Surprised no one's mentioned it so far, but CarPlay / Android Auto aren't just features, they're consistency. Across makes, models, years. I know what I'm getting when I connect my phone - and if anyone uses my car with their own device, they get their own dashboard, as well. One interesting use case I saw was a couple where one used a left-to-right interface and the other a right-to-left UI. CarPlay makes this easy, because the interface is linked to your own personal device.
I'm not sure if the parent comment was written by AI or not (you're probably right) but consistency is indeed one of the main things I think about with Android Auto. Not just consistency between cars, but also consistency with the rest of my phone. The principle seems worth considering.
Some still have knobs. My mom's caddy has knobs in front of the armrest that control everything, so the touchscreen is optional but works just as well for those that want it.
Same with Toyota (fun fact—I discovered earlier this year, over three years that I bought my Prius, that there were whole displays in the dashboard I didn’t know existed while trying to adjust the volume from the steering wheel while I was backing out of my garage, but because the wheel was rotated 180°, I hit the wrong button. Turns out the navigation between different info displays is 2-dimensional and the ↑/↓ gives additional views into some of the information that I had no idea existed, as well as revealing some functionality I didn’t know was there for the HVAC).
Apple engineering manager Emily Schubert said 98% of new cars in the U.S. come
with CarPlay installed. She delivered a shocking stat: 79% of U.S. buyers would
only buy a car if it supported CarPlay.
“It’s a must-have feature when shopping for a new vehicle,” Schubert said
during a presentation of the new features.
Since then GM has dropped CarPlay. Rivian has appeared following Tesla and refusing to support it. And I thought there were some other existing manufacturer who was either getting rid of it or thinking about it.
Basically despite the popularity the market seems to be moving against it slowly. And the more those cars succeed the more other auto makers will be willing to follow.
I'm in this camp: I will not buy a car without CarPlay. And I put so few miles on my car that while I'd like a new one, if the vendors make this impossible then no one gets my money.
Same here. I have a Chevy that supports wireless CarPlay and I refuse to buy a car that doesn't have it. We're looking at replacing it soon, and we're going to go with a Subaru in no small part because it supports CarPlay.
It's not that the market is moving away, but more like car companies realized if they want to sell monthly subscriptions in the future, they need to own the software.
The car companies need to stay in their lanes on this one. You’re risking selling a >$40k piece of hardware that requires professional service every six months in order to sell me $240/yr in software subscriptions.
This is crazy to me because the primary value proposition of Rivian's Connect+, as I see it, is enabling the hotspot while you're in the car and being able to monitor Gear Guard while you're away from the car. These are entirely separate from supporting CarPlay/Android Auto.
If Rivian et al. truly want to sell a premium product, their software needs to be premium. And frankly it's just not there. The other day I was trying to listen to an upcoming album that has a few singles released. On my phone I can do that no problem. On the Rivian Spotify app, the album just didn't show up. It wasn't possible to play those songs in order without searching for the songs one by one. There are a ton of things that I love about my R1T, but as more time passes, the gap between what they offer and what other manufacturers offer becomes more and more apparent
Same here. CarPlay is in the top 10 features for my next Car. Even for my older 911 which I bought second hand, the first investment was a Pioneer head unit with CarPlay.
I have a vehicle that's basically a BMW, which has excellent navigation integration with a HUD. Recently, they announced that my vehicle would receive map and software updates, for basically as long as the included modem was functional.
My vehicle doesn't support the carplay to hud stuff, but that's okay. The thing is... when my car stops getting map and traffic updates, I will still be able to switch to carplay for at least the command screen presenting information. I intend on keeping this vehicle for a long time, so that's important to me.
On top of that, carplay offers better bitrate than bluetooth.
For people that wish to keep a vehicle for a long time, carplay/android auto isn't just a convenience anymore. With the increased integration of headunits, aftermarket becomes a tougher sell.
Sounds like the Apple monopoly has made yet another industry its bitch.
These companies are giving up sovereignty of their primary product to a company that can steer away customer loyalty and disrupt any hope these companies have of increasing their already scant margins.
Any car should be able to interface with a phone without Apple or Google's legally binding terms and NDAs. The direction of control should be on the side of the customer first, and the automotive company second.
Where the hell are the regulators? This is not okay.
That doesn’t make any sense… The comment you’re replying to is about people’s desire for a particular feature, but pretty much any car that supports CarPlay also supports the Android equivalent, as well as still having media playback and often some kind of navigation without either!
Your comment would only make sense in a hypothetical situation where the car infotainment only worked if you had an iPhone or if there was some kind of exclusivity agreements to preclude it working with Android, but that isn’t the case in any circumstance I’m aware of.
Seems like, if anything, the right action for regulators would be to enforce car manufacturers to not refuse to support existing consumer connectivity protocols... or at least not unless they can come up with something at least as good. And definitely something that isn't "pay us a data subscription so we can track you too while you use a crappier re-implementation of what your phone can already do."
Or "we're gonna cut off our older models to force people towards new cars instead of older ones." That's a bad pattern to let people selling $30,000+ devices get access to.
What regulators and the industry should have done was to devise a touch-over-HDMI protocol, so that CarPlay can be deprecated and its successor sectioned off as they like. That was IMO the root cause of this problem.
This wouldn't be a solution to the argument in the article: Rivian and Tesla don't want to support phones projecting to infotainment
As it is, CarPlay is implemented as a h264 video stream which receives touch, microphone, and metadata from the vehicle, the protocol is fine albeit proprietary
As a owner of a GM without android auto, never again. Everything is on my phone but I can't safely access it while driving. Also can't legally because my state makes using the phone while driving illegal (for good reason. I suspect most states don't allow it)
I feel the same way about Android auto. I refuse to be locked into some terrible, never updated or expensive subscription vendor nav unit. I have a phone. I want to be able to use it.
Not just that, but car makers have proven they can’t be trusted with our data. My phone has all my appointments and addresses in it. I’d much rather use the nav on the phone where the data already is, then sync it with my car so they can do god knows what with it.
These are the companies that undersigned the Orwellian "protect the kids" act.
These trillion dollar companies are the problem. They're moving into other healthy industries and crushing them. They're sucking the oxygen out of every market.
Stop cheerleading this. They need vibrant competition. We need a de-ossifying forest fire. We need lots of nimble smaller companies.
Instead the giants place a ceiling on the growth of every other industry, then when they need more growth, they start to creep in and dump on healthy markets unrelated to their original enterprise.
Look at Amazon giving away Lord of the Rings, running a $200M ad campaign for free on its Rivian trucks, printed boxes, website, app, etc., buying up MGM... How do actual companies in these spaces compete with the dumping?
How do businesses keep Apple and Google from strong-arming them? Rivian doesn't want to be Apple's bitch. You guys are cheerleading it and telling Rivian to bend over.
Google and Apple are the companies that want to track you and turn the internet into a land of device attestation and mandatory ID sign in. They're both actively building "age assurance" into their platforms, and it won't be long before they start gating internet use via these tendrils.
Google and Apple are not good companies.
You're all building this Orwellian hellscape. STOP.
You know the reason why companies like GM don't like CarPlay is because they think they should be the ones who get to track you, sell you various subscriptions, and sell the resulting data to third parties. Right?
You'll note that it wasn't Apple who sold out their own customers, it was GM. [1] False-equivalence arguments are both pointless and, in this case, unnecessary. There is a lesser and greater evil here, and the lesser one in this case happens to be Apple.
The 1977 Oldsmobile Toronado is generally considered to be the first car to have microprocessor control.
But Ford's EEC was built around Toshiba's TLCS-12, the world's first 12-bit microprocessor, developed specifically for engine control, and might have been in cars produced prior to 77, but documentation is spotty.
So do you only drive cars built prior to the late 70s? Because sacrificing the enormous safety improvements just for a bizarre feeling of moral superiority is a really awful hill to die on. And literal death is a real possibility
Or do you not drive and never planned to buy any kind of car and thus your claim is meaningless?
TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) is a coin battery powered computer inside each tyre of your car. They’ve been around for a couple of decades now. Even the lowest end cars have TPMS in each wheel. If you change wheels you need to go to a wheel shop and have them re pair (as in re pair wifi) the wheel with your car. I had to do this recently with my 2014 ford focus.
Anyway those are just four of hundreds of computers in your car these days.
Not exactly a great example as it's unnecessary and expensive to replace. Lots of other microprocessors actually make your car easier and safer to drive.
I’m fully bought into the Apple ecosystem, and I’ve had Teslas for 8 years and we currently also have car that supports CarPlay. The CarPlay interface is overall far inferior, especially with navigation. First of all, searching for destinations is terrible on CarPlay compared to Tesla! Even worse, Apple didn’t even add multi-touch support to CarPlay until iOS 26, and the vast majority of cars (including ours) don’t support it, so you have to hunt for and tap the zoom controls, which is pretty barbaric compared to the fluid pinch and zoom gestures that work on Tesla and our other devices. Also on our CarPlay car, it never seems to know the direction the car is facing until it starts moving, which becomes incredibly frustrating navigating out of a parking lot. The final major downside is having to switch apps out of navigation to control music then switch back, whereas on Tesla (and Rivian) you can choose and control music while keeping navigation on your screen.
I have a boring Mercedes mid-size SUV. Carplay works. I can skip/repeat tracks using the standard control on the steering wheel; the instrument cluster shows the current track the same way it's done with connected phones forever. On the center console screen, we use the Carplay view with 3 splits - one for Spotify, two for navigation (map & next direction). Google Maps and Apple Maps are both reliable where I drive (Miami).
Tesla is a great car below the from the headlights down, I love driving my dad's Y performance to the grocery store when I'm visiting home. But no way I'm going to get a car where I can't point the vent at my armpit without using a touch screen. No way I'm going to get a car where I can't talk to whatever agent I want while stuck in traffic. I much rather have a boring car that doesn't tick me off.
If Tesla (or Rivian) add Carplay, they'll really move up the my list (still want physical vent control tho). Would you stop driving your Tesla if an update added Carplay tomorrow?
Personally I find the feeling of air blowing on me, no matter how pleasant initially, to quickly become grating. In most cars I adjust the air to blow where I am not, and compensate with a notch higher fan speed.
Having the ability for the air stream continually moving is more valuable to me than constantly moving it by hand.
Being able to pre-cool the car before entering it is more valuable to me than sitting in a hot car and pointing the MAX A/C directly on my face.
> The final major downside is having to switch apps out of navigation to control music then switch back,
But... you don't. Tapping on the home button once more or swiping to the right on the app page reveals the home screen which has navigation and music together:
Our CarPlay car has a small screen, so I prefer to keep navigation full screen most of the time. In split mode, it’s way too tiny for me, but I occasionally leave it there if I know my way around anyways. It’s definitely not a well designed experience.
Most OEM infotainment sucks, and it's taken a while for things to improve. I'd be willing to say your older car has a resistive touchscreen and physically couldn't support multitouch
CarPlay is definitely an improvement if you're comparing it to something like Ford Sync for example
Can’t you do split screen navigation via the home screen (Dashboard View)? At least on cars I’ve rented I could have navigation on one side and music on the other in CarPlay.
Quite the contrary, I’ve long thought Tesla should add support for CarPlay to alleviate the concerns of many buyers over it not being supported. I think it would have been starkly worse than Tesla’s interface before they supported multi-touch this past year, but nonetheless they should have supported it by now. Better late than never that they’re finally adding support for it, it’ll especially make Rivian look kinda silly for continuing to be so stubborn about it. I think only a small fraction will actually use CarPlay on their Teslas, but it’s still pretty dumb to let that missing feature hurt their sales.
Curiously, being herded onto tesla's software is the number one reason I won't buy one. I don't like the navigation or media software and the rest would feel better as a physical control or just seems useless in a car.
One of them lets me send iMessages to groups as well as non-phone recipients like my kids. The other is my Tesla.
I’m glad for you, but if Tesla supported CarPlay I could get what I wanted and you would not be affected at all. I’m baffled why people like you even bother to share your opinion. Nobody is suggesting that you be forced to use CarPlay. See also the entire topic of this discussion.
I’m baffled you think sharing a well-sourced opinion on a discussion thread is a bad thing, or that you think I believe Tesla adding support for CarPlay would somehow force me to use it. As I said in other replies, I’ve long thought Tesla should add support for it, but that few people would actually use it much.
The author of the original piece is asking for a choice.
Your opinion is not an argument for that. It’s also not an argument against that.
So I’m not terribly sure what it adds to the discussion. I’m not surprised there are people who like Tesla’s UI. I’ve seen plenty of them online over the years.
I have rented one though, so I know enough about the software experience to know that there's (currently) only one reason why I might wish for CarPlay over the integrated software experience, and that's Waze. Maybe.
I own two (petrol) cars. One has CarPlay, the other has a rigid phone mount between the steering wheel and centre console. While I appreciate the former for its nice large widescreen map, I still prefer the latter. Waze in CarPlay mode (due to the restrictions on what can be shown on the phone screen) is simply more annoying to operate. So if was in the market for a Tesla, and I had the choice between CarPlay support or a nice phone mount between the centre console and steering wheel, I'd probably choose the latter.
(I would still campaign for Tesla to support CarPlay, because why not.)
I agree with the author: CarPlay is table stakes for me. Whenever an automaker says a car won't support CarPlay, I mentally cross it off my list. Which is fine, because there are plenty of other viable options.
I owned a Model Y for several years, but, at least in my city, I always felt Tesla’s navigation had pretty poor route selection during busy times of the day - like dorecting me to streets that were notoriously stop and go during rush our when the highway alternative was known to be much quicker.
I’m with Casey on this: I will not buy a car without CarPlay. Of course, I haven’t bought a car since 2013. That one is a Tesla Model S and I think its UI is pretty decent for maps and playing audio, but I have rented enough cars since then to know that I would much prefer CarPlay support. If I had to replace my car today, I’d probably buy a Volvo EX90, which is the electric version of the XC90 Casey talks about.
Rentals it is more important. Your own car doing the one time setup every few years is no problem but when it is a rental you don't want to take that time.
Quite interesting, particularly with statistics shared in comments.
Personally I hate CarPlay because of it's limitations - oh you can't respond to messages, oh you can't watch videos and sorts. Much easier to have a tablet there free of these "safety" limitations.
Maybe it’s cause I’ve never actually used it, but I really only care about a stable / well supported Bluetooth connection.
I have a holder for my phone for when I use GPS and basically never interact with it directly after it’s set. Only real interactions are media controls via the steering wheel.
The only use cases I can see car play helping with are those who take a lot of calls/texts in their car while driving and those who listen to music and want to listen to specific songs.
For me it’s about the waste. Engineers have taken the time to build a screen into the car with a good viewing angle, that works well with glare, doesn’t obstruct the drivers view.
Then the software side just makes the whole thing useless with a terrible UX that will never be updated.
CarPlay is a great solution because the non safety critical stuff (music, navigation) gets offloaded to a competent software company.
I was super bought into carplay and android auto until I actually owned a car that had it. Oh great, it requires USB. Well my phone is 4 years old and the port is toast, so that doesn't work for me. Okay, wireless then. Car doesn't support that. Lovely. Bluetooth implementation is half-assed and the pairing process is Byzantine. Terrific stuff.
That car ended up sucking in other ways too. I quickly sold it and went back to buying old Lexuses. Wireless charging phone holder, and off you go. The siren call of infotainment is powerful, but actually living with it is just more fiddly bullshit I don't need in my life.
As someone who only had 20+ year old cars and motorcycles, I don't see what's CarPlay supposed to solve? All I need is a Bluetooth-capable radio and a phone holder to display the navigation, so I can listen to my music and focus on driving. Phone doesn't need to be touched unless changing destinations. Do people seriously need to be constantly entertained while driving?
I have a beater subie (2018). It has CarPlay (fairly basic variant). It also has very few touchscreens, which I like.
I could easily afford better, but have little interest in doing so. It’s low miles, paid for, handles well in the snow, and is in decent shape. A car gets me from Point A to Point B, and I want it to do so reliably and safely. I couldn’t care any less, what people think of me. Life’s too short.
I also write iOS apps; ones that make a lot of use of navigation stuff.
I like being able to use my app to determine a destination, plug it into CarPlay, and immediately get a map to where I want. Point A, meet Point B.
I’m sure that some of the systems fancier cars use, may be fine for this kind of thing, but CarPlay does it very smoothly.
I’m with the author. No CarPlay, no sale.
I really don’t think any manufacturer is concerned about what I think, though. There’s a lot of fish in the sea.
That’s the great thing about CarPlay it makes the usually junk infotainment system in cars (especially older ones) irrelevant, so they still seem modern.
For a budget car, I’d be perfectly happy if they had a screen for CarPlay/Android Auto that didn’t do anything else if a phone wasn’t connected. I think this makes a lot of sense as a cost cutting measure. Maybe it would just be used for the mandated backup camera.
I also love it for rental cars. I can get in any rental, and instead of having to learn my way around or figure out a Garmin add-on, CarPlay can make the navigation and music instantly familiar with all the data I need.
The bigger screen is nice. The integration is also nice. I can push a button on my steering wheel to activate Siri to tell it where to go. Music controls on the wheel also pass through to CarPaly. I have a low res auxiliary screen to display added data (oil temp, weather, etc) and the music option will display music track data from CarPlay as well.
So instead of trying to look at a tiny screen that’s clipped onto an air vent, I can use the screens and integrated controls, keeping my hands on the wheel and my eyes more in the road.
Also, the biggest battery drain is having the screen on. CarPlay allows me to have the screen on the phone off while still accessing all the data. With a wireless adapter, I can also leave the phone in my pocket, so I don’t need to set it up every time I get in the car or remember to grab it when getting out. So it feels more like the native experience of using the car.
I’m with OP, here: CarPlay is additive to the experience, but also is something that provides me a degree of consistency across my automotive experiences - when vendors bother to implement it properly.
I have an old Honda Fit that I installed one of Pioneer’s “app radio” units into, which included replacing the dash facia. I use CarPlay on it almost exclusively, but if I want Pioneer’s incredibly mediocre UI/UX, it’s a single button-tap away - either on the left side of the radio via a capacitance button, or on the first page of CarPlay’s app icons.
When I rented a car to drive to visit family, it had CarPlay. The infotainment experience was familiar, so I could focus more on the road ahead instead of fussing with some newfangled vendor-specific infotainment shitshow.
When I rented Nissan in Canada, it too had CarPlay - but with a nasty bug where using voice commands or making a call would crash the whole unit. I figured out very quickly not to do that, and the rest of CarPlay worked a treat for the trip - a far cry better from Nissan’s UI/UX.
This is why I didn’t hop on board infotainment systems until CarPlay and Android Auto were mature options, opting to stick with my phone over USB for audio/iPod controls instead: none of the major manufacturers except maybe Panasonic actually give a shit about the UI/UX. They don’t build intuitive systems that can be operated without looking, and they scoop up far too much superfluous data to enable simple features. I refuse to buy the vehicle maker excuse of “superior experience” anymore when time after time, the reality is these car companies think the infotainment data is some sort of goldmine of revenue and letting Apple or Google have any say over the experience is tantamount to leaving money on the table.
If I cannot have CarPlay, and your EV or vehicle won’t let me swap the infotainment unit for an aftermarket one that does, then I am not buying your fucking spyware on wheels. I don’t think anyone else should tolerate that bullshit either, especially on what averages to be a $70k+ purchase nowadays.
Over 90% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. already support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
So it is kinda expected to be there: if it is not there then a car needs to be something special. So I think buyers don’t even ask for it because they assume it will be there (and absence becomes much more noticeable than its presence).
When I bought a Rivian I missed CarPlay. There were a few things that really stood out.
1. Proper Voice Texting
2. Google maps for routing with (good) traffic data.
The Voice Texting just a release or two ago - its okay so far but not as good as CarPlay. Google traffic landed a while back (in Rivian's map which I prefer over Google Maps)
I'll take the voice texting for what is otherwise a very elegant and well designed UI - that keeps getting better.
Full disclosure. Even when I have a rental with CarPlay I just use Spotify and google maps. Both of which are integrated into the Rivian UI. So YMMV
They want to hold you captive to subscription plans. If they allow CarPlay, it gives consumers more options for cellular connectivity, music, navigation, and other apps.
Nothing prevents them from removing CarPlay in an update, though? Unless you make sure to never connect the car to the internet. Some garages will update FW for you unasked I hear.
I hesitate to propose ulterior motives, but given there have been several seemingly obtuse objections to projection from Rivian, perhaps the CEO is concerned that, if Rivian supports projection, it will harm the perception of the value of their software stack? Related, I think they licensed their stack to VW.
I think Rivian is disguising a hidden factor: CarPlay prohibits vehicle manufacturers from collecting metrics and selling anonymized or identified user activity data, and this loss of telematics data / income stream is unacceptable to manufacturers (for example, GM*) who see the smart TV business making billions on that precise data.
The correct route for someone with interview access to Rivian to clarify whether this scenario applies would be to review their legal terms for owners and then point-blank ask in a recorded interview ‘whether Rivian’s vehicles are reporting to Rivian what music their buyers play in Rivian vehicles’. This is a nuanced sentence: whether is yes/no; information is too broad to weasel out of; ‘on what music’ focuses on a private aspect of car ownership and is a callback to the VHS rental rulings; ‘in their vehicles’ is not only restricted to what’s connected to the headunit by usb or Bluetooth or radio, but also covers the headunit-connected microphones in the vehicle as well. If they say yes, the questions become obvious. If they say no, the followup should be to ask if Rivian contractually guarantees that they will not someday issue a software update that begins doing so. Either it does not, or it does. Two questions max to either confirm or refute a suspicion.
GM cited ‘the ability to improve cars’ as why it’s refusing CarPlay, but as the OP article clearly shows, GM could simply continue to improve the cars and the screen surrounding the CarPlay dedicated window, while continuing to improve their own built-in functions using the data from those who do not use it for the benefit of those same users. GM’s justifications last year in this regard are just as obtuse as Rivian’s this year. Given that similarity, I suspect you’re right: Rivian does indeed seem to be trying not to appear desperately in need of cash by reselling user data for subscription revenue profit: ‘buy our three-ton six-figure vehicle so that we can make $1/year off of you to keep our business afloat’ is horrendous optics and would lead to open mockery of their business.
* The GM/FTC 2026 case only prevents GM from selling data associated with vehicle driving. Headunit usage cannot be readily assumed to be ‘driving’ data in the case context of vehicle insurers, and so continued sale of radio usage data to (for imaginary example) Nielsen would be unaffected by the specific, narrow, and temporary 2026 ruling.
Every car I have purchased has satellite radio factory installed. And each time SiriusXM will not shut up about trying to get me to sign up. Over and over. It takes years before they give up.
I don’t want it. So why is it in the car? Because they pay Ford and Honda and everyone else to put it there.
Why did they both have Spotify? And iHeartRadio? Who even uses that? All sorts of other things. There’s a kickback for every one.
But unlike satellite none of them work without a cell connection. And they won’t use your phone. You have to pay the car maker for their overpriced connectivity. That’s what they want you to do.
Money money everywhere. But if I use CarPlay or android auto guess who doesn’t get a cut.
“People will think our software is bad.” It is, that’s why I want CarPlay.
They want my money. After the car payment I don't have money leftover for another subscription. Use my phone subscription, that is what I'm paying for for.
That’s one of the things that’s always seemed odd to me. I’m more likely to use some service on the car that you get a kick back for and can spy on if I can use my cell phone data plan.
If you try to put a gate in front of it of a $25/mo car data plan, forget it.
It’s 4G? Wow. My phone is only 5G. It’s a hotspot? So is my phone. And I’m the only one here anyway. I get updates to your maps? I don’t like your maps.
It’s like they’re trying to sell flavoring to make dirty water taste better, without ever stopping to think most people don’t like dirty water.
TBF for a lot of stuff they could probably just monitor the audio system to fingerprint things the way TVs do these days and sell that data even if you use android auto or CarPlay.
But they certainly get a lot more if you use their maps and entertainment apps.
"You can read Wassym’s full answer at the episode link, but here’s the part that stuck out to me:
The challenge with screen mirroring solutions is that they take over every single pixel in the car, and that’s not the way we see ourselves interacting with our users."
I kept reading past this part thinking I didn't misread the title, because as he explained, a mirroring solution that takes up every pixel could potentially be addictive, and it made sense that he didn't want the UX to fundamentally change when people drive Rivian's cars. And for that, kudos.
But now I realize your case is that CarPlay is additive. Ok, great! I do wish I could use Android on my car, which is newer than your 2017 one but only features Bluetooth, music and Phone, pairing, rather than a full OS mirror.
Do I wish it had more? Yes. But am I less distracted on the road? Yes. So I would buy a Rivian.
I don't know about Rivian, but I'm generally less distracted on the road with CarPlay due to Siri & Voice Control. I wish I could extend it to my native car controls such as climate control etc.
Can anyone recommend a good aftermarket CarPlay unit manufacturer (or stand alone unit that I can mount on dash? Wary of cheating out and getting an overheating cpu or bad touch screen
I got a cheap generic one (aphqua brand) and it's fine. The touch screen is fine. The aux out is fine. It doesn't seem to get hot. It's not amazing, but for the price it's functionally perfect.
There should be a standard. (Yes I know the XKCD)
Apple and Android each having their own is ridiculous and actively prevents smaller competitors(one can dream)
I hope you made your dissatisfaction known. Otherwise I’m sure they see your purchase as a success, validating your decision. Make sure they know you’ll never by another GM car.
I imagine the Venn Diagram of Rivian buyers and Apple users is basically a circle (or one small circle inside a much larger one), this seems like a wildly obtuse position for them to take.
It's difficult for me to admit - because I really dislike Apple, Google, and the other predatory monopolies - but I wouldn't buy a car without CarPlay either.
Like I said, it's not because I'm a fan of Apple. Honestly, fuck Apple. Fuck their stupid walled garden and their $99/yr developer fee and their planned obsolesence and their lack of a headphone jack and everything else. But fuck Google too. And especially fuck all the car makers with their crappy infotainment software.
The truth is, I put up with an iPhone and with CarPlay simply because it is slightly less shitty than all the other shitty options.
As a disclaimer, the three iPhones I've ever purchased have all been used. I keep them for as long as possible. I don't use iCloud. I don't buy apps. In fact, I don't give Apple any money as far as I know.
I wish a Linux phone was a viable option but they are years away from being truly usable and decades away from any hope of mass integration with cars.
There are a bunch of CarPlay devices on Amazon, for example, with all kinds of screens, designed for Tesla and other cars that don't support it, that cost about $200 for a nice one. Why not just buy one of those and who cares if it's natively supported?
The author is in a podcast that I classify as Apple apologist. They feel because they have used Apple products for 8+ years the world should bend to their knee. And anytime new non-apple tech comes up on the podcast they do not give any opportunity to acclimate to new tech, because they drink the apple kool-aid. Which is fine, but just admit some products are not for you then if you want the Apple ecosphere, where they dont respect their customers, their developers or their partners.
> Let me help you, [Rivian Chief Software Officer] Wassym
Casey Liss, let me help you:
Apple and Google are monopolies.
You are boot licking an invasive species trillion dollar company.
These two megacorps are trying to put their greedy tendrils into the automotive industry and extract even more money from an industry that is not healthy and very difficult to succeed at.
It's high time the governments of the world told Google and Apple to fuck off and leave both consumers and other industries alone. Told the both of them that it's time for their platforms to become an open standard.
That phones themselves must be an open standards. With open web installs without scare walls and deeply hidden settings.
The inversion of control needs to make Apple and Google the bitch here. Not the automotive industry that can't even dream of the insane margins the tech industry has.
Cars should be able to interface with any phone without having to subjugate themselves to Google and Apple. Because this is a perverted inversion of control.
I don't particularly care about Android Auto (I generally prefer standard bluetooth for audio, and directly setting the phone up for navigation), but if a manufacturer supports CarPlay and not Android Auto, they can get lost. I hate how Apple stuff is an assumed default.
Effectively no one does that. I think there might be one or two ultra luxury cars that do, but in general no one does. Because they don’t wanna cut off any of their audience.
And at this point it seems like 80% of car manufacturers just ship android automotive anyway. You really think they’re gonna do that and turn off android auto support?
CarPlay is bad for the car manufacturer and is far worse than the modern car software. People who complain about loosing CarPlay are not using the new software but reacting in fear thinking the old car software will come back.
The author acts like manufacturers get CarPlay for free when it has a high cost, high constraints, and gives over most or all of the dash over to another company.
> gives over most or all of the dash over to another company.
This was covered in the article, that’s just CarPlay Ultra, which is still fairly new and hardly any companies have implemented it. That’s not what’s being asked for.
> fear thinking the old car software will come back.
Why would this not be a concern? Condition forces higher quality. If these car companies are competing against Apple and Google, they need to stop phoning it in. If they block them out, they can ship more junk and drivers are just stuck with it.
If they believe it what they ship, they shouldn’t be afraid to also build in CarPlay/Android Auto support. Have the sales people go over the built in system so people give it a chance. Impress the customers with it. Advertise how good it is. Eliminating the competition and claiming it’s for the best, does not inspire confidence.
I’m not even that old, but I’d really love to argue to simplify the entire auto infotainment stack. I don’t even need a screen. I just bring my own by magnetically attaching my phone that I’ll use to navigate and Bluetooth music or podcasts. If CarPlay becomes the standard that allows me to not pay for whatever crappy tablet UI automakers are pushing, fine. But that doesn’t make CarPlay a necessity, it just makes it the least bad option.
I've never seen CarPlay work properly. 2026 and they still can't make a car play music without jittering like a CD player. Every car brand I've rented, every iPhone I've owned, gotta turn that junk off every time.
> There exists a flavor of CarPlay — CarPlay Ultra — that does take over every screen of the car.
I wish software leaning Internet people stop framing that center console tablet as "the car". It's worse than people pointing at display monitors and calling it computers. They're just cheap complimentary tablets attached to the car. If we were to fully embrace the line of thinking that frame the touchscreen being the car, the Slate Truck cannot exist, since it lacks the car of the car. In reality it does exist, because that thing is just a tiny add-on unit of a car.
The reason why there's been zero cars with CarPlay Ultra is because those cheap tablets remote controlling features of the actual car that hosts it, like speedometer, is weird, and way too complicated, and plain unworkable, on top of being too controlling.
I'm not defending car brands, I find conversations with misunderstandings like this less than ideally productive. The 5.25" DVD drive unit is not the computer.
The author clearly thinks that the dash and and the nav are connected to the same thing in the back, when in reality the nav is a self contained unit that runs on the power from the car. That only happens when people frame the nav as the car.
CarPlay Ultra takes over the infotainment as well as the dash displays. The author is correct. In cars that support CarPlay Ultra, the dash screens are just additional infotainment screens that default to gauge display.
And I'm saying zero cars support CarPlay Ultra because that's not how cars work. The dash screens cannot be made into just additional infotainment screens because the infotainment is explicitly architected as an external device to the car.
What I've been saying is that the infotainment is external to the car, not significantly more connected and integrated than the spare tire, and that everyone needs to understand that.
Surprised no one's mentioned it so far, but CarPlay / Android Auto aren't just features, they're consistency. Across makes, models, years. I know what I'm getting when I connect my phone - and if anyone uses my car with their own device, they get their own dashboard, as well. One interesting use case I saw was a couple where one used a left-to-right interface and the other a right-to-left UI. CarPlay makes this easy, because the interface is linked to your own personal device.
Agreed. Extremely important on rental cars.
They aren't just this they're also that. When real people explain what CarPlay is they don't lead by saying consistency.
I'm not sure if the parent comment was written by AI or not (you're probably right) but consistency is indeed one of the main things I think about with Android Auto. Not just consistency between cars, but also consistency with the rest of my phone. The principle seems worth considering.
There are legitimate reasons to get help from LLMs when writing, including being an ESL. The comment has substance.
I would prefer knobs and buttons over a screen flow in either direction, but no modern car caters to this anymore.
My Hyundai Ioniq 5 has Car Play and knobs and buttons. It's not either or.
I bought a BYD that is as close to that as I could.
https://esv6hz7yeij.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/b...
From everything I’ve read about BYD, I’m thinking it’s almost certainly going to be the car I buy after my move to Mexico.
Some still have knobs. My mom's caddy has knobs in front of the armrest that control everything, so the touchscreen is optional but works just as well for those that want it.
Mazda has knobs and buttons that can even control carplay
Same with Toyota (fun fact—I discovered earlier this year, over three years that I bought my Prius, that there were whole displays in the dashboard I didn’t know existed while trying to adjust the volume from the steering wheel while I was backing out of my garage, but because the wheel was rotated 180°, I hit the wrong button. Turns out the navigation between different info displays is 2-dimensional and the ↑/↓ gives additional views into some of the information that I had no idea existed, as well as revealing some functionality I didn’t know was there for the HVAC).
Author says "I literally will not buy a car that does not support CarPlay."
From July 2022: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/22/apple-carplay-could-be-a-tro...
Since then GM has dropped CarPlay. Rivian has appeared following Tesla and refusing to support it. And I thought there were some other existing manufacturer who was either getting rid of it or thinking about it.
Basically despite the popularity the market seems to be moving against it slowly. And the more those cars succeed the more other auto makers will be willing to follow.
I'm in this camp: I will not buy a car without CarPlay. And I put so few miles on my car that while I'd like a new one, if the vendors make this impossible then no one gets my money.
Same here. I have a Chevy that supports wireless CarPlay and I refuse to buy a car that doesn't have it. We're looking at replacing it soon, and we're going to go with a Subaru in no small part because it supports CarPlay.
It's not that the market is moving away, but more like car companies realized if they want to sell monthly subscriptions in the future, they need to own the software.
The car companies need to stay in their lanes on this one. You’re risking selling a >$40k piece of hardware that requires professional service every six months in order to sell me $240/yr in software subscriptions.
$240/yr in software subscriptions but likely far more than that by selling the extra metadata they can extract from the service
This is crazy to me because the primary value proposition of Rivian's Connect+, as I see it, is enabling the hotspot while you're in the car and being able to monitor Gear Guard while you're away from the car. These are entirely separate from supporting CarPlay/Android Auto.
If Rivian et al. truly want to sell a premium product, their software needs to be premium. And frankly it's just not there. The other day I was trying to listen to an upcoming album that has a few singles released. On my phone I can do that no problem. On the Rivian Spotify app, the album just didn't show up. It wasn't possible to play those songs in order without searching for the songs one by one. There are a ton of things that I love about my R1T, but as more time passes, the gap between what they offer and what other manufacturers offer becomes more and more apparent
Same here. CarPlay is in the top 10 features for my next Car. Even for my older 911 which I bought second hand, the first investment was a Pioneer head unit with CarPlay.
GM has not dropped CarPlay. I just checked out some 2026 GM vehicles (Chevy) and they list CarPlay.
It may be for MY 2027. I know the new Bolt drops it.
Right now it’s only dropped in GM’s EVs. Of course when this causes a drop in EV sales, they’ll use that as an excuse to kill off their EV lines.
Tesla might support it.
https://www.teslarati.com/apple-developing-missing-link-tesl...
I have a vehicle that's basically a BMW, which has excellent navigation integration with a HUD. Recently, they announced that my vehicle would receive map and software updates, for basically as long as the included modem was functional.
My vehicle doesn't support the carplay to hud stuff, but that's okay. The thing is... when my car stops getting map and traffic updates, I will still be able to switch to carplay for at least the command screen presenting information. I intend on keeping this vehicle for a long time, so that's important to me.
On top of that, carplay offers better bitrate than bluetooth.
For people that wish to keep a vehicle for a long time, carplay/android auto isn't just a convenience anymore. With the increased integration of headunits, aftermarket becomes a tougher sell.
> I have a vehicle that's basically a BMW
Why not just name the brand?
I assume it's a Toyota Supra
It could also be a Rolls Royce or a Mini.
Or a Grenadier.
Isn’t that a type of fish?
I assume it's a MINI, which is made by BMW
It could be a small brand not sold in the US that a large portion of the audience here wouldn’t recognize.
If only there was a global repository of information about everything that was readily accessible at our fingertips that anyone here could access!
Let’s create such a marvelous thing! What shall we call it?
Sounds like the Apple monopoly has made yet another industry its bitch.
These companies are giving up sovereignty of their primary product to a company that can steer away customer loyalty and disrupt any hope these companies have of increasing their already scant margins.
Any car should be able to interface with a phone without Apple or Google's legally binding terms and NDAs. The direction of control should be on the side of the customer first, and the automotive company second.
Where the hell are the regulators? This is not okay.
That doesn’t make any sense… The comment you’re replying to is about people’s desire for a particular feature, but pretty much any car that supports CarPlay also supports the Android equivalent, as well as still having media playback and often some kind of navigation without either!
Your comment would only make sense in a hypothetical situation where the car infotainment only worked if you had an iPhone or if there was some kind of exclusivity agreements to preclude it working with Android, but that isn’t the case in any circumstance I’m aware of.
Seems like, if anything, the right action for regulators would be to enforce car manufacturers to not refuse to support existing consumer connectivity protocols... or at least not unless they can come up with something at least as good. And definitely something that isn't "pay us a data subscription so we can track you too while you use a crappier re-implementation of what your phone can already do."
Or "we're gonna cut off our older models to force people towards new cars instead of older ones." That's a bad pattern to let people selling $30,000+ devices get access to.
What regulators and the industry should have done was to devise a touch-over-HDMI protocol, so that CarPlay can be deprecated and its successor sectioned off as they like. That was IMO the root cause of this problem.
This wouldn't be a solution to the argument in the article: Rivian and Tesla don't want to support phones projecting to infotainment
As it is, CarPlay is implemented as a h264 video stream which receives touch, microphone, and metadata from the vehicle, the protocol is fine albeit proprietary
As a owner of a GM without android auto, never again. Everything is on my phone but I can't safely access it while driving. Also can't legally because my state makes using the phone while driving illegal (for good reason. I suspect most states don't allow it)
Consumers having a preference is not ok?
I feel the same way about Android auto. I refuse to be locked into some terrible, never updated or expensive subscription vendor nav unit. I have a phone. I want to be able to use it.
Not just that, but car makers have proven they can’t be trusted with our data. My phone has all my appointments and addresses in it. I’d much rather use the nav on the phone where the data already is, then sync it with my car so they can do god knows what with it.
Android Auto is also a thing.
Do you understand how headunits work and have you ever sat in a car? It doesn’t sound like it since you think cars are forced to use CarPlay.
What do you want the regulators to do to Apple in this case? What have they done wrong?
> Where the hell are the regulators? This is not okay.
To quote a wise man:
>> We need to stop this helicopter civilization bullshit.
>>We're building 1984 to protect from god knows what imaginary harms.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755473
These are the companies that undersigned the Orwellian "protect the kids" act.
These trillion dollar companies are the problem. They're moving into other healthy industries and crushing them. They're sucking the oxygen out of every market.
Stop cheerleading this. They need vibrant competition. We need a de-ossifying forest fire. We need lots of nimble smaller companies.
Instead the giants place a ceiling on the growth of every other industry, then when they need more growth, they start to creep in and dump on healthy markets unrelated to their original enterprise.
Look at Amazon giving away Lord of the Rings, running a $200M ad campaign for free on its Rivian trucks, printed boxes, website, app, etc., buying up MGM... How do actual companies in these spaces compete with the dumping?
How do businesses keep Apple and Google from strong-arming them? Rivian doesn't want to be Apple's bitch. You guys are cheerleading it and telling Rivian to bend over.
Google and Apple are the companies that want to track you and turn the internet into a land of device attestation and mandatory ID sign in. They're both actively building "age assurance" into their platforms, and it won't be long before they start gating internet use via these tendrils.
Google and Apple are not good companies.
You're all building this Orwellian hellscape. STOP.
You know the reason why companies like GM don't like CarPlay is because they think they should be the ones who get to track you, sell you various subscriptions, and sell the resulting data to third parties. Right?
You'll note that it wasn't Apple who sold out their own customers, it was GM. [1] False-equivalence arguments are both pointless and, in this case, unnecessary. There is a lesser and greater evil here, and the lesser one in this case happens to be Apple.
1: https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/gm-pay...
Android Auto is in the vast majority of cars that also have CarPlay.
What’s your point?
Ah yes, the solution to any and every problem, real or imagined, is more government.
I literally will not buy a car that has a microprocessor in it
(I will, apparently, never buy a car)
The 1977 Oldsmobile Toronado is generally considered to be the first car to have microprocessor control.
But Ford's EEC was built around Toshiba's TLCS-12, the world's first 12-bit microprocessor, developed specifically for engine control, and might have been in cars produced prior to 77, but documentation is spotty.
So do you only drive cars built prior to the late 70s? Because sacrificing the enormous safety improvements just for a bizarre feeling of moral superiority is a really awful hill to die on. And literal death is a real possibility
Or do you not drive and never planned to buy any kind of car and thus your claim is meaningless?
TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) is a coin battery powered computer inside each tyre of your car. They’ve been around for a couple of decades now. Even the lowest end cars have TPMS in each wheel. If you change wheels you need to go to a wheel shop and have them re pair (as in re pair wifi) the wheel with your car. I had to do this recently with my 2014 ford focus.
Anyway those are just four of hundreds of computers in your car these days.
Not exactly a great example as it's unnecessary and expensive to replace. Lots of other microprocessors actually make your car easier and safer to drive.
A TPMS doesn't make your car easier and safer to drive???
I mean, "no microprocessor" means no engine designed in the past 30 years, because the fuel pump needs one.
"No antenna/modem I can't readily remove" might be _slightly_ more achievable.
50, as another commenter pointed out.
That’s a very hard line
I’m fully bought into the Apple ecosystem, and I’ve had Teslas for 8 years and we currently also have car that supports CarPlay. The CarPlay interface is overall far inferior, especially with navigation. First of all, searching for destinations is terrible on CarPlay compared to Tesla! Even worse, Apple didn’t even add multi-touch support to CarPlay until iOS 26, and the vast majority of cars (including ours) don’t support it, so you have to hunt for and tap the zoom controls, which is pretty barbaric compared to the fluid pinch and zoom gestures that work on Tesla and our other devices. Also on our CarPlay car, it never seems to know the direction the car is facing until it starts moving, which becomes incredibly frustrating navigating out of a parking lot. The final major downside is having to switch apps out of navigation to control music then switch back, whereas on Tesla (and Rivian) you can choose and control music while keeping navigation on your screen.
I have a boring Mercedes mid-size SUV. Carplay works. I can skip/repeat tracks using the standard control on the steering wheel; the instrument cluster shows the current track the same way it's done with connected phones forever. On the center console screen, we use the Carplay view with 3 splits - one for Spotify, two for navigation (map & next direction). Google Maps and Apple Maps are both reliable where I drive (Miami).
Tesla is a great car below the from the headlights down, I love driving my dad's Y performance to the grocery store when I'm visiting home. But no way I'm going to get a car where I can't point the vent at my armpit without using a touch screen. No way I'm going to get a car where I can't talk to whatever agent I want while stuck in traffic. I much rather have a boring car that doesn't tick me off.
If Tesla (or Rivian) add Carplay, they'll really move up the my list (still want physical vent control tho). Would you stop driving your Tesla if an update added Carplay tomorrow?
Personally I find the feeling of air blowing on me, no matter how pleasant initially, to quickly become grating. In most cars I adjust the air to blow where I am not, and compensate with a notch higher fan speed.
Having the ability for the air stream continually moving is more valuable to me than constantly moving it by hand.
Being able to pre-cool the car before entering it is more valuable to me than sitting in a hot car and pointing the MAX A/C directly on my face.
I wouldn't stop driving my Tesla if they swapped the UI for Carplay but I'd be incredibly disappointed at the downgrade
See my comment below. I think they should add CarPlay support but I personally don’t see myself ever using it.
> The final major downside is having to switch apps out of navigation to control music then switch back,
But... you don't. Tapping on the home button once more or swiping to the right on the app page reveals the home screen which has navigation and music together:
https://devimages-cdn.apple.com/wwdc-services/images/D35E0E8...
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/wgH6RZrtKkuAQkJUjfWW8V.jpg
It even adapts to vertical screens:
https://i.redd.it/n7e0st8ebyh81.jpg
Our CarPlay car has a small screen, so I prefer to keep navigation full screen most of the time. In split mode, it’s way too tiny for me, but I occasionally leave it there if I know my way around anyways. It’s definitely not a well designed experience.
I believe iOS 27 brings a MiniPlayer, but I don’t know the rules about when it does/doesn’t show.
I mean, you choosing not to use the feature doesn't mean the feature doesn't exist and fulfill your needs.
Most OEM infotainment sucks, and it's taken a while for things to improve. I'd be willing to say your older car has a resistive touchscreen and physically couldn't support multitouch
CarPlay is definitely an improvement if you're comparing it to something like Ford Sync for example
You can control music and still navigate while in CarPlay. I do it all the time.
The main dashboard screen of CarPlay lets you navigate, manage music, and view the calendar and take calls all at once. Have you used that before?
Can’t you do split screen navigation via the home screen (Dashboard View)? At least on cars I’ve rented I could have navigation on one side and music on the other in CarPlay.
Split screen can be finicky and kinda sucks on the small screen we have. Also, I don’t think I can browse music with split screen…
OK you don’t like it. How is that an argument against allowing people to choose?
Quite the contrary, I’ve long thought Tesla should add support for CarPlay to alleviate the concerns of many buyers over it not being supported. I think it would have been starkly worse than Tesla’s interface before they supported multi-touch this past year, but nonetheless they should have supported it by now. Better late than never that they’re finally adding support for it, it’ll especially make Rivian look kinda silly for continuing to be so stubborn about it. I think only a small fraction will actually use CarPlay on their Teslas, but it’s still pretty dumb to let that missing feature hurt their sales.
Curiously, being herded onto tesla's software is the number one reason I won't buy one. I don't like the navigation or media software and the rest would feel better as a physical control or just seems useless in a car.
I have a Tesla and a Lightning.
One of them lets me send iMessages to groups as well as non-phone recipients like my kids. The other is my Tesla.
I’m glad for you, but if Tesla supported CarPlay I could get what I wanted and you would not be affected at all. I’m baffled why people like you even bother to share your opinion. Nobody is suggesting that you be forced to use CarPlay. See also the entire topic of this discussion.
I’m baffled you think sharing a well-sourced opinion on a discussion thread is a bad thing, or that you think I believe Tesla adding support for CarPlay would somehow force me to use it. As I said in other replies, I’ve long thought Tesla should add support for it, but that few people would actually use it much.
The author of the original piece is asking for a choice.
Your opinion is not an argument for that. It’s also not an argument against that.
So I’m not terribly sure what it adds to the discussion. I’m not surprised there are people who like Tesla’s UI. I’ve seen plenty of them online over the years.
I don't own a Tesla.
I have rented one though, so I know enough about the software experience to know that there's (currently) only one reason why I might wish for CarPlay over the integrated software experience, and that's Waze. Maybe.
I own two (petrol) cars. One has CarPlay, the other has a rigid phone mount between the steering wheel and centre console. While I appreciate the former for its nice large widescreen map, I still prefer the latter. Waze in CarPlay mode (due to the restrictions on what can be shown on the phone screen) is simply more annoying to operate. So if was in the market for a Tesla, and I had the choice between CarPlay support or a nice phone mount between the centre console and steering wheel, I'd probably choose the latter.
(I would still campaign for Tesla to support CarPlay, because why not.)
Like the author said, if your built in is good, then great you don’t need CarPlay. Literally nobody is asking you to switch.
Second all these points! No multitouch is such a bad experience on maps!
I agree with the author: CarPlay is table stakes for me. Whenever an automaker says a car won't support CarPlay, I mentally cross it off my list. Which is fine, because there are plenty of other viable options.
I love Android Auto but I don't miss it when driving my Tesla because the Tesla has all things I want anyway.
I owned a Model Y for several years, but, at least in my city, I always felt Tesla’s navigation had pretty poor route selection during busy times of the day - like dorecting me to streets that were notoriously stop and go during rush our when the highway alternative was known to be much quicker.
I’m with Casey on this: I will not buy a car without CarPlay. Of course, I haven’t bought a car since 2013. That one is a Tesla Model S and I think its UI is pretty decent for maps and playing audio, but I have rented enough cars since then to know that I would much prefer CarPlay support. If I had to replace my car today, I’d probably buy a Volvo EX90, which is the electric version of the XC90 Casey talks about.
Rentals it is more important. Your own car doing the one time setup every few years is no problem but when it is a rental you don't want to take that time.
Quite interesting, particularly with statistics shared in comments. Personally I hate CarPlay because of it's limitations - oh you can't respond to messages, oh you can't watch videos and sorts. Much easier to have a tablet there free of these "safety" limitations.
Maybe it’s cause I’ve never actually used it, but I really only care about a stable / well supported Bluetooth connection.
I have a holder for my phone for when I use GPS and basically never interact with it directly after it’s set. Only real interactions are media controls via the steering wheel.
The only use cases I can see car play helping with are those who take a lot of calls/texts in their car while driving and those who listen to music and want to listen to specific songs.
For me it’s about the waste. Engineers have taken the time to build a screen into the car with a good viewing angle, that works well with glare, doesn’t obstruct the drivers view.
Then the software side just makes the whole thing useless with a terrible UX that will never be updated.
CarPlay is a great solution because the non safety critical stuff (music, navigation) gets offloaded to a competent software company.
Plus it improves every year.
On my previous car it never changed from the day I bought it, other than navigation getting more and more out of date.
On my current car I get software updates occasionally. I’m not sure that function ever changed though.
Meanwhile my iPhone gets better every year. And if I buy a new phone? CarPlay can get faster. My car never will even if I wanted to pay them.
I was super bought into carplay and android auto until I actually owned a car that had it. Oh great, it requires USB. Well my phone is 4 years old and the port is toast, so that doesn't work for me. Okay, wireless then. Car doesn't support that. Lovely. Bluetooth implementation is half-assed and the pairing process is Byzantine. Terrific stuff.
That car ended up sucking in other ways too. I quickly sold it and went back to buying old Lexuses. Wireless charging phone holder, and off you go. The siren call of infotainment is powerful, but actually living with it is just more fiddly bullshit I don't need in my life.
It doesn't negate the problems you are pointing out, but there are several devices that bridge the USB wireless gap. (Aawireless, etc)
As someone who only had 20+ year old cars and motorcycles, I don't see what's CarPlay supposed to solve? All I need is a Bluetooth-capable radio and a phone holder to display the navigation, so I can listen to my music and focus on driving. Phone doesn't need to be touched unless changing destinations. Do people seriously need to be constantly entertained while driving?
Carplay isn't about entertainment for me. It's just a vastly superior and convenient way to view the same map you can see on your iPhone.
I have a beater subie (2018). It has CarPlay (fairly basic variant). It also has very few touchscreens, which I like.
I could easily afford better, but have little interest in doing so. It’s low miles, paid for, handles well in the snow, and is in decent shape. A car gets me from Point A to Point B, and I want it to do so reliably and safely. I couldn’t care any less, what people think of me. Life’s too short.
I also write iOS apps; ones that make a lot of use of navigation stuff.
I like being able to use my app to determine a destination, plug it into CarPlay, and immediately get a map to where I want. Point A, meet Point B.
I’m sure that some of the systems fancier cars use, may be fine for this kind of thing, but CarPlay does it very smoothly.
I’m with the author. No CarPlay, no sale.
I really don’t think any manufacturer is concerned about what I think, though. There’s a lot of fish in the sea.
That’s the great thing about CarPlay it makes the usually junk infotainment system in cars (especially older ones) irrelevant, so they still seem modern.
For a budget car, I’d be perfectly happy if they had a screen for CarPlay/Android Auto that didn’t do anything else if a phone wasn’t connected. I think this makes a lot of sense as a cost cutting measure. Maybe it would just be used for the mandated backup camera.
I also love it for rental cars. I can get in any rental, and instead of having to learn my way around or figure out a Garmin add-on, CarPlay can make the navigation and music instantly familiar with all the data I need.
I do see the maps - on my phone. What does seeing them somewhere else add? It seems completely redundant to me.
The bigger screen is nice. The integration is also nice. I can push a button on my steering wheel to activate Siri to tell it where to go. Music controls on the wheel also pass through to CarPaly. I have a low res auxiliary screen to display added data (oil temp, weather, etc) and the music option will display music track data from CarPlay as well.
So instead of trying to look at a tiny screen that’s clipped onto an air vent, I can use the screens and integrated controls, keeping my hands on the wheel and my eyes more in the road.
Also, the biggest battery drain is having the screen on. CarPlay allows me to have the screen on the phone off while still accessing all the data. With a wireless adapter, I can also leave the phone in my pocket, so I don’t need to set it up every time I get in the car or remember to grab it when getting out. So it feels more like the native experience of using the car.
The car screen is much better, for me. Much safer, and less distracting.
I’d rather have the map shown on the headunit screen rather than have the phone screen next to a larger but unused headunit screen.
I’m with OP, here: CarPlay is additive to the experience, but also is something that provides me a degree of consistency across my automotive experiences - when vendors bother to implement it properly.
I have an old Honda Fit that I installed one of Pioneer’s “app radio” units into, which included replacing the dash facia. I use CarPlay on it almost exclusively, but if I want Pioneer’s incredibly mediocre UI/UX, it’s a single button-tap away - either on the left side of the radio via a capacitance button, or on the first page of CarPlay’s app icons.
When I rented a car to drive to visit family, it had CarPlay. The infotainment experience was familiar, so I could focus more on the road ahead instead of fussing with some newfangled vendor-specific infotainment shitshow.
When I rented Nissan in Canada, it too had CarPlay - but with a nasty bug where using voice commands or making a call would crash the whole unit. I figured out very quickly not to do that, and the rest of CarPlay worked a treat for the trip - a far cry better from Nissan’s UI/UX.
This is why I didn’t hop on board infotainment systems until CarPlay and Android Auto were mature options, opting to stick with my phone over USB for audio/iPod controls instead: none of the major manufacturers except maybe Panasonic actually give a shit about the UI/UX. They don’t build intuitive systems that can be operated without looking, and they scoop up far too much superfluous data to enable simple features. I refuse to buy the vehicle maker excuse of “superior experience” anymore when time after time, the reality is these car companies think the infotainment data is some sort of goldmine of revenue and letting Apple or Google have any say over the experience is tantamount to leaving money on the table.
If I cannot have CarPlay, and your EV or vehicle won’t let me swap the infotainment unit for an aftermarket one that does, then I am not buying your fucking spyware on wheels. I don’t think anyone else should tolerate that bullshit either, especially on what averages to be a $70k+ purchase nowadays.
Over 90% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. already support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
So it is kinda expected to be there: if it is not there then a car needs to be something special. So I think buyers don’t even ask for it because they assume it will be there (and absence becomes much more noticeable than its presence).
That was the statistic, with GM‘s move to ditch it is that still true? Wasn’t there also some other legacy auto maker that was planning to?
When I bought a Rivian I missed CarPlay. There were a few things that really stood out.
1. Proper Voice Texting
2. Google maps for routing with (good) traffic data.
The Voice Texting just a release or two ago - its okay so far but not as good as CarPlay. Google traffic landed a while back (in Rivian's map which I prefer over Google Maps)
I'll take the voice texting for what is otherwise a very elegant and well designed UI - that keeps getting better.
Full disclosure. Even when I have a rental with CarPlay I just use Spotify and google maps. Both of which are integrated into the Rivian UI. So YMMV
And that’s the thing isn’t it? Often the same app is better on CarPlay/android auto than it is in the native UI for the vast majority of cars.
They want to hold you captive to subscription plans. If they allow CarPlay, it gives consumers more options for cellular connectivity, music, navigation, and other apps.
That's one of the reasons CarPlay is non-negotiable for me: It limits the automaker's ability to enshittify the ownership experience.
Nothing prevents them from removing CarPlay in an update, though? Unless you make sure to never connect the car to the internet. Some garages will update FW for you unasked I hear.
I hesitate to propose ulterior motives, but given there have been several seemingly obtuse objections to projection from Rivian, perhaps the CEO is concerned that, if Rivian supports projection, it will harm the perception of the value of their software stack? Related, I think they licensed their stack to VW.
I think Rivian is disguising a hidden factor: CarPlay prohibits vehicle manufacturers from collecting metrics and selling anonymized or identified user activity data, and this loss of telematics data / income stream is unacceptable to manufacturers (for example, GM*) who see the smart TV business making billions on that precise data.
The correct route for someone with interview access to Rivian to clarify whether this scenario applies would be to review their legal terms for owners and then point-blank ask in a recorded interview ‘whether Rivian’s vehicles are reporting to Rivian what music their buyers play in Rivian vehicles’. This is a nuanced sentence: whether is yes/no; information is too broad to weasel out of; ‘on what music’ focuses on a private aspect of car ownership and is a callback to the VHS rental rulings; ‘in their vehicles’ is not only restricted to what’s connected to the headunit by usb or Bluetooth or radio, but also covers the headunit-connected microphones in the vehicle as well. If they say yes, the questions become obvious. If they say no, the followup should be to ask if Rivian contractually guarantees that they will not someday issue a software update that begins doing so. Either it does not, or it does. Two questions max to either confirm or refute a suspicion.
GM cited ‘the ability to improve cars’ as why it’s refusing CarPlay, but as the OP article clearly shows, GM could simply continue to improve the cars and the screen surrounding the CarPlay dedicated window, while continuing to improve their own built-in functions using the data from those who do not use it for the benefit of those same users. GM’s justifications last year in this regard are just as obtuse as Rivian’s this year. Given that similarity, I suspect you’re right: Rivian does indeed seem to be trying not to appear desperately in need of cash by reselling user data for subscription revenue profit: ‘buy our three-ton six-figure vehicle so that we can make $1/year off of you to keep our business afloat’ is horrendous optics and would lead to open mockery of their business.
* The GM/FTC 2026 case only prevents GM from selling data associated with vehicle driving. Headunit usage cannot be readily assumed to be ‘driving’ data in the case context of vehicle insurers, and so continued sale of radio usage data to (for imaginary example) Nielsen would be unaffected by the specific, narrow, and temporary 2026 ruling.
They want software subscription income. It's as simple as that.
Yep. Subscriptions and incentives.
Every car I have purchased has satellite radio factory installed. And each time SiriusXM will not shut up about trying to get me to sign up. Over and over. It takes years before they give up.
I don’t want it. So why is it in the car? Because they pay Ford and Honda and everyone else to put it there.
Why did they both have Spotify? And iHeartRadio? Who even uses that? All sorts of other things. There’s a kickback for every one.
But unlike satellite none of them work without a cell connection. And they won’t use your phone. You have to pay the car maker for their overpriced connectivity. That’s what they want you to do.
Money money everywhere. But if I use CarPlay or android auto guess who doesn’t get a cut.
“People will think our software is bad.” It is, that’s why I want CarPlay.
They want my money. After the car payment I don't have money leftover for another subscription. Use my phone subscription, that is what I'm paying for for.
That’s one of the things that’s always seemed odd to me. I’m more likely to use some service on the car that you get a kick back for and can spy on if I can use my cell phone data plan.
If you try to put a gate in front of it of a $25/mo car data plan, forget it.
It’s 4G? Wow. My phone is only 5G. It’s a hotspot? So is my phone. And I’m the only one here anyway. I get updates to your maps? I don’t like your maps.
It’s like they’re trying to sell flavoring to make dirty water taste better, without ever stopping to think most people don’t like dirty water.
And your data. Auto makers love selling user data.
TBF for a lot of stuff they could probably just monitor the audio system to fingerprint things the way TVs do these days and sell that data even if you use android auto or CarPlay.
But they certainly get a lot more if you use their maps and entertainment apps.
"You can read Wassym’s full answer at the episode link, but here’s the part that stuck out to me:
The challenge with screen mirroring solutions is that they take over every single pixel in the car, and that’s not the way we see ourselves interacting with our users."
I kept reading past this part thinking I didn't misread the title, because as he explained, a mirroring solution that takes up every pixel could potentially be addictive, and it made sense that he didn't want the UX to fundamentally change when people drive Rivian's cars. And for that, kudos.
But now I realize your case is that CarPlay is additive. Ok, great! I do wish I could use Android on my car, which is newer than your 2017 one but only features Bluetooth, music and Phone, pairing, rather than a full OS mirror.
Do I wish it had more? Yes. But am I less distracted on the road? Yes. So I would buy a Rivian.
I don't know about Rivian, but I'm generally less distracted on the road with CarPlay due to Siri & Voice Control. I wish I could extend it to my native car controls such as climate control etc.
Rivian should buy overcast.
That way they can silence people being too vocal about what they want. The tech way.
In all seriousness though, Tesla can’t include CarPlay fast enough to make companies like rivian take a moment and actually consider carplay.
Also atp is one of the best podcasts out there
Can anyone recommend a good aftermarket CarPlay unit manufacturer (or stand alone unit that I can mount on dash? Wary of cheating out and getting an overheating cpu or bad touch screen
I got a cheap generic one (aphqua brand) and it's fine. The touch screen is fine. The aux out is fine. It doesn't seem to get hot. It's not amazing, but for the price it's functionally perfect.
There should be a standard. (Yes I know the XKCD) Apple and Android each having their own is ridiculous and actively prevents smaller competitors(one can dream)
I am also in this camp. As soon as GM announced they weren’t going to support CarPlay, I scratched GM off of the list.
Ford Mach E it was then.
I thought I would be okay and bought a GM. I regret it because of the lack of android auto.
I hope you made your dissatisfaction known. Otherwise I’m sure they see your purchase as a success, validating your decision. Make sure they know you’ll never by another GM car.
What makes you think they would care? If they cared they wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
They will care of sales slump and the feedback they are getting is all asking for CarPlay/Android Auto.
Even Tesla said they started working on CarPlay support when their sales started to suffer for unrelated reasons.
You said “let them know after you already bought it” - again, why would they care?
I imagine the Venn Diagram of Rivian buyers and Apple users is basically a circle (or one small circle inside a much larger one), this seems like a wildly obtuse position for them to take.
It's difficult for me to admit - because I really dislike Apple, Google, and the other predatory monopolies - but I wouldn't buy a car without CarPlay either.
Like I said, it's not because I'm a fan of Apple. Honestly, fuck Apple. Fuck their stupid walled garden and their $99/yr developer fee and their planned obsolesence and their lack of a headphone jack and everything else. But fuck Google too. And especially fuck all the car makers with their crappy infotainment software.
The truth is, I put up with an iPhone and with CarPlay simply because it is slightly less shitty than all the other shitty options.
As a disclaimer, the three iPhones I've ever purchased have all been used. I keep them for as long as possible. I don't use iCloud. I don't buy apps. In fact, I don't give Apple any money as far as I know.
I wish a Linux phone was a viable option but they are years away from being truly usable and decades away from any hope of mass integration with cars.
android isn't linux-y enough to be able to use android auto on a more typical linux kernel?
There are a bunch of CarPlay devices on Amazon, for example, with all kinds of screens, designed for Tesla and other cars that don't support it, that cost about $200 for a nice one. Why not just buy one of those and who cares if it's natively supported?
In most cases it puts the CarPlay screen in a more difficult to reach location than the OE screen.
The one that interests me now is the one that selectively takes over the Tesla screen.
Don't like Siri but want CarPlay? oops, nope.
> I literally will not buy a car that does not support CarPlay.
This is silly. I have installed Android Auto head units into each of my last three cars. It costs a few hundred bucks and takes an afternoon.
I simply will not buy a car that won't easily accept a double DIN head unit.
The author is in a podcast that I classify as Apple apologist. They feel because they have used Apple products for 8+ years the world should bend to their knee. And anytime new non-apple tech comes up on the podcast they do not give any opportunity to acclimate to new tech, because they drink the apple kool-aid. Which is fine, but just admit some products are not for you then if you want the Apple ecosphere, where they dont respect their customers, their developers or their partners.
> Let me help you, [Rivian Chief Software Officer] Wassym
Casey Liss, let me help you:
Apple and Google are monopolies.
You are boot licking an invasive species trillion dollar company.
These two megacorps are trying to put their greedy tendrils into the automotive industry and extract even more money from an industry that is not healthy and very difficult to succeed at.
It's high time the governments of the world told Google and Apple to fuck off and leave both consumers and other industries alone. Told the both of them that it's time for their platforms to become an open standard.
That phones themselves must be an open standards. With open web installs without scare walls and deeply hidden settings.
The inversion of control needs to make Apple and Google the bitch here. Not the automotive industry that can't even dream of the insane margins the tech industry has.
Cars should be able to interface with any phone without having to subjugate themselves to Google and Apple. Because this is a perverted inversion of control.
People own cars. Not two tech titans.
Geez, did Apple CarPlay burn down your house and kill your livestock or something?
I don't think I can honestly say I've seen a car UI done so well I'd forego CarPlay on the same vehicle.
MAYBE in the rare case it has wireless CarPlay only, but can play music over USB from my phone. Maybe.
I don't particularly care about Android Auto (I generally prefer standard bluetooth for audio, and directly setting the phone up for navigation), but if a manufacturer supports CarPlay and not Android Auto, they can get lost. I hate how Apple stuff is an assumed default.
Effectively no one does that. I think there might be one or two ultra luxury cars that do, but in general no one does. Because they don’t wanna cut off any of their audience.
And at this point it seems like 80% of car manufacturers just ship android automotive anyway. You really think they’re gonna do that and turn off android auto support?
CarPlay is bad for the car manufacturer and is far worse than the modern car software. People who complain about loosing CarPlay are not using the new software but reacting in fear thinking the old car software will come back.
The author acts like manufacturers get CarPlay for free when it has a high cost, high constraints, and gives over most or all of the dash over to another company.
> gives over most or all of the dash over to another company.
This was covered in the article, that’s just CarPlay Ultra, which is still fairly new and hardly any companies have implemented it. That’s not what’s being asked for.
> fear thinking the old car software will come back.
Why would this not be a concern? Condition forces higher quality. If these car companies are competing against Apple and Google, they need to stop phoning it in. If they block them out, they can ship more junk and drivers are just stuck with it.
If they believe it what they ship, they shouldn’t be afraid to also build in CarPlay/Android Auto support. Have the sales people go over the built in system so people give it a chance. Impress the customers with it. Advertise how good it is. Eliminating the competition and claiming it’s for the best, does not inspire confidence.
> gives over most or all of the dash over to another company
The dash isn't the manufacturer's property. It's the car owner's.
I have a Tesla and want CarPlay. What car has this better, newer software that you say I’m unaware of?
I’m not even that old, but I’d really love to argue to simplify the entire auto infotainment stack. I don’t even need a screen. I just bring my own by magnetically attaching my phone that I’ll use to navigate and Bluetooth music or podcasts. If CarPlay becomes the standard that allows me to not pay for whatever crappy tablet UI automakers are pushing, fine. But that doesn’t make CarPlay a necessity, it just makes it the least bad option.
It sounds like you want a Slate: https://www.slate.auto/en The closest it gets to an infotainment system is a tablet mount.
I've never seen CarPlay work properly. 2026 and they still can't make a car play music without jittering like a CD player. Every car brand I've rented, every iPhone I've owned, gotta turn that junk off every time.
(n=1)
> There exists a flavor of CarPlay — CarPlay Ultra — that does take over every screen of the car.
I wish software leaning Internet people stop framing that center console tablet as "the car". It's worse than people pointing at display monitors and calling it computers. They're just cheap complimentary tablets attached to the car. If we were to fully embrace the line of thinking that frame the touchscreen being the car, the Slate Truck cannot exist, since it lacks the car of the car. In reality it does exist, because that thing is just a tiny add-on unit of a car.
The reason why there's been zero cars with CarPlay Ultra is because those cheap tablets remote controlling features of the actual car that hosts it, like speedometer, is weird, and way too complicated, and plain unworkable, on top of being too controlling.
I'm not defending car brands, I find conversations with misunderstandings like this less than ideally productive. The 5.25" DVD drive unit is not the computer.
Huh? Your own quote literally does not frame the center screen as "the car":
> that does take over every screen of the car.
The author clearly thinks that the dash and and the nav are connected to the same thing in the back, when in reality the nav is a self contained unit that runs on the power from the car. That only happens when people frame the nav as the car.
CarPlay Ultra takes over the infotainment as well as the dash displays. The author is correct. In cars that support CarPlay Ultra, the dash screens are just additional infotainment screens that default to gauge display.
And I'm saying zero cars support CarPlay Ultra because that's not how cars work. The dash screens cannot be made into just additional infotainment screens because the infotainment is explicitly architected as an external device to the car.
What I've been saying is that the infotainment is external to the car, not significantly more connected and integrated than the spare tire, and that everyone needs to understand that.
Here's an explanation of CarPlay Ultra, which really is the phone driving your dash and instrumentation: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/05/carplay-ultra-the-nex...
There's only a couple of Aston Martin cars that support it, but there's supposed to be more coming. See: https://www.stuff.tv/features/apple-carplay-ultra-compatibil...