Apple's CarPlay Ultra to Expand to These Vehicle Brands Later This Year

[MarkNewton2023]

Why are Toyota and Lexus, Honda and Acura, Subaru and Volvo excluded? I am just wondering 🤔

 

[NetMage]

Look at that screen. What a mess. Clearly, Apple hasn’t gotten the memo about drivers preferring real buttons and switches.

Do you still wish you could buy a Blackberry?

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

If only car manufacturers moved as fast as Apple…

 

[Biro]

Do you still wish you could buy a Blackberry?

No. You?

 

[CarAnalogy]

I suppose Apple can still call the next gen Car Play "Supreme" since they called this one "Ultra" 🙂.

It will be interesting when marketing runs out of names.

You start over calling things "One" again. They did it decades ago when 2000 stopped sounding futuristic. They did the same thing with graphics cards once they got to power level over 9000. Etc.

 

[W2u7Yw4HaD]

Look at that screen. What a mess. Clearly, Apple hasn’t gotten the memo about drivers preferring real buttons and switches.

Euro NCAP testing is removing 1 star from their usual 5 star rating unless a certain set of buttons are real.... So lets hope that changes some minds.. A balance needs to be struck here...

 

[jaytv111]

Why are Toyota and Lexus, Honda and Acura, Subaru and Volvo excluded? I am just wondering 🤔

Toyota, Lexus, and Subaru declined and weren’t part of the original Carplay Ultra list of manufacturers.

Honda and Acura were on the original list but made no public comment about deploying it.

Volvo also was on the original list, and made no public comment about deploying it, but it’s rumored they moved towards not deploying it. They instead are moving towards Google and they will have the first car with Gemini built in.

 

[Osxguy]

I do love tech.. but driving down the road and trying to some how fumble with a digital dongle or switch or anything is so dangerous.

We've all had those siri fights after asking it ten times to call so and so.. finally we give up.. do the illegal thing grab our iPhone ... fumble and open up the phone app and tap on favorites and try and tap on the correct one.

Especially if you are trying to navigate the bumpy crowded stop and go traffic of the ugh Bay Area.. as I so often begrudgingly do. Dodging pot holes, teslas and Patagonia wearing tech bros while trying to call mom..

of course I should have just stopped pulled over onto the side of 280 and pushed the button but getting back onto that freeway during rush hour.. forget it..

so. the moral of this post is .. unless siri gets better (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah) trying to adjust the temperature of the car with the car play isn't happening..

Also please for all that is right in this world make that screen bigger..

ok off of soap box.. and can't wait for the fan boy comments...
(trust me corp america does not care about you so why do you fight for it so much when it is so horrible...)

 

[Oberhorst]

Porsche is also gonna adapt CarPlay Ultra.

 

[ifxf]

I want my cars to have more physical buttons not CarPlay or the car manufacturer sticking them several layers deep on a touchscreen.

 

[contacos]

I am surprised it's even allowed to have this many on screen functionalities on a car dashboard. Seems distracting

 

[xxFoxtail]

After my Bolt kicks the bucket, I was looking at the Ioniq being a potential next car (next to an Equinox EV or Model Y). I’d love to have CarPlay Ultra in the next car. This will probably be ten years down the road though, so who knows.

 

[anakin44011]

Given how pleased everyone on MacRumors has been over the Creator Studio icons, I think Apple should take it even farther and rewrite all the icons for every CarPlay app. That way, we can all be additionally distracted trying to figure out which app is which.

Then they should paint it all with glass, glass, and more glass...and overly rounded corners.

I'm starting to think that Apple should just hire me as my ideas are just killing it recently.

Oh, I almost forgot the obligatory 😜😜 so the dimly lit 'thumbs-down' people can better recognize sarcasm.

 

[riverguide]

I suppose Apple can still call the next gen Car Play "Supreme" since they called this one "Ultra" 🙂.

It will be interesting when marketing runs out of names.

Had they not skipped CarPlay “Pro”, there could have been a few more years before marketing runs out of labels 😊

 

[riverguide]

Eventually, there will be so many CarPlay functions that only the windshield can display them all and we will be viewing the road on a screen in the dashboard.

 

[riverguide]

Maybe not?
The goal is obviously to be able to control the car through NuSiri, so that instead of fiddling with physical controls (or a tap screen) you can say something like "make the car a little warmer".

Now obviously there are many ways one can complain about this. There are the usual boring complaints (sometimes well founded, often not) about existing Siri. There are (IMHO) a better set of complaints around Siri being too slow, so yes you can do things but they feel clumsy and take twice as long. A similar set of complaints is that (for current Siri) you have to remember the correct term for some functionality, so you might have to say something like "switch on recirculation mode" rather than "stop the smell from outside the car".

I think the significance of this change by so many brands might be that Apple, with NuSiri, is showing that most of these types of complaints have gone away. If the system is a lot more accurate, can do a lot more, can understand vague and imprecise speech (courtesy of an LLM) and is much faster (courtesy of a LOCAL LLM) then it becomes much less frustrating.
Perhaps these car brands were not willing to give up control (eg of AC) to the performance of oldSiri on an A19, but have been much more impressed with demos of NuSiri running on an A20?

In my experience, oldSiri has been particularly unreliable in CarPlay. I have no hope that this will change with NuSiri.

 

[diblasio]

You know that thing no one wants? Well no one is getting it! 🥹

 

[riverguide]

Looking at these 2 illustrations and the amount of info potentially having to be processed or competing for attention, I am not sure anymore what’s more dangerous while driving: interacting with dashboard displays or texting.

 

[jmay]

No. Google built-in sucks and this is just Apple's version. Mom got a 2025 Volvo and it's horrible. HVAC controls need to be hardware!

 

[diblasio]

Bruh if you are driving while trying to manage three separately air conditioned sections (touch screen or not) you kinda get what you deserve.

 

[I7guy]

Look at that screen. What a mess. Clearly, Apple hasn’t gotten the memo about drivers preferring real buttons and switches.

While my car has a screen, I’m okay with no buttons.

 

[Biro]

While my car has a screen, I’m okay with no buttons.

That’s fine. But studies done by the automakers reveal you are in a distinct minority.

 

[I7guy]

That’s fine. But studies done by the automakers reveal you are in a distinct minority.

That’s the issue. The legacy automakers have a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[riverguide]

I don’t care about “… Ultra features deeper integration with a vehicle's instrument cluster and systems …”.

I want CarPlay AI.

I want it to be able, for example, to alert me “you are currently in a 40 mph zone moving at 36 mph. Increase your speed by 3 mph to reach the next intersection before the light turns yellow”

 

[TriBruin]

If only car manufacturers moved as fast as Apple…

When you phone OS crashes, at worst you drop a phone call. if the OS in your car crashes, well you car may crash. Cars are now a hodgepodge of independent systems, from infotainment, HVAC, energy management, etc. I think VW once said there are over 20 independent systems running in their EVs. Now, add complexity to integrate ALL those system in to a fancy interface that Apple provides.

Much like any other life critical systems, companies can't just make changes. Plus autos are planned and built over several years. They don't just pivot at a single notice.