Sure, I get it. I recently tried to use Maps in a place where the cell system was totally slammed and it timed out. Had to get away from that area before it loaded my route. I would not have been able to make a phone call, either.
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New Car Buyers Increasingly Interested in Apple CarPlay
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Sure, I get it. I recently tried to use Maps in a place where the cell system was totally slammed and it timed out. Had to get away from that area before it loaded my route. I would not have been able to make a phone call, either.
I’m stubborn and I bet I could find a way to get CarPlay working for you. Again you may not have fuel economy and xyz. So if that matters to you then you’d lose that. I’m confident there’s a way to get the backup camera going As well as steering wheel control. Beyond that, it’s all frill to me lol.
We have a 2014 rav4 and there’s “lovely” metrics about oil life, tire pressure, lifetime fuel economy, and etc. it’s a clunky system and I couldn’t give two ***** about all of that data. It’s not going to make your driving or the life of the car any better overall, so I put literally zero value into any of it.
Also I wasn’t so much responding to the article as people here stating they are choosing cars based on whether they have CarPlay in them from the manufacturer. That’s just... wild.
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I test drove a lot of "mid-size crossovers" in search of my car. Honestly - they're all within a few percentage points of each other in every regular car metric. Subaru Forester, Toyota Rav4, Honda CRV, Hyundai Santa-Fe Sport, Ford Escape in the regular tier, and Audi Q5, BMW X3, Lexus RX, Mercedes GLC, Acura RDX, Lincoln MKC, Volvo XC60 in the luxury tier. They're all the essentially the same. Nearly all of them have some approx 2-liter turbocharged engine, because that is the peak bang/buck/efficiency engine these days. They all have some version of all wheel drive. They all look different of course, but in terms of driving dynamics - hardly any difference.
The only differences are interior amenities and safety gadgets. So of course people will shop those things.
I have a 2018 Countryman with Carplay and the Maps is my favorite feature! It automatically will pull my info and setup a route based on the info (like go to work, or go home, etc) and you can quickly dismiss it if that's not what you actually want, which is nice...
Overall, my system is great! Wireless, fast and starts up as soon as I get in the car. The only issue I have had was with Spotify, where it would have some playback issues (just randomly, not all the time), but all the Apple apps have worked great!
Being a car lover, I've driven a lot of vehicles. It seems that you can find negative opinions about every car infotainment system.
-my most recent experiences
I was interested in a Mazda 6. I found it to be a great vehicle, and didn't hate the infotainment system (no carplay), which had bad reviews.
My Ford's Sync 2 system usually works. But, it can be slow, and has connection issues periodically(requiring me to restart the vehicle).
I came so close to purchasing a Chevy SS. I love that vehicle, but couldn't commit to the purchase. It doesn't have carplay, and that was a definite factor.
I rented a Chevy (malibu or something) this summer that had carplay, and I really enjoyed the integration.
A family member got a 4Runner this summer. It is a great vehicle in a lot of ways. But, I hate the fact that Toyota will not use carplay. I've owned several Toyotas, but probably will not get another because they don't support carplay.
I'll likely acquire a new vehicle in the next 6 months; it will have carplay.
-my most recent experiences
I was interested in a Mazda 6. I found it to be a great vehicle, and didn't hate the infotainment system (no carplay), which had bad reviews.
My Ford's Sync 2 system usually works. But, it can be slow, and has connection issues periodically(requiring me to restart the vehicle).
I came so close to purchasing a Chevy SS. I love that vehicle, but couldn't commit to the purchase. It doesn't have carplay, and that was a definite factor.
I rented a Chevy (malibu or something) this summer that had carplay, and I really enjoyed the integration.
A family member got a 4Runner this summer. It is a great vehicle in a lot of ways. But, I hate the fact that Toyota will not use carplay. I've owned several Toyotas, but probably will not get another because they don't support carplay.
I'll likely acquire a new vehicle in the next 6 months; it will have carplay.
And then of course there are folks like my wife and I who would LOVE to have our 2015/16 UConnect systems upgraded to include CarPlay. I'd even pay for the upgrade... but that's never going to happen. Greedy ******s.
Didn't read 8 pages worth of comments, but some brands like BMW are so ludicrous and stingy that you cannot simply add on car play for 300 without adding their navigation system first. So carplay ends up costing you 2000.
That is just absolutely nuts.
That is just absolutely nuts.
I really wanted to do this as I got sick of waiting for Mazda too but don't want to dish out the cost...I tried installing a magnet phone holder but the vinyl dash will not let anything stick on it.
Fair enough man. I’m sure you made the best decision for you. Nothing I’ve said should be taken personally. If you made your choice in the factors that matter most to you, at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.
For what it’s worth we chose the rav4 because it’s been my wife’s “dream car” since she was a teen lol. I totally get choosing a car for stupid reasons. I’d have gone with a small truck, especially since we just bought a house; fuel economy is similar while being able to haul a lot more and have a lesser depreciation.
We didn’t test drive nearly as many as you but I felt the Ford Escape handled like garbage compared to the rav4 in the snow. Acceleration was more sluggish. Pricing was also different. We actually went to ford first because we had a fiesta before that which we absolutely loved. It’s just not conducive to driving your family around. We have a second in the way now so the SUV versus sedan (or even truck) decision was probably the right one.
At the end of the day people are going to find value wherever they find value. Some of those are in the infotainment system. I’ll forever find that to be bizarre, but not any worse than my wife’s decision making Hahahaha.
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It really needs an offline mode to truly replace the dash though, sort of like what Google Maps is able to offer now. Since I live out west any road trip I take will have regions of no signal, forcing me to switch to the car's GPS when Apple Maps starts to gag.
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I purchased a VW Jetta with Apple CarPlay and specifically looked for that feature since I didn't want to shell out the bucks for navigation and Apple Music is way better than Sirius for music. Apple Maps has improved dramatically. Four years ago when I moved into a new development, it took Apple almost two years to update Maps where it wouldn't tell you to "be prepared to walk" when you turned onto our street but Google had it within a few months.
We moved into another new development that's even further out of the city last year and within a few months Maps was updated. But Google Maps doesn't know it yet. And now with lane guidance and speed limit signs Apple Maps has been very useful. One cool enhancement that I would love to see is to overlay weather radar of precipitation like in an aircraft.
I too wish Waze would work or that a social component could be added so at least major things could be reported.
We moved into another new development that's even further out of the city last year and within a few months Maps was updated. But Google Maps doesn't know it yet. And now with lane guidance and speed limit signs Apple Maps has been very useful. One cool enhancement that I would love to see is to overlay weather radar of precipitation like in an aircraft.
I too wish Waze would work or that a social component could be added so at least major things could be reported.
Another frustration: I’m listening to Sirius XM (radio, not the app). Then I get a phone call. After the call ends, CarPlay immediately starts to play a random song from my iPhone instead of going back to satellite radio.
Well the map is wrong all the time, good luck with carplay showing you a road but actually a cliff
CarPlay does show cover art. Its darkened a bit as background, but its definitely there. I didn't see it until I adjusted my screen on my head unit, and then saw it was there the whole time.
Nope, though any ride sharing or subscription model will work for me, don’t care for the company name running the service as long as it keeps safety as it’s top priority.
Can only say for Volvo, but it costs $250 extra, not 2500.
[doublepost=1508311362][/doublepost]Hoping Airplay over wireless will catch on soon (and hopefully be available through a software upgrade to cars that have wifi). CarPlay is nice, but having to pull out the phone and plug it in every time is a bit of a drag.
Does anyone have any experience with the generic aftermarket CarPlay units? I've seen them on eBay and am tempted to try one in my 2004 Honda Element. It's got 160,000 miles, so I don't want to sink the cost of a name-brand unit into it, but the $130 to $160 I've seen the generics go for seems reasonable, if they're any good. I figure the car has another three to five years of life in it.
It may be different now that they added it with the update, but not having any lane info in the navigation was absolutely terrible. My 5 year old Nav system in my Audi has that, and does it REALLY well. I'm paying "double", but my Audi imbedded Nav has its own T-mobile connection, so it's always updated with Google Earth, has real time traffic and routing, and pulls contacts in from my phone via Bluetooth, so if I want to go anywhere, I can just add it to my contacts and then poof, I can nav to it. It was a very expensive option though (back in 2013), so I was comparing my wife's 2017 car which had the embedded Nav included with the trim level at no extra cost.
Yes, the car has built-in LTE/4G so it's grabbing the latest from Google Earth as you go. It can also update the built-in satnav maps over the air. Interestingly it doesn't actually use routing from Google Earth - it does it's routing and guidance internally, it just uses Google Earth as an overlay. It does Streetview, too - quite useful for seeing what your destination looks like.
Well, I have been using it almost daily since the middle of August and I haven't had a problem yet... But it doesn't matter what I say, you're just going to crap all over the maps anyway, so good luck with that!
Well, I have been using it almost daily since the middle of August and I haven't had a problem yet... But it doesn't matter what I say, you're just going to crap all over the maps anyway, so good luck with that!
I used CarPlay for about 2 years and only had a couple of cases that the map was completely wrong because of new construction. One of them ironically was my doctor's office, and its been over a year and its still not on the map. So in general, for me, AppleMaps was OK. But I prefer Google Maps, or Waze if there is traffic.