Google beat Apple to the punch in terms of owning in-car infotainment.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple, Where is CarPlay Ultra?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Maybe but they are giving up the software to Apple. It isn't just an overlay and as they are very important functions I do t think they want to do it. Plus it'll make cars very bland as I have no doubt Apple will have rules on what you can create to keep that Apple theme, otherwise what is the point.
I think I that is why manufacturers are not using CarPlay Ultra.
The-Real-Deal82
macrumors P6
To be honest I have used CarPlay for years and its so buggy and well overdue a revamp. We are about to get a Tesla though which does not currently support CarPlay, and in truth, its not a problem. I think Apple have pretty much forced auto makers to improve their own interfaces to the point many of them are not needing to support it anyway.
MacsRgr8
macrumors G3
For car manufacturers this is simply not a high priority.
To me, I only want CarPlay for my online Maps (Waze) and Music (iTunes Library and Internet radio). No other distractions wanted during driving.
And TBH, if my car would to deliver an own UI which would offer the same Waze app and music-services, I would prefer that probably. Let a car-brand deliver its own vision of a UX.
And, of course... I want physical knobs and dials to be able adjust settings without looking.
To me, I only want CarPlay for my online Maps (Waze) and Music (iTunes Library and Internet radio). No other distractions wanted during driving.
And TBH, if my car would to deliver an own UI which would offer the same Waze app and music-services, I would prefer that probably. Let a car-brand deliver its own vision of a UX.
And, of course... I want physical knobs and dials to be able adjust settings without looking.
con2apple
macrumors 6502a
kernel_panic
macrumors newbie
This! There's been a huge backlash from consumers because auto manufacturers are trying to be too clever with their infotainment systems. It shouldn't take 2 or 3 taps to turn on a heated seat – just press a physical button. Some techie consumers understand (and expect) everything to be controlled by the infotainment system when buying something like a Tesla, but the average consumer prefers physical buttons in their car.
!!!
macrumors 65816
I think the only time you'd set and forget climate controls is if you live somewhere like Hawaii, where the weather stays more or less the same all year. I don't live in Hawaii, so I need to regularly adjust my AC. Not sure what other buttons you'd be referring to.
Personally, I'd prefer my dashboard look slightly "cluttered" than my car and body parts cluttering the streets.
diamond.g
macrumors G5
All these buttons!
We also need the blanks so that we know we didn't purchase all the options possible.
tennisproha
macrumors 68020
zarmanto
macrumors 65816
First off, I agree with you that there are certainly strong use cases for some physical buttons in automotive interfaces. However, I'm not convinced that your choice of use cases for your example of that necessity is quite as strong as you assert.
I do not live in Hawaii, but rather in a slightly more cantankerous region, where the common wisdom day-to-day is, "The weather simply can't make up its mind." My car can be baking in the sun one day, and covered in frost only a few days later. And yet, unlike you, I find that I can leave my climate control alone the vast majority of the time.
I could be mistaken... but I suspect the difference is that my 2017 Outback has an actual climate control system... where I can set it to a comfortable temperature and press the "Auto" button and the car heats or cools appropriately whether it's cold or hot outside, usually bringing the interior somewhere close to that target within about two to ten minutes, depending on the weather. Really, the only time I ever need to adjust those settings is when I'm changing them back. It honestly boggles my mind whenever a family member drives my car and cranks the temperature to "LO" or "90" in a futile attempt to get the temperature changed faster... because that never actually works. But I digress.
Your comment that you need to regularly adjust your air conditioner suggests to me that either you are of a similar mindset as my family members, (in which case, why??) or perhaps your car simply isn't as sophisticated as that -- which would be fine and all, except that's simply not the type of car that you'd find with CarPlay Ultra in the first place, and likely not even standard CarPlay. Note that my car also doesn't have CarPlay, (it's a mere one year too old) but it's also not exactly what most people would classify as a "luxury vehicle"... and yet, it does have a temperature based climate control, and all of the "physical" buttons are actually interfaces to a digital system.
That is the target baseline for CarPlay integration; the system is already digital, and the settings can be adjusted automatically by a well programmed control system. And in fact, my wife's 2023 Subaru Ascent -- which does have CarPlay -- is, I think, a good example of minimizing physical controls to the most frequently used bits while offloading other controls to the digital interface... even if Subaru hasn't yet migrated their digital interface into CarPlay, per se, but rather, rolled their own and wrapped it around CarPlay. Compare:
An older Subaru on the left, and a newer Subaru on the right.
(Oh, the irony, that both of the representative images I could find are set to "LO"... sigh.)
Thus, I would suggest that your argument in favor of physical controls isn't quite as universally applicable to the specific use case you cited. (An argument could also easily be made for discarding those blue and red physical temperature buttons... but perhaps I've made this comment too long already, so I'll leave that alone.)
zarmanto
macrumors 65816
True enough -- but if a car shopper is specifically looking for a car with CarPlay (and statistics suggest that's a lot of people) then odds are they'd consider the difference you cite to be a positive rather than a negative. Carmakers may or may not see things the same way... but quite frankly, if they're not thinking first and foremost about what shoppers actually want to buy, than maybe it's about time that those carmakers consider reevaluating their priorities.
Not trying to defend the carmakers here but may be they are inspired by the App Store 😊
Exactly. This is awful design. it's almost like they said "fill up all of this space with buttons, we don't care what they do.. it just needs to be symmetrical.
100%. Also there is the open source base layer AOSP, which Auto makers like Rivian use and build their own customer interface on top, they do use Google Automotive Services, so they don't have to license anything from Google, and google doesn't get their data.
Apple would never allow that, they want to control everything.
!!!
macrumors 65816
I don't adjust the temperature much, but I do adjust the fan speed, as I do get a bit tired of hearing it after a while, and of course I turn it back up as needed. Auto doesn't care about my comfort, and it often seems to disable air circulation. Past that, I've seen cars where you have to jump through the screens to adjust the ventilated seats. Absolutely insane.
The only concession I'll have is that the different audio source and "tab" (for lack of a better term, think phone/nav/audio/etc) buttons are quite useless, If I'm already going to be touching the screen it might as well be on there. But for controls where I just need to hit something once, while driving, it's far safer for me to glace down for 1/4 of a second and then be able to feel where the button or knob is.
I've seen some cars where the controls are in a in-between state, still physically laid out yet they are not real buttons, but touch-sensitive, sometimes with haptic feedback. This is similarly frustrating, as merely touching it starts messing with things, so you end up having to look down and guide your hand precisely.
Volume, next/prev track, fan speed, AC on/off, recirculation, direction, and seat controls are all functions which must remain easily accessible while driving. I assume those who live in cold climates would want the window defroster buttons to be similarly accessible.
I'd just like to end this with a comparison to a failed Apple invention, the touch bar. I can adjust my MacBook's volume, brightness, or keyboard brightness without looking down at the keyboard.
You can take a look at various Cadillac models, a few years ago they decided to go all in on the capacitive buttons and now they've walked almost all of that back. (I wouldn't recommend buying a cadillac tho). Audi currently seems to be struggling with this, they've decided that shoving a second screen below the main screen and just permanelty displaying the controls is the way to go. Toyota and Honda have kept good physical controls. Mercedes and BMW are some of the worst offenders, and their systems are particularly gimmicky.
Last edited:
Mr_Ed
macrumors 68000
I am not a fan of CP Ultra but I've said previously manufacturers should still provide plain old CarPlay for this very reason. You can still have some connected services and navigation even after the manufacturer drops support, or after whatever communication tech was used by the vehicle's telematics sunsets (as we saw with 2G, for example).
I just wish Apple would improve the reliability CarPlay before they try to sell CarPlay Ultra. When CarPlay (via voice) fails to do what you ask, it effectively does the opposite of "reducing distractions" while driving. Over time, I've used it less and less because it was so unreliable finding music I asked for while driving, especially when it was music already physically loaded on the phone. I used Plexamp for a while and that was better, but still had occasional hiccups. I've recently resorted to putting my music on a USB thumb drive and asking my car (not Siri) for music and so far it's way more reliable than CarPlay ever was.
Mr_Ed
macrumors 68000
Well said. You've touched on a lot of the details people ignore when they argue in favor of touch screen controls for everything. Some models simply have more equipment, functionality, and/or more complex functionality (with more options) than others, which logically necessitates more interface points for control.
I regularly switch driving modes (sport-multiple options, comfort, eco-multiple options, etc.) and while I can switch it via voice, I still like using the buttons some times and it would be a PITA to deal with a screen for that.
The climate system in the vehicle combined with prevailing conditions also affects how much or how little you make those adjustments. Where I live I might adjust climate systems while driving in the summer on sunny days, where at night or in cloudy/rainy weather I might not do so as much. And the passenger should not require the infotainment screen to adjust their side of the cabin. Similarly with various heaters and seat ventilation systems.