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Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

To voice an alternative that isn't touched much in this discussion:

> - "It's on your phone"

Straight use your phone.

There is no need for the car to adapt, no updates, no back deal by the car manufacturer, nothing is tied to the car except Bluetooth.

Current screens are IMHO big enough, moving to a tablet or foldables is also an option

Mounting/unmounting is a solved problem since magsafe (or Peak Design like stronger updates), which also handles charging.

Voice commands will be enough for most operations and you're guaranteed to have physical buttons for volume up/down and screen off.

You're also 100% efficient with the interface.

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Literally everything you said is not true for me

- My phone's screen is nowhere near big enough for me to "glance" at it while driving (to see if my turn is coming up, etc)

- I'm not carrying around a tablet with me - my phone fits in my pocket

- Mounting is _not_ a solved problem. It just... isn't. This is a whole topic on it's own, but mounting a phone in a good position, where it will stay without moving/falling/bugging (especially in 100+ degree heat) and not be in the way of _other_ car things is a pain

- I already have physical buttons (that interact with car play, where needed) for all those things in my car

- Interacting with the screen of my phone while driving is 100% not something I'm proficient with; nor would I want to be. It's not designed for interacting with it while not paying attention to it. CarPlay is

Fully agree on screen size. In my car the dash screen over twice the physical size of my iPhone 16 Pro Max and is much easier to read maps from at a glance.

CarPlay enables a car-friendly interface with big buttons, shortcuts to navigation/music/communication, and minimal distractions. I don’t know of any way to get that on the phone’s own display.

Can't speak for Carplay, but Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit. The car's (an Audi) system does not, but it fails on many other levels. Both make me angry, albeit for different reasons.

> Android Auto does try to distract me with attempts of engagement like "Is the construction site still there?" and other shit.

That's not Android Auto, it's Waze doing that (and it would do it on Apple too). And it's not "an attempt at engagement", it's a cost for keeping the real-time map and traffic data that Waze is chosen for up-to-date. Use Google Maps if you don't like the interruptions.

Tbf, Google Maps also has these prompts. One probably sees them less due to Google having achieved critical mass, but in quiet rural areas I see them quite often

Interesting, I hadn't noticed... Though related to the critical mass, keep in mind that Waze has been acquired by Google many years ago now (13, specifically).

Sometimes Google Maps does that too, I’m pretty sure.

It does, I saw it in Houston this past weekend on android auto and google maps, "police reported ahead; still there [yes] [no]"

Just came to say this as well. Happens in Europe too (well, obviously :) ).

You'd think it would be much more efficient for road construction projects to update Apple and Google with their plans, rather than rely on random motorists reporting them.

I do that on the bike but the car screen integration is nice for navigation. Usually your phone goes in a worse position than the gauge cluster. Even on the bike, the couple cm farther down are the difference between looking down and it being in peripheral vision. The passenger can also fuck around with the music without changing connected phone or giving them the phone itself. And playing around with the phone directly is illegal while the tablet is fine (for me very minor, never been caught).

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