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Comment by salmonlogs | Hacker News Reader

Reading the comments I appear to be the exception. I lease a 2015 BMW 4-series which I added "Professional Media" to and the nav works really well. I've driven plenty of other cars where the nav is useless, but not all are bad.

Reasons to use it over my phone:

* 11" screen shows me a high quality map overlayed with current traffic, with 1/3 split for lane guidance when needed

* Directions also shown directly on the dash - no need to look far away

* Spoken instructions dim the music volume

* Pretty accurate traffic information with automatic OTA updates

Downsides:

* Voice control is shitty; saying "set destination to leamington spa" will change to a random radio frequency

* Slightly awkward to send routes from PC to car, has to be via Remote Control App

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You aren't really the exception, instead you're just fortunate enough to have one of the few in-dash navigation systems which isn't absolutely terrible.

Most of the features you've named are exactly what Android Auto/Carplay provide, but without limiting you to just a single maps/navigation vendor.

You're likely leasing that vehicle for 1-3 years. Do you think that if you purchased that 4-series that the navigation would still be updated and solid by the end of its 9-15 year vehicle lifespan? I certainly don't. But I do an apps platform like carplay/android auto will continue to provide quality apps for at least that long.

I totally get your point, and agree.

CarPlay/Android Auto certainly improve quality on average for most cars, but I'm not convinced they will solve the problem of outdated technology.

I previous had a Mercedes with "Apple Certified Connectivity" which was great, until they switched to lightning cables and the connectivity broke.

Whilst I'm sure CarPlay/Android Auto will last longer, I don't believe there won't be any breaking changes in future that will break compatibility. Given that we replace phones a lot faster than cars I can see a future where there are cars which only support CarPlay version X, and the standard is now version Y.

At that point you then end up with no navigation or media, because you aren't going to use an older phone just to have it work with your older car.

CarPlay also limits to you to one map provider - Apple Maps

Same lease as you. Maps are not updated and the traffic information is pretty bad compared to google maps.

I use the car's nav only when I don't have to worry about delays caused by traffic, otherwise google maps is my first option.

BMW's nav is pretty bad in offering alternative routes based on traffic data, but I just LOVE the directions on the HUD.

Maybe it's a regional thing?

I'm in the UK and my maps get updated frequently (it often has a % downloading bar for the update) and when I compare with my phone the route and traffic is very similar to Google Maps.

No problems with alternate routes here, either. It actually works surprisingly well.

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