[conk]

GM is removing CarPlay, and now this story that they are dropping support for in car infotainment apps for cars that are 5-7 years old. Are consumers really going to buy their cars? I won’t consider a new car that doesn’t offer CarPlay/android auto.

[nneonneo]

I am so glad that I insisted on buying a car with CarPlay five years ago. At the time a number of our options did not have CarPlay, but were otherwise quite solid cars. If I'd gone with any of them I'd likely be a lot less happy than I am now: given that I use CarPlay on literally every drive, it's probably the single most important feature to have.

I get that GM doesn't want to cede the important center console to third parties because it feels like giving up their control, but man, is it ever going to be the wrong choice for them.

[mdasen]

I agree with you that it's the wrong choice, but it's not just about ceding control. It's also about ceding the revenue.

For example, to connect their system to the internet, that'll be $20/mo. I'd guess GM gets a large portion of that revenue. If you're using CarPlay, there's no reason for you to buy their service.

It looks like GM makes around $1,000 in profit per vehicle. If half of their customers give them $20/mo for a decade, that's $1,200 in additional revenue. If AT&T takes half of that, it's still $600 which is a solid boost to their profits.

Now, you might say that fewer people would buy their cars and I'd agree - but companies make short sighted plays all the time that backfire. Someone does the kind of back of the envelope math that I did above and says "omg, I can increase our profits by 60% with this one easy trick" and it's wrong because the world doesn't work like that, but you put together some consultants and consumer surveys that are favorable and you get the green light.

I know: GM is just killing their relationship with consumers. I agree with you. But think about what Unity did to their developers. Unity saw the chance to charge a fee every time a game was installed and all the money that would bring - and didn't think about the predictable developer backlash. Companies do these types of things.

[jabroni_salad]

I know I'm slippery sloping but I wonder if they won't get rid of bluetooth and aux ports in the future. Letting people play spotify on their phone's data connection is money on the table when they could be selling their own data plans, getting a cut from their own app stores etc.

[mips_avatar]

GM has a unique customer base of people willing to buy bad cars

[winrid]

Corvette?? Tahoe??

My manual Spark is pretty fun and beats Civic Sis and other fast cars in rallycross. I have done 100+ redline clutch dumps in that car. It still drives fine.

[otikik]

Does it have CarPlay?

[winrid]

I've never checked. I just use a phone mount...

Edit: no, but neither do the 9th gen civics, lol

[TYPE_FASTER]

It's about GM and Google getting the data (https://www.motortrend.com/features/apple-carplay-android-au...). Switching from Android Auto and CarPlay to the Android Automotive OS (AAOS) means the auto manufacturer gets the data that was going through the phone.

CarPlay is a purchasing factor for me personally. I've always liked Volvo, but now that they all run AAOS the last few times I rented one I had to reboot the head unit when I got in the car to get CarPlay to work. Funny how vehicles running AAOS don't really integrate well with a competitor...

[Tempest1981]

If they offered to enable CarPlay/AA for $20/mo... would they sell more cars and increase profits? Or would the result be even more annoyed buyers?

[lern_too_spel]

Those cars connect to WiFi, so you just need to tether them to your phone after the 8 years of free data ends. No $20/month necessary.

[otikik]

People actually pay for that? I would rather pay for a phone holder and use the phone in loudspeaker.

Or simply not buy the car to begin with

[j45]

After market stereos were always the norm for actual technology. Crutchfield made it super accessible.

Automakers moved into it to try and capture more of that stream.

And generally they can’t keep up.

Cars don’t seem to change much except for the dash tech.

So mane it’s time to own the smarts yourself.

You could get any car and get a big android screen (some have tesla size screens) for your vehicle like those made by phoenix android radio. Only mentioning them as an example not the only choice.

All the built in car screens and graphics continue to work, plus put whatever you like on it.

[Fwirt]

It’s not as “integrated” into the car, but if you just want CarPlay, there are cheap single-purpose “tablets” that mount to your dashboard and either pair to your car’s Bluetooth or plug into the Aux port and just do CarPlay/Android Auto. Amazon is full of them. Ultimately it’s just a video and touch transport protocol, with some additional channels like illumination and I hear speed on some models.

[kybernetyk]

I've got one of those in my 2004 Mazda. It even came with a backup camera. Best 50 Euros ever spent. :)

[Tempest1981]

I got one too... the camera is still up on my bookshelf a year later.

[dylan604]

What's stopping someone from spending a few hundred bucks at their local custom stereo shop and replacing the head unit with something else that is less user hostile? If everything else in the car is what you need, just replace the part you don't like if it's not available as an option.

[CamperBob2]

These days the head unit has its tendrils wrapped around many parts of the car besides just infotainment, and wiring harnesses are a lot more proprietary. Does the aftermarket head unit support your car's parking sensors? How about the backup camera? Even the Homelink button that opens your garage door has migrated to the touchscreen in a lot of newer cars, never mind forehead-slapping features like the climate control settings.

The days of single- and double-DIN stereo swapping are slipping away fast. You're pretty much stuck with what you get when you buy the car, so it had better be what you want.

[simulator5g]

This isn't actually true. You just need a module to interface with the car in place of the original head unit. For example the iDatalink Maestro can connect HVAC controls, engine diagnostics, tire pressure, etc to compatible head units. And there are a lot of compatible head units, basically all the worthwhile ones have Maestro support.

[CamperBob2]

That's good to hear, I wasn't familiar with Maestro at all. But it doesn't do anything to address the proliferation in form factors. I can get nice aftermarket head units from a couple of different Chinese vendors for one of my cars, but they had to be specifically designed for that exact application. I ended up adding wireless CarPlay to that car's original head unit with an ugly internal/external adapter solution. It works well enough, but it was a pain to install. Hopefully similar hardware can be made available to GM customers in the future.

For the other car, though... no way, no how. It is stuck with what it has. Its touchscreen is a nonstandard size, seamlessly integrated into the dashboard, and not used by any other cars AFAIK. Fortunately it's also pretty good. It supported wireless CarPlay from day one, and it isn't from a manufacturer that relies on fracking its own customer base for $20/month. Safe to say nobody will be building an aftermarket replacement for it.

[simulator5g]

You just need a dash kit, which someone probably makes for your specific make/model. If not you could 3d print something. Any good stereo shop can help you out too. Its kind of hard to find a good one though.

[ec109685]

Wish there was rules around interoperability. Having to buy a whole new car to get your apps back is terrible.

[TYPE_FASTER]

I think it drives the instrument cluster too. Maybe instead of a new head unit, what we will need in the future is an open version of Android Automotive OS, like Lineage for our cars.

We use CarPlay with our Mazda. The heads up display on the windshield displays the next turn information from Apple Maps.

Edit: it looks like Lineage has support for Android Automotive: https://lineageos.org/Changelog-30/

[snapetom]

Was it removing or has it been removed? Seems like a while ago they announced it.

Anyway, no way I was buying a GM car because of that. I don't believe a car manufacturer can create a better software experience than a software company.

[bluedino]

I rule them out because of the lack of quality in their vehicles. Too unreliable and impossible to repair.

The infotainment only adds to reasons to not buy GM.

[Spooky23]

I don’t understand why anyone would buy a GM car. This is just frosting on the cake.