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by fizigura 1046 days ago
> There hasn't been any revolutionary new features in android since shortly after launch really.

Not visibly. But the tech stack has changed substantially.

I'd find it quite an achievement if the UX has largely stayed the same while things under the hood got modernized over and over again and went with the times, subtly bringing innovations to the UX as well without people realizing. It's a feature that things don't look substantially different every two years.

1 comments

Android Auto was 2015.
Hasn't really seen widespread acceptance. I bet a sample of 100 cars on the freeway, perhaps only 25% would have carplay or android auto connected in the USA, and outside the USA adoption is far lower.
Are you sure?

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/05/23/carplay-android-a...

> A report from Straits Research found that 98% of newly produced vehicles were compatible with either CarPlay or Android Auto. Meanwhile, 80% of prospective car buyers strongly preferred having these smartphone-based infotainment systems in their new vehicles.

The same research also shows Asia-Pacific to be the biggest market for these products, though North America is the fastest-growing.

"connected" vs "compatible with"

Tbf. 25% connected is huge. If you just jump into your car to quickly do groceries or pick up your kids, you may not be interested in connecting your phone to your car, even if you really like that feature. So there could be a natural ceiling for the "connected" number and 25% feels getting close to that ceiling actually.

My older car requires a hardwire connection for Android Auto, but my newer car will automatically connect over wifi so I no longer need to take my phone out of my pocket unless I want to charge.
If 80% of buyers express a strong preference for having Carplay/Android Auto I don't think it's reasonable to say that they haven't seen "widespread acceptance."
I read that as "strong preference for having Carplay/Android Auto over the car manufacturers own UI".

And everyone is just frustrated with laggy UI's in cars. But in reality they'll probably still just use Waze with a 10 buck phoneholder suction-cupped onto the windscreen.

This sounds like a result of how often cars are replaced. What if you stopped a sample of 100 cars released in the last five years? That proportion would be far higher. Pretty much every car review I watch mentions support for either or both.