[nostromo]

> No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Apple could release a car that has fewer features than a Tesla or Mercedes, and if it was designed very well, with seamless integration with the iPhone, lots of people would buy it.

[tammer]

The real evidence of this is the news today of Ford (as far as I know last of the major car companies with presence in the US) incorporating CarPlay into their console software. I've heard the reason for the swift industry-wide uptake of the platform is very high consumer demand - even to the point of driving the purchasing choice for a number of customers.

[atonse]

It was a non-trivial factor in my picking a Kia to lease.

I'm not a car person so I mostly can't tell the difference in power, nor do I need it, from other cars. I didn't care about reliability since it was a lease. But I did care that I had to use yet another shitty car-company interface, so having CarPlay support was a huge plus.

The car companies brought this on themselves by designing such bad software for their in-dash systems.

[serge2k]

> I'm not a car person so I mostly can't tell the difference in power

Bet you could if you tried. ;)

I really like my car. It's comfortable, I like driving it.

I really really really really hate the fucking sync software. It's just awful. Full of the stupidest bugs. I don't even have the full nav version, I have the smaller radio system. If I could find a decent replacement console that let me keep my climate controls (physical HVAC controls are a must. no touchscreen BS) I'd upgrade to carplay.

[atonse]

Sorry, to be clear, I couldn't tell a difference between the 3 Compact SUVs I drove. :)

I drove a Tesla and it was like a dream.

[mikestew]

I'm not a car person so I mostly can't tell the difference in power, nor do I need it, from other cars.

If you lived close, I'd take you for a ride in our 4000lb. VW camper van that cranks out a massive 68 horsepower. You'll notice the difference on the first hill we encounter. :-) (I take your point, though; I've a similar attitude: if I want to go fast, I'll get on the motorcycle and do it right, otherwise I don't care much.)

But I did care that I had to use yet another shitty car-company interface, so having CarPlay support was a huge plus.

Between rental cars and our Nissan Leaf with it's fucking abysmal in-dash UI, I've decided that any car we buy from here on out will have CarPlay or no deal. I'm just not going to put up with crappy car UIs anymore. Plopping a CarPlay-compatible dash unit in our old Scion xB was a revelation. Nothing earth-shattering in CarPlay, but it's familiar and non-annoying. I was driving my Mom's new '16 Corvette, and having not memorized central Florida roads, I found the UI to be annoying as usual. In fact, I can't remember if I ever found the navigation function. What I do remember is tripping across the CarPlay icon on the dash and thinking, "thank $DEITY!"

[atonse]

Yup just to be clear, I couldn't tell a difference between the 3 Compact SUVs I drove. :)

I drove a Tesla and it was like a dream.

[coredog64]

A CarPlay-compatible dash unit is what, $500 installed at the most? Don't buy floor mats and undercoating at the dealer and whatever car you buy next can have CarPlay.

[mikestew]

Assuming that it is possible to do so. I'd drop another Pioneer AVIC unit in the Leaf were it not for the fact that the OEM in-dash is the interface for a bunch of other stuff. A lot of newer cars have the same problem: the OEM unit you'd like to replace does more than play music.

[semi-extrinsic]

Undercoating, man, please don't skimp on this unless you live in a desert 500 miles from the coast. Otherwise it will ruin your resale value.

[Steko]

Apple could sell a lot simply by offering a superior car buying experience. While others have tried/done this, the median car buying experience is still as garbage as it's ever been.

[lastyearman]

Buying a new car is a nightmare. You start with a baseline model and think that's not too bad, tick some reasonable boxes and whoops, your car is now twice as expensive. Usually buying something is a pleasant experience but when it comes to cars? Hell no.

If they just offered one model that has everything and you pick the color, pay a monthly fee and they'd take care of the maintenance, insurance and whatnot.

[ghaff]

Honestly, if you handle your own financing so that doesn't get mixed into the deal, have a hard and fast value in mind for a potential trade-in, and go to a no-haggle dealer, I'm not sure how it's a nightmare. The experience is probably better buying higher-end cars but if you know what you want, what its price is, and get a bank check for what you owe, there are a lot worse experiences.

The reason a lot of people have bad experiences is that they're trying to buy something that they can't really afford, they need financing, and have a trade-in they want to be worth more than it is and the whole transaction becomes this complicated shell game.

[Steko]

> Honestly, if you handle your own financing so that doesn't get mixed into the deal, have a hard and fast value in mind for a potential trade-in, and go to a no-haggle dealer,

You just described less than 1% of car transactions.

[ghaff]

But not 1% of transactions that involve high end buyers and high end cars. As soon as you bring ordinary people and the mass market into the mix many of the "horrible things" inevitably emerge.

Sure you can and do have no haggle dealers who could offer take it or leave it finance options and trade ins. But I wonder how many mainstream car buying customers would consider that an improvement when told "that's what the car costs. Sorry if it doesn't fit your budget."

ADDED: I'm sure the experience of buying a Tesla is nice. But it's nice in the context of people who are not going in with no dollars to put down who want to find a way to get themselves into a Tesla.

[lastyearman]

I admit that I'm not a typical car buyer. I have no car and no experience in buying cars. What I would like to do is go to a website, pick a new car with reasonable features and see a hard number what it's going to cost me per month/year all in. Instead they make it a very tedious process to roughly come up with a number of how much this car is going to cost me in, say, 5 years and how does it compare to other cars.

Of course I should probably just lease a car but that is not very common where I live and thus prohibitively expensive. But I'd like to see it become more common as right now the risks and costs are quite hard to calculate.

[mgkimsal]

carvana.com looks like they're coming close to this - depending on where you live, they'll deliver to your house/office, bring paperwork, deal with trade in, etc. And point/click on the website for what you want, except it's all used cars - you take what's in inventory. I've considered them for my next purchase, and it will largely come down to what they have onhand when I'm ready.

[ams6110]

Isn't CarMax supposed to be no-haggle and no-pressure?

I've never bought from them. Last few cars I've bought from private sellers and I will never go back to a dealer of any kind again.