As an ex automotive infotainment engineer, I’m glad that I will not be helping to integrate this! If they get it right, it will be awesome, but I doubt that there’s much appetite for it from automakers.
Could easily be retrofit to old cars if car manufacturers actually cared about buyers and did firmware updates 😑
I expect that it will be more than just firmware update, although it could be done. As you say, I doubt any automakers will do it though, they’ll just want you to buy a new car.
I wish they would do some updates on the regular carplay, too.
I expect that there will be.
It’s not coming, why did they speak about it ages ago?
Automakers move s l o w l y.
I don't need more features. My 2022 XC40 has all that stuff and more built in already. I just want the features it has now to work better, sort of like the factory voice controls. Press the button on the steering wheel, say "turn on the driver side seat heater, and turn the fan up to high." Done. "Play XM Deep Tracks channel." Done. "Play WXRT FM." Done. "Navigate to 109 Fleet Landing Boulevard Atlantic Beach Florida." Done. "Turn off Adaptive Cruise Control."
Just make it work better and faster. Got so sick of my brother screaming "Hey Siri!!! Take me to Taos New Mexico" over and over in his 2023 Tundra and getting no response at least half the time. Then his wife screaming at it to no avail.
You should try some of the early development versions, I remember having to test one system because I was the only person that it would understand. Somehow this wasn’t seen as an issue…
I hope this works for all cars that support or have CarPlay... my 2015 Titanium Ford Edge has three screens... Navi and one on either side of the odometer main dial area.
I expect Ford hope you’ll buy a new car if you want the new features.
Key fact not mentioned here: "next gen" CarPlay will not be a projection from your phone. The features being advertised are obviously impossible with the current method of phone dependence. Just like Android Automotive, next gen CarPlay will be resident on the car's hardware. Another key fact not really explained here: next gen CarPlay is very unlikely to run on cars that weren't designed for it.
I expect that it will be a set of APIs, I very much doubt that Apple will want their code on a multitude of infotainment platforms.
I agree with your second point though.
I'm not so sure it could be retrofit without any hardware upgrade, the new generation needs access to information such as speed, AC controls, fuel level, etc. Not all car manufacturers digitally monitor that, and I assume they need to collect this data in a specific way to work with CarPlay
All that will be on the CAN bus for most cars, it might not currently be gatewayed to the infotainment module, but any car that has these on screens, which will be needed for CarPlay has to have it digitally to be o. The screen in the first place.
Car manufacturers are much more interested in selling new cars than keeping Apple customers happy! But, to be fair, they are such monolotihic organisations that getting anything done probably takes years. And they could be weighed down by safety regulations and strict testing requirements. Anything that messes about with your dashboard can potentially cause havoc.
Exactly this. My main question about this is how Apple are going to get around the ASIL rating required for some of this, even for non safety critical software automotive standards and testing are very stringent.
The appeal of CarPlay/Android Auto for auto companies is it requires minimal effort - they can outsource all the infotainment system work to Apple/Google and not worry about it. That works well with them, since they've never cared - they've always outsourced this work to other companies.
If they cared enough to provide updates, they'd care enough to just make a good infotainment system and not outsource it to Apple/Google.
Incidentally, a growing number of companies are realizing that Tesla's (like Apple's) appeal is that the entire product was made by one company with a singular vision. No user-facing design work was outsourced, and so we're starting to see them backtrack on their adoption of CarPlay at all.
CarPlay is a lot like Safari on Windows or iTunes on a Motorola phone - it's misguided and confusing what Apple thinks they're doing. Why is Apple trying to control just the software and outsource all the hardware? That's the kind of nonsense that Microsoft used to do with Windows.
The thing is they will still need to have a fallback user interface. I don’t think car companies are overly keen on handing the UI, and crucially the user data to tech companies, as they could monetise it themselves. I think they consider it a necessary evil because customers want it, and their competitors have it.