the android os platform across countless versions and phone brands.
I think you're missing what Apple is trying to do. They announced expansion of CarPlay so it shouldn't be difficult for car companies to have their own internal UI while also allowing CarPlay input from Apple iPhones to also run. CarPlay is on the iPhone with interconnection software on the vehicle. Right now CarPlay doesn't touch any vehicle OBD or computer parts, the infotainment system simply displays what's on your iPhone. Going forward, CarPlay would/might have deeper access but I still believe the majority of the capabilities are in the iPhone. Apple could, like Google/Android, provide an alternative and possible co-existing infotainment and vehicle display system. You have your preferred systems I have mine. As for an api standard, there already is one for OBD interaction as seen in my edited comment. Vehicle manufacturers are not required by law to provide access to their systems by everyone (although that might change as part of the global attempts by governments to dictate how everything based on computers operates). Apple, like Google, works with each manufacturer who wants to work with them to provide an extension of their mobile device. CarPlay upgrades are completely handled by Apple, Alpine does nothing, which can be a pain but my ILX-107 has never had a firmware upgrade, it simply provides the basic CarPlay display connection to its internal Alpine stereo capabilities. The enhanced CarPlay would also provide connections to OBD and whatever else it would need.
 

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I’m pretty sure CarPlay is just adding features to the existing CarPlay and not replacing the car OS at all. Still requires the iPhone be present and running the show.

Puts it in a weird place where the car maker has to make an OS for CarPlay or Android Auto to run atop. So a lot of cars will have 3 “OSs”. Their native “OS” which likely sucks. CarPlay and Android Auto. How do you as a car maker ensure a consistent and reliable access to features when you have to support 3 different configurations?

I get that people like their phone platforms… just not following how this makes a ton of sense from the perspective of the auto-maker. People want CarPlay for 3 reasons. #1 because that’s where their media lives. #2 because their car UI sucks. #3 because they want continuity while playing media.

I would like the car play media player on my Tesla… but that’s really it. Mapping on the Tesla is mostly fine. Nearly everything else is fine. If Apple were to make a remote media player for the iPhone that runs on Tesla it would be the best of all things IMO.
 
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From the article:
" CarPlay will be more integrated with all the host vehicle's systems. Beyond its current navigation and media consumption functionalities, Apple CarPlay will handle traditional instrumentation like speedometer, tachometer, temperature gauges and fuel or EV battery level displays. Users will be able to adjust their climate controls, activate seat heaters, monitor air quality and even tie into Apple's smart home technologies directly from the CarPlay interface."

For now, this is a relatively simple upgrade for CarPlay to access a vehicle's API and interact with its controls. That may not *seem* like a whole car OS, but I think some people are missing the point. It removes control over the vehicle's driving functions from the OEM, and hands it to Apple. It's a philosophical shift.

And, you'd have two different driving interfaces to the vehicle now. The native carOS when there is no iPhone connected, and the Apple OS when iPhone is connected. Why anyone would want this, I don't know. Imagine constantly switching back and forth between iOS and android. It would be infuriating. Not to mention, what happens to your driving display when the iPhone crashes/freezes or bluetooth hiccups? iPhones are pretty reliable, but they're not perfect.

And this isn't about Apple vs. Android, it's about whether the OEM should allow *any* other device to connect to the car and take over core driving functions. It sounds like a nightmare to me.

Tesla was smart to avoid support for carPlay. It ended up being an attempted takeover!
 

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My dad just bought a 2022 Chevy Silverado (ICE). And the operating system was heavy google. I liked that it's navigation was google maps as that is one thing google did right. But was not happy with it's Google Assistant being integrated (At least it wasn't Alexa). It still has Apple CarPlay offered, and my entire family is Apple. It's a little confusing to dad that the main map system is different than the map system when he's using apple carplay. The advantage of navigation using Carplay is that he can use the addresses and waypoints he already has in his phone. Dad is in his 70's and I'm very proud of both him and my mom for keeping up with computers, phones and technology in general. Most of their friends have flip phones etc.
 


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From the article:

…

Tesla was smart to avoid support for carPlay. It ended up being an attempted takeover!
Not sure what the article’s source is, but everything I’ve seen so far suggests CarPlay will still require an iPhone to run the show. Thus the car would have to run it’s own OS which would presumably need to be able to do all the car-things when the iPhone is not present.

So you have 2 operating systems. Which… fundamentally more than doubles the number of bugs you end up dealing with.

iOS bugs.
CarOS bugs.
Bugs with the API between the 2.
Communications issues.

Unless CarPlay is run on Apple hardware embeded on the car and there is no separate CarOS, this simply isn’t concerning to Tesla.
 

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never would I ever use Apple
That's up to you but in my opinion, which is based on decades of computer management, you're misguided. I wonder if your opinion is based on your remote location in the middle of BC. Five Apple Stores in Vancouver plus one in Kelowna doesn't help.
 

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My dad just bought a 2022 Chevy Silverado (ICE). And the operating system was heavy google. I liked that it's navigation was google maps as that is one thing google did right. But was not happy with it's Google Assistant being integrated (At least it wasn't Alexa). It still has Apple CarPlay offered, and my entire family is Apple. It's a little confusing to dad that the main map system is different than the map system when he's using apple carplay. The advantage of navigation using Carplay is that he can use the addresses and waypoints he already has in his phone. Dad is in his 70's and I'm very proud of both him and my mom for keeping up with computers, phones and technology in general. Most of their friends have flip phones etc.
Tesla’s interface is super consistent and there are easy/ fast ways to send addresses from the phone to the Tesla which is very nice. Just an example, my wife can sit in the passenger seat and search for a lunch stop. Send it to the car and the Tesla injects that address into the existing navigation as a waypoint. First time we did it, it was surprisingly smooth.

I’m not sure how this would be handled with CarPlay, but the fact that it’s slaved to 1 phone means at the very least you’d be playing pass the pickle with the phone which is controlling the car.

If CarPlay is going to compete, I don’t think the current remote control model works well. Also, as you point out, a lot of people get confused by modal interfaces. (Just ask anyone new to VI).
 
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Unless CarPlay is run on Apple hardware embeded on the car and there is no separate CarOS, this simply isn’t concerning to Tesla.
I think you nailed it here. For now, CarPlay seems to require an iPhone connected to run things. This is concerning to me for its own reasons. (Compared to Android Automotive which is an open source platform running natively on the car's hardware, and tailored by the OEM to meet the car's specific needs.) I think the end goal here for Apple (which is speculation), is that eventually CarPlay *will* be run on Apple hardware embedded on the car. Apple becomes the standard vehicle OS. *Every* car becomes the Apple Car.

I don't think this is concerning for Tesla. It simply shows how important the native carOS is. It needs to be as good as Apple's iOS. It also needs an App store, and connectivity similar to an iPhone. The future is an interesting place, and it may look more and more like Apple vs. Tesla.
 
 




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