People reject cars all the time for even more trivial things (oh — this one doesn’t have wireless charging? Next.), so I can’t imagine this being a smart idea for GM.
Near zero cost to GM, tons of convenience for GM’s customers. I can only imagine GM wants customers’ data or subscription fees, and Apple will not allow that. And this is a business that got bailed out by US taxpayers, and is explicitly too big to fail.
GM doesn't want Apple or Google taking over the UX of the car, because then GM is eventually just another FoxConn
and sure, there's a money thing...they want revshare from Spotify and every other app they can position in the UI
CarPlay and Android Auto will be gone as fast as car makers can make it happen
This isn’t how it works in my Dodge. There is a Dodge logo / startup screen first, then a “don’t use screen while driving sign that I am forced to accept every time” and then it shows me CarPlay.
Apple announced the total UI takeover option (though I’m not sure if it works today) but no car maker supports it on a shipping vehicle.
Many have announced interest but at this point we don’t know if it will ever be available, even if only on some kind of ultra-luxury car.
I assume Kia is South Korea’s lower end offering, Hyundai is their mid tier offering, and Genesis is their luxury offering.
This will also be an opportunity for other car manufacturers to differentiate themselves: “We still support CarPlay”
but I doubt CarPlay will even end up as the lowest-common-denominator...one of GM or Mercedes or whoever will try to get their system good enough that they can license it to other car companies...so CarOS or whatever will be the default if your car brand doesn't have a bespoke experience
I like Android Auto and use it all the time, but I can't fault GM for not wanting to be treated as just another OEM...FoxConn does all the hard work for Apple on the hardware side and isn't even allowed to put their name on the product...the ultimate replaceable cog
Apple might have been received better by car makers if it hadn't threatened to be developing their own vehicle...now all the car makers see them as a competitive threat
GM is only doing this because they see an avenue to charge recurring fees, which smartphones obviated.
Isn’t this just the gift that just keeps on giving?
First they kill the Volt -- IMHO the best PHEV on the market when I bought it -- now they kill a vastly superior interface to anything I've ever used in a car.
Sorry GM, you might just have lost a (stockholding, for now, at least) customer.
For example, Toyota is head and shoulders better than the competition at ICE and hybrids, but they're arguably last in EVs. In fact, Consumer Reports says the Chevy Bolt is currently the best EV[1].
1. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/rankings/electric-vehicl...
If I wanted a near-supercar, I'd consider a Corvette. Without CarPlay, I'll buy a Cayman S or something else instead. The Corvette might be measurably better in most performance metrics, but if I can't use the apps I'm accustomed to using, I won't buy it.
The rest of the GM line-up? Yeah, pretty uninspiring.
I even use Android, and don't personally care that much about Apple support, and I'm still unhappy about this and it's making me less interested in Chevy for the next car.
>General Motors plans to phase out widely-used Apple CarPlay and Android Auto technologies that allow drivers to bypass a vehicle's infotainment systems, shifting instead to built-in infotainment systems developed with Google for future electric vehicles.
Not sure if the associations are per-user or per-car, though. I believe there was work to move them along with some other settings to your "user profile" and would go with you across cars.
I won’t buy a car that doesn’t support CarPlay.
Additionally, my 2019 Model 3's infotainment is noticeably slower than a 2023's. I'd hate to be limited by compute in a car that I'll probably replace in 8 years. If it's my phone, the replacement time is much shorter (and much more affordable!).
It would not stop me from buying another Tesla. The infotainment is generally fantastic (as is the rest of the car). But CarPlay would make the music and podcast experience so much better.
Previously Tesla offered MCU1 to MCU2 paid upgrades for Model S/X owners. It seems unlikely that Tesla will offer anything similar for MCU2 to MCU3 but not impossible that it could be done as a 3rd party retrofit. The connectors and physical dimensions are different so it’s not trivial.
Does any major car manufacturer routinely nail their infotainment systems?
Basically with Tesla you get the latest model year car software on an ongoing basis, and it’s revolutionary from an owner’s perspective.
The alternative is needing to trade in/buy a whole new model year car to get to enjoy whatever new feature, which is how it always used to work, and is so scammy.
If you don’t want the latest software, you can always choose not the install it, but you would be seriously limiting the performance, comfort, safety and entertainment value of your car.
Most cars don’t get faster, safer, and cheaper to operate after you buy them, but Tesla’s do. The obvious trade-off to getting the latest model year’s software and features is getting the latest model year’s UI as well.
Looking around a bit, apparently there's also a neat though slightly more expensive product called the datalink maestro rr or rr2 that does the camera and head unit interfacing part while retaining additional features.
Bluetooth doesn't support the data rates necessary to deliver the data for CarPlay. As for the "maybe with slightly less functionality" would you take no display? You're basically talking about Siri Eyes Free where you'd have a button to activate Siri on your steering wheel, but wouldn't get much functionality. But I'm guessing you want the navigation to be displayed on your screen, not just a bluetooth audio connection with a Siri button.
Basically, the 1-2Mbps of Bluetooth really isn't enough to drive a display with any decent resolution and I'm guessing that real-world data rates are a bit less than spec with so much stuff in the 2.4GHz band. Microsoft notes that you need 1.5Mbps for 1024x768 and I'm guessing most car displays are better than that today (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remo...).
Maybe you'd argue that you'd take 5 FPS and semi-reliability, but I just don't think they want to implement something that's just kinda crappy. Apple doesn't want you going around saying, "wireless CarPlay is garbage." Yes, you might understand a retrofit to a car that doesn't really have the capability, but 99% of people won't. It's not that it's impossible as much as something likely to be way more pain than it's worth. Even if you want it and would be ok with the trade-off, that's not always how products work. Heck, if they did implement it and it didn't work, would you end up using tech support for it? That costs money. Would you post online where your problem-solving becomes interpreted as "Apple sucks" even if you don't mean it that way?
Worse, car manufactures might (and car dealers definitely would) start promising these models as supporting wireless CarPlay. Maybe Apple could deal with official marketing materials, but dealers will say almost anything to sell a car. People would be duped into buying these cars and then complain to Apple that their product sucks. People would be asking online "is this real wireless CarPlay or the fake kind?" The absolute headache!
You can buy an adapter that will plug into the USB port if you want wireless CarPlay: https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/27/carplay-wireless-carplay-adap.... Basically, the information goes from your phone to the adapter (via Bluetooth-setup-WiFi) and then the adapter just sends it over USB. That's way less headache for Apple and probably a better experience since it actually supports the right data rates. I haven't used one of these so you should read up if you want to buy one (or try it out and return it if it doesn't work for you), but this seems like a much better alternative than trying to jam CarPlay over Bluetooth (without WiFi).