I wouldn't ditch Porsche's theme for that generic iOS look.
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Apple Confirms Next-Generation CarPlay Launching in 2024, Reveals New Features in iOS 17.4 Beta
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Next-gen CarPlay looks nice and I'd like to have it in a future car. However will the standard CarPlay also receive a facelift or improved feature set as well? Or will that remain exactly the same as it is today?
And GM is ditching Apple CarPlay…dumb. Wouldn’t even consider a vehicle without, especially reading about these upcoming features.
I suspect that these won't be apps that you'd be expected to be manually switching between, but more system- and widget-driven. For example, you go into reverse and the system opens the reversing camera app; a widget showing a low tyre pressure warning appears on the UI, you tap it and it opens the tyre pressure app showing you more detail. It just seems like a way to make CarPlay more modular to suit whatever sensors each manufacturer chooses to expose to it in an effort to keep the OS itself as lean as possible, whilst ensuring there's less need to constantly switch between CarPlay and the native system depending on what you want to do or what the system needs to display.
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You've made an error in your judgment here. Apple are merely providing software climate controls for cars that don't feature hardware controls. How Apple might address this problem in their own car remains unanswered at this point.
The best design compromise I have found would be solid feeling dampened dual-zone multi-faction steel dials. They provide tactility for setting the power of a feature while keeping the interior minimal. Pressing the dials could switch between different functions. As a bonus both dials could feature front surface displays showing what feature the dials are currently set to. For example, the dial could feature an image of a seat with 1 to 3 bars lit up red for heated seating, and the dials could feature a large digital temperature reading for car temp.
The dials could also be reflected on the main display to tell driver or passenger at a glance even without looking at the dial displays to see where things are at.
There are solutions to keep EVs simple and minimal while providing some physical controls for everyday non-infotainment functions.
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Not to break protocol and follow up on my own post, but I suppose another way to frame this is, just as CarPlay is analogous to Android Auto, what would be ideal here is for Next Generation CarPlay (or, if not, then some other Apple thing not announced yet) to essentially evolve into the analog to Android Automotive:
What is Android Automotive? | Android Open Source Project
source.android.com
Ironically, a vehicle running Android Automotive can happily also support CarPlay. So maybe that'd become a stickling point since Apple probably isn't going to want to play nice like that.
All of this, incidentally, reminds me of this (pretty well written, IMHO) article:
Automakers had their chance, it's time to let Apple fix terrible car software
Apple announced two new partners for its next-generation CarPlay platform this week — Porsche and Aston Martin. The latter, a...electrek.co
I think the success of Android Automotive has been limited, judging by the amount of owners of Android Automotive cars calling out for Android Auto support (it's the manufacturer's decision). Whist the theory behind Android Automotive is good, it effectively means that every Android Automotive change for your vehicle, like simply adding support for one ready-to-go third-party app, requires interaction between both Google and your vehicle manufacturer which makes things move at a glacial pace (e.g. it's taken some manufacturers two years to get Waze on Android Automotive). And that lack of momentum makes third party devs reluctant to tweak their apps for Android Automotive, sort of the way Windows Mobile died. Whilst I think some of this is typical of Google's long history of quickly losing interest in its own products, I think Apple will have noticed that the degree of control manufactures will demand for an embedded UI will still be a challenge to offering an embedded system that they (Apple) owns and controls to the degree they'd want.
Now Apple seem to have lowered or delayed their ambitions when it comes to an Apple car, I do think they'll focus more on this eventual end-game, having a in-car infotainment system that they can license to manufacturers but still have majority control over, but I think that's still a few years off. In the meantime, I think they'll continue to mature CarPlay as a product as something that runs on an iPhone as its popularity will be important when they come to pitch the proposition of an embedded solution. Plus, it also helps keep iPhone users who use CarPlay in the fold and potentially encourages other people to switch to iPhones if they see it as a superior solution to Android Auto.
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All the sample Apple instrument cluster UIs are ugly to me. I hope that part’s optional
No error in judgement or misunderstanding. Apple are providing a feature that is not safe. It doesn't matter if tactile buttons still exist, Apple is providing the option for them not to exist, and/or for a touch screen to be used instead.
Realistically, if a car were being designed for safety all touch screen functions should be disabled when a vehicle is in motion, because they inherently require a driver to take their eyes off the road. A car driving at 100kph (typical highway speed) is moving at 28 metres per second. If someone takes their eyes off the road for 3.5 seconds, that's 100m that they've traveled without seeing what is ahead of them.
Driver assist features are a safety back-up system, not a second driver that takes over when a driver is doing something dumb like changing the temperature in the car using a touch screen.
BMW and other manufacturers put touch controls in some cars, and then moved back to physical dash/steering wheel controls in the very next model for exactly this reason. Using touch controls in a car is the same as using a phone while driving - it's now the largest single cause of accidents.
Tesla are the only ones that never seemed to figure this out, which probably explains why every Tesla driver appears to be doing their best Helen Keller impression when they get behind the wheel.
If the climate controls have physical buttons, then great. CarPlay still needs to display that information. The apps communicate with the car, so however the car can update climate, CarPlay should respond.
The one thing we want from CarPlay is to integrate charging and charging planning for trips in Maps. To be honest, everything else is working just fine in my car and does not need any "reinvention".
I am assuming you will be able to say, Siri set the temp to 70 degrees?
That does not make it better. Cars already let you use voice commands and no one does.
Thye have - one that has worked for many years. Designers love to make things look cool and flashy that are an absolute pain to actually use, safely, in a moving vehicle or other settings.
I'd add the tactile feedback should be different for all theree knobs, much like in an a/c where you can tell what the knob does by feel. Make one indent positive, one a bump, and the none on the other. That way you can tell by feel what you are changing. Put the knob with no indent or bump in the center so it provides a further tactile spatial clue.
Calculating route to Temp Two 70. Would you like to call to reserve a table?
The climate one is there because I'm assuming your car has heating and AC. If your car has buttons then it would be display only and you would still control your climate with those, if your car doesn't have buttons then you will control it with the touch controls.
The manufacturer figured out how to do it without CarPlay and Apple figured out how to do it with CarPlay.
OK, I see where you're coming from, but I'd argue that with the current implementation of CarPlay (which doesn't support climate control), typically if a driver of a vehicle with touch screen controls wants to adjust the temperature, then they would have to move from the CarPlay interface to the car's native interface, adjust the temperature, then switch back to CarPlay - that's a lot of distraction and potential eyes-off-road time. Compare that to what's being offered here: with the controls built in to the CarPlay interface. So whilst the nature of the risk (introduced by the manufacturers opting for no physical controls) remains, maybe here Apple are actually reducing the level of risk involved in the interaction. Of course drivers shouldn't allow themselves to be distracted, but effective safety is built about what people really do, rather than what they should do.
In the case where physical buttons do exist, manufactures would, like any other sensor or control, have the option to expose it or not to CarPlay, so they're still in control of how the driver interacts with the car.
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Arguing they are unsafe is worth talking about, but Apple has zero control over which makers add them or not. They could stubbornly refuse to add them, but I don't know what good that would do because then the car makers would add their own. Ultimately I believe authority bodies should regulate auto safety standards, not manufacturers. Indicator turn-signal stalks should be compulsory, for example. Tesla ones are unsafe when they are upside-down. Safety aside, I personally hate touch screen HVAC controls. Temperature dials are a significantly nicer experience. Temperature switches/paddles are not as nice as dials either.
You're being sarcastic, but your car is not obsolete. As a general rule buy the car you want now, not what might be promised in the future. You car is way nicer than mine.
I agree; where I live it appears must drivers did not purchase that option for their car.
Also, though, consumers decide what they want. That’s why so many newer cars with massive touch screens still have physical climate controls. Some of the arguments I’ve read here seem dumb. When I turn the knob for AC, where does the temperature actually display? Surely, I don’t have to look at the touchscreen or CarPlay widget (for very long) to read back the temperature I set on a physical dial. So many disingenuous takes…