Ford helped develop SmartDeviceLink yet they're now choosing to deploy CarPlay and Android Auto in their own cars starting this year. I guess Toyota's execs weren't smart enough to put two and two together there. If I had been Toyota, the second I heard that Ford had chosen another platform, I would've cancelled this announcement.
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Toyota Chooses SmartDeviceLink Over CarPlay and Android Auto
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Lol.. If your city is full of potholes.. Stay away from the RAV4... Horrible ride when bumpy. Love the mileage though
Not really dumb if there is an alternative car you also like that supports it. CarPlay and Android Auto are just like any other feature that can be used to differentiate.
Not when you have been shopping for cars that have similar quality and dependability and one of the standout features is seamless integration with the rest of your digital life without having to learn another horrible distracting interface in your car. I will not buy a new car that does not support CarPlay.
I don't need either of these because I live in NYC and have no use for car culture. Trains are the future.
I am missing something. Why do folks like Ford have a Sync platform that then bolts on CarPlay. And why would they then have a separate system for Toyota. I understand that there are other features that dontwalkhand points out that require CAN integration, but I thought that was what CarPlay was all about not just an App that rides on the AutoMakers system. Does anyone have significant knowledge about this topic to explain all the layers going on here?
Thanks!
Thanks!
It's not a radio anymore. It's an infotainment system. When it sucks, it sucks hard. Some systems I have played with make absolutely no sense. Some are much better. However, what's better than an interface everyone knows and loves? Carplay/Android Auto. A platform everyone knows and you're familiar with.
I am shopping around for a car in the next year or so and Carplay is up on my list. If a car does not have it or won't have it soon, I won't buy that brand. It's been out for a few years and they keep pushing it back or making excuses. Enough already.
In the Tri-State Area, you're correct about trains. They are far from the future outside that area, however. Most of the rest of the country is lucky if they have local or regional train service at all. For many, their only option for a train is Amtrak; and those folks can consider it a good day if their Amtrak trains are within an hour or two of being on time. It's a whole different world outside New York City.
I know what you mean. I owned a 2010 RAV4 Limited and it rattled like hell. The build quality is questionable. Traded it in for a 2014 Highlander XLE. Entune isn't bad but could be a lot better.
Agreed. Traditional car audio and device integration systems are so bad that CarPlay is something I would actually seek and be willing to pay more for. I don't consider it an absolute necessity considering all the other important factors one should consider but if there were two or three similar choices and one had CarPlay I would almost certainly go with the CarPlay equiped one.
Yeah I think Ford are large enough they can afford to run with a few systems for now. They also know not everyone are iPhone users and a certain percentage of people might actually be turned off by an Apple designed system. That said I'm sure they'll monitor how the CarPlay models perform and if they do well compared to the others I'm sure they'll consider expanding its use.
Tell me about it. I took a light rail train to the New Years Eve celebration which was fine for getting there. Going home...it was AN HOUR LATE. I didn't get home until 4AM. By the way- service is supposed to be every 15 minutes. Public transit sucks in Arizona. Am I for more trains? Yes. Do the trains in Arizona suck in their current form, hell yes.
I probably won't have car play in my car until about 2035 anyway. My current car is a 2005 pilot with 217k miles on it plan on driving it until it's dead. Then will probably get a 2010 car. By the time I get a car with carplay, I won't have a phone that is compatible with it. I am probably 2 to 3 cars away from having carplay.
This, especially as nowadays there are aftermarket solutions and Toyota might have the car you need for a lot less than competitors even after accounting for the aftermarket CarPlay nav unit.
Oh well...
Heh, indeed. You'd think for a country as huge as the States you'd find decent long-distance and regional travel options that aren't subject to traffic jams on highways... (oh and, let's not even talk about bus service in the US...)
Glassed Silver:mac
I would have to disagree. With the money a car cost, the large selection out there, and the fact that most people keep a car for years, people should be picky on what they get.
Just plain dumb. Toyotas are good cars, but people really do care about infotainment systems nowadays, and the incumbent automakers have demonstrated time and again that they are utter failures when it comes to good electronics integration. Leave it to the pros like Google and Apple, and focus on the cars themselves. Why waste so much effort on yet another infotainment system (which is bound to be terrible). They are going to miss out on a new generation of car buyers who will look at electronics systems before they look at horsepower and torque.
Not just rattle, my wife's Rav 4 is having excessive engine oil consumption problem.
Toyota said they can't find out the reason behind it except taking out the engine itself and open it up, which will cost $2000 just for the investigation.
I honestly don't know why people even buy Toyota in first place, most of their cars are freaking terrible lately.
Lexus infotainment system is a complete abomination too.
I'm not an industry expert. I see it as pretty smart how the auto industry is slowly adopting CP/AA and still developing their own systems. I also think it's damn smart to have CP/AA as phone extensions that ride (pun intended?) on the car makers system. Their systems integrate with critical functionality. CP/AA should not have that type of integration, imo.
Why they still make their own?
1. They realize that vast majority of car buyers don't care about CP/AA. It's too new. Heck, even on tech savvy sites like MR a lot of people still don't actually know what CP is and what it does and does not do. The number of people who want a car to have CP/AA vs the number of people who want a car is pretty small... right now. Since it's basically an overlay, they can give people CP/AA and still have their own for those who don't care. Choice is a good thing.
2. Update issues. The auto industry doesn't change the way the tech industry does. How many times over the life of a car will CP/AA be updated? How will those updates affect the function of the system? How will those updates be implemented? USB drive from a dealership? from home via iTunes? wireless update via phone? What if an update borks the system. Several iOS/Android updates did that to mobile devices recently. That's annoying on a phone, but potentially dangerous on a car.
3. Continued improvement. They all have their own ideas about what makes a good system. Not every idea is a good one. Like any industry, they borrow what works from their competitors and add it to what they already have. The industry moves forward. Just like they're going to look at CP/AA and see what works with those systems. They'll take what they consider to be "the good" and leave the bad and the ugly.
But buying some of the third party audio units don't support the features of the stock units, like theft deterence, integration with other features, etc, or fit in certain custom dash configurations.
Plus adding a 'generic' unit just blows in many other ways too...
Not supporting a 'standard' isn't unheard of, but they also know that people usually live with what they have in the car at time of purchase. I have replaced some of the units in cars I've had, but they were older and very basic units that had little or no 'features' to begin with. One was in a Mercedes that had a powered sub-woofer that was hard to hookup so that it actually worked and didn't distort the sound from the new unit I was installing. The unit also required an expensive custom wire adapter kit to function.
Some brands, and even specific models, don't have the need for those adapter kits to make a company want to produce them. We've got an old and tragically reliable Lexus that has a really funky dashboard, AND no adapter kits, and NO desire for them. There is almost no way to get an upgraded unit in that car unless we want it to look like it was done by an eight year-old...
Me personally? There are other things I value more in a car than the "infotainment system" or whatever whizbang term it's called these days. But for some people, it's a big deal... because when it sucks, it sucks bad. I can completely understand why someone would want a car that has a system that works seamlessly with their phone, as it helps you focus more on driving and less on your phone- whether it's CarPlay or Android Auto. There's nothing "sheepish" about it.
This would be my #1 reason for not getting CP/AA. People are holding onto cars for 10+ years on average. I'm not sure how long 2016 CP/AA will be supported. I mean, will the i Phone 12S+ from 2026 still work with your 2016 FiST?