We’ve talked about GM’s decision to reject the use of wildly popular mobile phone projection systems, like Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto, on car infotainment systems before, and we thought it was a pretty terrible decision. But, since then, I’ve had the opportunity to read this in-depth interview between The Verge’s Decoder podcast and GM’s big man for software, Baris Cetinok, who has a title that feels downright royal in its length: Senior Vice President of Software and Services Product Management, Program Management and Design. After reading the interview and getting a bit more insight into Cetinok’s reasoning and GM’s stated goals and design philosophy, I realized I really should reconsider my position. I now think it’s a misguided and maybe a bit arrogant of a decision. I better explain.
First, I should note that I think Cetinok is an extremely accomplished person, and seems like an extremely intelligent person. There’s a reason he has the impressive position he does. He’s worked at Microsoft and Amazon and Apple – he spent about a decade at Apple. The man clearly knows his stuff. He came to GM a few months after they made their decision to reject the use of CarPlay and Android Auto, so we can’t pin that decision on him. This could be just the hand he was dealt, and he’s making the best of it.
That said, what I have a problem with is the reasoning used to justify why GM doesn’t want people to have, essentially, the software they actually want in cars. There’s an element of truth to the reasoning given, but I think that the approach to that core bit of insightful accuracy is being interpreted in precisely the opposite way that actually makes sense. Here’s what I mean; this is an excerpt from the interview, emphasis mine:
[Decoder]: Why drop CarPlay and Android Auto from GM vehicles?
[Cetinok]: Because there was a belief and a hypothesis, which I genuinely believe in, that we are best positioned and owe it to our customers to create the most deeply integrated experience that you can create with the vehicle. We are not shipping devices with just monitors; we’re not a monitor company. We’re building beautifully designed, complete thoughts and complete convictions. We say, “This car is designed to do the following things awesomely.” This is Silverado, this is what it stands for and this is what it does. Let’s get to it.
When you want to create something so seamless, it’s hard to think about getting into a car and going, “Okay, so I’m doing highway trailering, but let me flip to a totally different user interface to pick my podcast. By the way, it’s a single app-obsessed interface — it’s still hard to believe. So I pick my podcast, flip back to trailering. Oh, now I can also do Super Cruise trailering. Let me manage that. Then, wait, we’re now getting into potentially Level 3, Level 4 autonomy levels that should be deeply integrated with talking to the map where the lanes lie. But wait a minute, the map that I’m using doesn’t really talk to my car.”
As a product person, you’ll never do that to yourself because it’s literally like, “Oh my God, I made my life so hard to create amazingly seamless experiences.” At some point, you need to make that bold decision and say, “I am not going to try to accommodate and figure out how to make all of these work. I’m going to just burn the bridges and burn the ships and commit.” We are going to create a deeply vertical, harmonious experience that works across the vehicle that is optimized for my vehicle.
Okay, that’s a big chunk, but I think it’s all needed to see where Cerinok is coming from. There’s a couple of things I want to point out here, but the key part is this concept of “seamlessness.” Cerinok describes the process of using native car applications on the screen, like trailering, and then having to switch to, say, CarPlay to pick a podcast, and then switch back for other car-related functions. That’s not seamless. And seamlessness implies that one of these interfaces is the “interloper,” is the one breaking the seamlessness of the user experience. It’s clear that Cerinok believes that the car’s native UX is the baseline experience, and its CarPlay or Android Auto that’s interrupting.
The problem is he has this completely backwards.
A seamless experience is absolutely a good thing! The problem is that a car’s UX does not get to be the baseline of that seamless experience, because people live most of their lives outside of cars. There’s a bit of carmaker arrogance happening here in the assumption that the car experience is what needs to be seamless. It doesn’t. It’s just not important. What is important is keeping seamless the user experience the person driving the car has been experiencing all day: their phone.
On an average day, people spend, what, an hour or so in their cars? Two hours? Out of, say 16 plus hours of wakefulness? So why should the one-eighth of wakeful, interactive time be the one that gets to be the default interface? It shouldn’t, nobody wants that! People want to continue with the interface and experience they’ve been using all day long, seamlessly in their cars. If someone texted them an address, they want to be able to poke one finger at it and directions appear. They want to continue with the same music playlists they’ve been listening to all day. They want the same reminders to pop up or whatever else they’ve already gone through the trouble of putting in their phone. They just want their shit, displayed on the car’s screen. And that’s fine.
And when Cerinok says “By the way, it’s a single app-obsessed interface — it’s still hard to believe” I don’t get what his problem is there – does anyone want to be looking at multiple applications on their center-stack screen while driving? No, fuck no! And besides, it’s not really single-app based. There’s things running in the background: music plays while you’re looking at the map, reminders appear or text message notifications show up to be read. There’s multiple things going on, but you sure as hell don’t need to be looking at them all.
I also don’t really get the examples Cerinok picked when he described the issues of lack of seamlessness. A trailering app? Why would that need to be constantly on-screen while driving? Shouldn’t most of that software be working invisibly behind the scenes to keep the trailer stable? Same with Super Cruise and the autonomy levels he mentioned: what’s the on-screen UX for those? For the Level 4 autonomy he mentions there, the car is doing all of the work of driving (in a constrained area). So why not look at something else on that screen?
This is also a good reason to keep certain car controls, like lights and wipers and HVAC stuff and opening the damn glovebox, off of screens. Not everything needs to be crammed into a menu on a GUI.
Cerinok has the general right idea that people would prefer a seamless user experience overall. Of course they would. Nobody is really all that eager to learn a whole new interface when they already have a perfectly good one they’re already using all day long. GM – and every other carmaker – needs to accept that fundamentally, no one really gives a shit about a carmaker’s home-grown UX. They just want something simple and intuitive and for all of the stuff they already use their phone for – navigation, messaging, phone, music, podcasts, texting, email, whatever – they just want to keep using the same thing they use nonstop as it is.
I know there’s an ego kick there, the realization that no one really cares about the careful and beautiful car-specific UX that teams of talented designers and engineers have crafted, but that’s just how it is. I’m sorry. If there’s car-specific data that needs to be communicated to the driver, the best bet is to find a way to pass that data through the UX the people already are using. It can be done, but carmakers like GM first need to accept that when it comes to on-screen UX, no one cares about what they think.
So, seamlessness is great. It just that nobody wants GM or any other carmaker to be the ones to decide what that is.
Sorry about that! Best get used to it.
Rivian Is Wrong About Not Supporting Apple CarPlay, As Is Everyone Who Agrees With Them
Apple Wants To Make CarPlay Required For Every Screen In Your Car: Federal Lawsuit
Nobody Believes GM Can Do Better Than Apple CarPlay
The easiest way to solve this problem is not having anything you would need to adjust or activate while driving be something that can only be done through the infotainment screen.
Hes leaving out the underlying move where they make each part of it a subscription service. The Uconnect that came with my Ram. $199/year for maps and to be able to remote start through an app? Or I can use AA/CP for free instead? Gee, let me think about which one the consumer is going to find more attractive.
Also, the RIDICULOUS price tied into all of their technology tied into one screen you cannot live without. My 8.4″ touch screen started to delaminate after 3+ years. Out of warranty and a new OEM was over $1800. And that is installing it myself. I replaced it all with an Alpine radio, amp, and after market touchscreen controller and just use AA for all my needs. But things like what GM are doing are making it harder and harder to use your own “free” technology and with EVERYTHING in the vehicle tied to it, makes it more costly to repair the screen than a major engine repair. Nonsense!
This is a big problem too. Nothing spells fun like a failure mode for the HVAC being the touch screen failing.
“A trailering app? Why would that need to be constantly on-screen while driving?”
The GM trailering app is amazing. Gives you a transparent trailer view while driving, when you turn, the view switches to a camera view that look along the side of the trailer with a redzone showing the length of the trailer.
I think it’s more that CP & AA need to play nicer with the onboard system. You want maps from your phone? AA/CP should have the ability to pipe just maps, etc. to the screen and mix & match with the built-in apps.
Yes, but then they’d have to code for every manufacturers’ systems. Or try to get them to adopt their (tech comapnies’) own systems, in the case of Volvo and Polestar having Google-based infotainment systems (but that still aren’t entirely seamless with AA AFAIK?).
Even Polestar has a better integration and interface than GM with their lack of CarPlay. Sometimes the internet on the Blazer EV takes a while to wake up and you are disconnected for a few minutes, nothing works if you dont have internet. Spotify and other apps, they have limitations on how they work compared to the ones in your phone that gets better and better on a regular basis. March of 2024 was the last time the Blazer got an update. Remote Start doesnt even work half the time on the phone app and the user support from OnStar is useless.
GM has blocked typing destinations or other information on the vehicle while you are driving, you have to rely on voice commands that I hate so bad. Polestar has that option open even for CarPlay to type on the screen.
At least having CarPlay option, if the car internet goes bad I can rely on my phone to enter destinations, its more common to have downloaded information in your phone to rely on.
Remember when cars had built in maps and navigation? They charged huge amounts for it. Now everyone just uses their phone.
GM is so out of touch on this it’s amazing it made it this far with the idea. Remember folks, you’re a client, a customer and consumer to sell things to. Nothing more to them.
This. CP and AA let us leave that behind… and now they’ve reintroduced that which we were happy to do without. And people get paid big money for decisions like this. Same arrogance at Tesla and RIvian and others that I can’t think of.
Worse yet, they stopped supporting updates so now that sweet NAV system doesn’t even have roads built in the last 5 years. The car I just sold would sometimes just put a point on the map in the middle of what appeared to be an open field and say “proceed towards target”. I couldn’t buy an updated map for at least the last 5-7 years
And remember when “New GM” stated that all of the ignition cylinder issues on Cobalts and Ions were manufactured under “Old GM” and tried to wiggle out of responsibility for the deaths from that failed design. Nope, GM can pretty much rot.
It’s amazing GM made it this far at all let alone this idea. Oh yeah, they flew in private jets to ask for a government handout.
It’s been said here already, but i wish we could have both. The modern vehicle he is talking about has a lot of screen real estate, surely enough to create something like a spot on the screen that functions like an old-fashioned radio.
Sure, the OEM may have some cool integration between, for example, the vehicle and navigation, but I bet they overestimate how many people will end up really caring about that.
And in addition, I use Google stuff and my spouse uses Apple stuff. We already have to figure out which to use when in the vehicle we both use, compounded when we are both in the car. And when we switch places. We are constantly confused about which interface we are looking at onscreen. Vehicle native, Google, Apple? And then switching from one to the other is very non-intuitive. This kind of usability is what needs to be sorted out for easy use by folks who don’t use their phone all day long. We hear a ping/tone/note alert and look at each other to see if it was mine or yours making the noise!
I listened to the Podcast a few nights ago. I agree with Jason’s take, but I have a few additional points:
First and foremost, I don’t trust GM to build an interface I want to use, and I rate the likelihood that they’ll (ever) create one that I would prefer to iPhone / CarPlay to be less than 1%.
Second, I spend the overwhelming majority of the time in my car in CarPlay. I’d love to see the metrics – I’d bet it’s over 90% – and a good chunk of the 10% is waiting for CarPlay to become available after I start the car. I just don’t have a need to be in the OEM UI unless I have to change a setting or listen to analog radio (which is not often).
Third, another thing that really rang home for me is the talk about seamless experiences. Baris focuses on the disjointed parts of the casting experience – having to duck in and out of the interface for various things – and completely neglects the parts that are already seamless because they’re handled by my iPhone. He talks specifically about Spotify, and how consumers will want Spotify to build a GM app to create a seamless experience. What GM fails to recognize is that I ALREADY HAVE A SEAMLESS EXPERIENCE WITH MY APPS AND THEY’RE BREAKING IT.
Fourth, I go way out of my way to avoid Google – and Android Automotive is the platform GM is building on. (I have the feeling at some point in the not too distant future this will severely constrain my options for cars, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.)
Lastly, and several others have already mentioned this – but I get a universal experience with any car that supports CarPlay. Each OEM having their own experience that I have to learn is a significant step backward.
Nilay did get a great jab in regarding keeping CarPlay around for rentals though. He really nailed the guy with his own comment!
There is also the BIG fact that a lot of households have 2 or 3 cars, very often of different brands and what seamlessness you can achieve in a Chevy UI won’t translate to a Toyota or BMW UI.
The beauty of CarPlay and Android Auto is that the interface is retained no matter what car you’re in.
My first CarPlay experience was recent with a week in a rental Malibu. I’m not agreeing entirely with GM Dude there but I was very disappointed with CarPlay. The bouncing back and forth to go between nav and car functions was very awkward and it had tons of disconnects wired or wireless. Maybe it was GM’s bad implementation but it sounds a lot like it’s more widespread. As an OEM, I’d be annoyed having to deal with warranty and user issues because some 3rd party protocol is unreliable.
I’d chalk that up to poor implementation but GM. I installed an aftermarket system in my car and thanks to dedicated controls for other car functions, once I’m in Android Auto I don’t have to leave until I’m at my destination.
With CarPlay you have no need to use the vehicle’s navigation. Google Maps or Apple Maps and you stay in the CP (or AA) ecosystem.
I agree with everything you indicate in this article, plus, let’s remember the goal for dumbass corporations like GM. If you’re using Waze on your cell phone, you’re not paying $68 per month for the Navigation subscription that GM wants to sell you…
Also, in:
…the word “potentially” is doing some remarkable heavy lifting.
Thank you for articulating it all so well. You nailed it with:
There’s a bit of carmaker arrogance happening here in the assumption that the car experience is what needs to be seamless. It doesn’t. It’s just not important.
It’s just not important. Thank you.
Dear GM: actually I’d pay extra for a center screen that does only CarPlay/AA and nothing else. Save the development budget AND take my money. See, win-win.
Also, this is going to be such fun every time I get a GM rental at the airport. CarPlay? Nope, lol! Got to carry a phone holder now. Thank you Mary and Baris, I really needed another piece of plastic in my bag.
You know what really sucks?
You can’t pull the crappy whatever-it-is-they-call-what-used-to-be-the-radio out of the dashboard and replace it with something else.
There is no equivalent of a radio delete plate and no blank spot to attach anything where you can both see and touch it but when the airbags go off it won’t get shoved into your skull.
What is it about new cars that requires so much paying of attention ?
One of my old cars has things like oil pressure, temperature, amps, an older one includes levers for ignition advance, and choke. None of those appear on the new car yet it is crammed with stuff.
I’m sitting in a car right now, and it’s like the design brief was to fill every bit of space that you can reach with some sort of control surface, air hole, a fake gear shift thing, four storage area doors. The rest is a screen that takes up too much space and you can’t Velcro something to the middle of it because maybe something important might show up there.
I just counted 60 button and knobs, a lot for some sort of useless cd changer, more for a useless map. All in a space hogging center console that is not only useless, but covered in useless crap so you cannot screw something useful into it.
And that is in a 15 year old Prius, newer cars are an order of magnitude worse.
I think the problem with Apple CarPlay is that it’s designed to allow select iPhone apps to be displayed and controlled via the vehicle’s infotainment system. It’s not designed to handle any vehicle-specific functions, which nowadays are often also controlled by the vehicle’s infotainment system. While I would love to be able to choose which controls are physical (knobs, levers, buttons, and switches) and which are virtual (haptic and touchscreen), that’s not the world we live in. So, if we insist on having Apple CarPlay, we are stuck with UI switching. I am personally fine with using the vehicle’s UI, if it’s designed to work well with my iPhone. It doesn’t have to be identical to the UI on my iPhone. The reality is, I do UI switching all the time, anyway. My iPhone is just one of many UI’s I interact with regularly.
It’s designed for allowing you to use iPhone apps that haven’t been thought of yet. Is GM going to put the wiener mobile locator app in?
They should stop worrying about designing GUI and think about designing proper interiors and attractive exteriors. And that goes for most of the industry. The GUI is a solved problem by companies that are far more specialized and expert in that field and are updated and managed by them. I would be happy to be an OEM CEO and just license CP/AA that people already know and probably like instead of spending a ton of time and money on developing something different and then having to manage it, update it, and own it when customers don’t like it. Then I could devote those resources into making better f’n cars, which is what my business would be. Of course, their real reasons for doing this are more nefarious—data mining and ad selling—something that I would refuse to pursue, which would get me booted by the board for negligence, then I’ll take my 8-figure parachute and devote the rest of my life to helping animals because people suck.
Excellent take. It is very SVP (and up) to hold forth that “I know best, users don’t know what they want and I do and I will tell them.”
SVP (and up) cont.
“And I will NOT take NO! for an answer because that might, maybe mean I am wrong which is impossible.
Besides everyone who means anything knows NO! really means YES! PLEASE MOAR!!”
VW SVPs (and up) cont.
“The users don’t like the UX? Let’s PUT AI IN IT! THEY’LL LOVE IT!”
I agree with all of this (and can’t believe I never see in car reviews a benchmark of the time from getting in the car to a functional/interactive CarPlay display), but wanted to give Jason extra credit for putting GEOS on a Cadillac dashboard. Don’t ever change.
It’s very typical GM to take a system like CarPlay, which most people seem very content with, and make it into a whole ordeal. This is 100% about creating a system they can more easily shoehorn ads into.
Love Jason, but totally disagree on the single-app issue. I hate having to switch from my mapping app to change a podcast. If a turn is imminent, I’ll wait until that’s done before leaving the nav screen. Side by side multiple apps would be fantastic.
That’s precisely what Apple Carplay and Android Auto already do!
Not in any car I have ever driven – and I drive MANY cars a year in my work travels. If you are in Carplay or AA, you have to exit out, do whatever you need to do in the car UX that isn’t in CarPlay, then go back in. This is insanely irritating if the main thing you are doing is navigating somewhere you have never been, to the point where I just usually can’t be bothered. I use my gigantic-ass phone to navigate, and the car’s UX to do music and whatnot.
And that’s before even getting into the fact that *reliable* CarPlay connection seem to be a matter of luck, whether wired or wireless. There is nothing more frustrating than having the damned connection drop just as you are navigating some complex highway interchange in a place you have never been to before. BTDT, wanted to punch somebody. And CarPlay ISN’T the same UI on a car as it is directly on the phone – for example, Google Maps works significantly differently through CarPlay than it does natively. So do most music apps. And never for the better.
I’m sure the latest cars with monstrous touchscreens and displays the size of God’s Ego will be able to display all the things at once, but I absolutely loath that nonsense and refuse to buy a car with it.
How many times were you dropped on your head?
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23540862/android-auto-split-screen-update-google-assistant-car
https://www.engadget.com/2019-06-03-apple-carplay-update-wwdc.html?guccounter=1
Neither of those do what I want. They let you use two Carplay or AA apps at the same time (IF the car supports it, many don’t). I want to use the *CAR’S* interface at the same time.
So you can piss right off.
Wait…. are you saying you’re the one person in the history of the universe who would prefer to use the car’s clunky navigation instead of the nav on your phone?
I think so. He must get lost a lot
I don’t use built-in navigation. I just use Google Maps right on my phone, as Dog intended.
Agree that it is nice to have in-car nav that works independently of CarPlay for the reason stated – Waze/Google maps has a bad history for me of locking up at inopportune times and also the car’s system can be played in the heads up and/or the dash screen. I also hate after selecting a specific route that Waze will change it on you because it “finds” what it thinks is a better way.
In a rented BMW last year I somehow had the worst of both – if I was running CarPlay the car turned off the built in Nav – which was massively annoying because we were in an area with limited reception and Waze kept getting lost. I like the BMW in-car Nav because it does a better job of showing nearby roads and I often have both on.
Why would I use the crappy built-in navigation? I use Google Maps right on my phone, and the cars interface for car stuff. Which these days usually includes things that really should have physical controls but don’t. So you have to exit out of CarPlay to do something as simple as adjust the seat heat in many cases. Or change the radio station.
Many’s the time I’d prefer to use the car’s satnav instead of my phone. Living in the west, where AT&T barely pays lip service, never mind actual cellular service in so many areas, you are effed if you are relying on your phone. I’d switch to Verizon, but I’ve got a family deal going w/ AT&T. When we were in Alaska, on a trail ride, the Verizon users had service when I had zip. Try using Waze or Google maps in those conditions.
My Polestar 2. Its UX is Android based. I tell Google to take me somewhere, and it predicts charge level on arrival and for round trip, in addition to the usual mappy stuff. Then it displays an awesome moving map on the 12” ish screen behind the steering wheel.
Then I tap the center screen over to CarPlay and pull up and listen to whatever. Or send messages. I have simultaneous and seamless access to “Ok Google” and “Hey Siri”.
See, both great Google navigation with integrated vehicle data AND skipping podcast commercials can happen.
At the same time.
All well & good, as long as you have cell reception. There are many places I drive in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington that don’t have universal cell reception. Car based sat-nav w/gps fare much better than cell phone maps.
Sadly, my Ford’s sync III can’t find a lot of places by name, particularly campgrounds, & I haven’t figured out how to tell the damn thing “memorize where you are so you can find your way back”.
Where I have cellphone reception (mostly along some major freeways), I often use Apple Car Play for Google maps or Waze. It’s helpful to know where the revenuers are hanging out.
You can just use offline maps mode in Google maps. I’ll grant you that Waze specifically won’t work offline, but if you know you’ll be in an area without cell reception, you just download the map and use Google maps instead.
I think he’s doing it the other way around. CarPlay/AndroidAuto for navigation, the car’s UX for radio/music. Which, yeah, that’s reasonable. Personally, I rarely listen to the radio, so it’s not a big deal for me, but I understand why it would be for many.
That being said, steering wheel buttons (or if the car has actual buttons on the UX) still change radio stations and all that. So, it’s not that big of a deal.
Steering wheel controls need to either go away, or the industry needs to standardize on ONE layout for them. I drive 20-30 different cars a year, and it’s the Wild West on what button does what, or even HOW a button works. For example, it’s completely random as to whether the “tuning” button will seek the next station or go to the next preset in any given model of car. And I am not going to go to the bother of setting up presets on some random rental car in some random city I am in.
Isn’t this solveable with a CP/AA compatible radio app? Or do you actually like listening to local radio when you are traveling away from home?
The added benefit here is that the app would follow you from car to car, and thus your settings/favorites would follow you.
I like listening to local radio.
No, I just use the Nav on my phone, and the car’s UX for controlling the car. You know, that *radio* thing that every car comes with, and these days all the other shit that you need the *car’s* screen to access, like heated seats and sundry other controls. I never use the built in navigation, even in my own Mercedes. Exception being my ’16 M235i that had iDrive navigation that was easily the equal of Google Maps at the time, and could do the split-screen thing as well as putting turn info on the small screen in the instrument panel. But I find BMW’s iDrive to be in a class of it’s own – at least until the ruined it recently with idiotic touch and gestures.
I rarely find that using Google Maps via CarPlay is an improvement over using it directly on my rather large phone (iPhone Max Pro, FWIW). Generally only when the car has no decent place to put the phone, or vents that won’t work with my vent clip. And even then, as I said, most apps have a dumbed-down interface when used via CarPlay that is hugely annoying.
I just can’t imagine what you regularly want to check on a cars shit interface that you’d want it to be alongside CarPlay/AA. A good car should have most anything I want to regularly interface with either a hard button or within the gauge cluster. The rest is pretty much covered by CarPlay/AA.
And yet recent cars DON’T have that anymore as a general rule.
As I said, I drive a zillion new and generally rather upscale rental cars a year (Executive Aisle for the win), I don’t find CarPlay to be worth the bother vs. just navigating with my phone and leaving the car to do car things. And I prefer my non-iDrive BMWs user interfaces to every single one of them. The best screen is NONE.
I almost purchased a Blazer or Equinox EV until the dealer confirmed that CarPlay was not supported.
Ultimately, I got a 2024 Trax (which is surprisingly nice, peppy, nimble, fuel efficient, and comfortable; but that’s a whole different conversation).
The Trax not only supports *wireless* CarPlay, the rest of the interior controls are not only physical buttons and knobs (yes, HVAC, Cruise, Heated Seats, Heated Steering Wheel, *Volume*) but they are all angled up and toward the driver!
I have to use my touch screen for maybe 1-2 touches per day for my normal driving, everything else is not only “real” controls, but actually angled towards me including the infotainment screen.
It seems funny to me that two cars from the same OEM can be so wildly different in their design implementations.
Sounds like you should have gotten a Prologue. The more expensive cousin to the Equinox that has CarPlay.
The Prologue is $10K more than the Equinox EV. That’s a quite a leap for “the same car but with CP.”
OP indicated Blazer or Equiox EV. I assumed a Blazer EV. Certainly can acknowledge that is a bit of a difference if it was a gas blazer.
I should have mentioned that it’s a more expensive cousin to the Equinox.
Sorry, yes it was a Blazer EV. Had the equivalent of the employee discount available, so that was limiting selection.
I assume it’s a matter of generation. All new GM cars are going to lack this feature intentionally. They used to have it nearly across the board.
All GM EVs have done away with CarPlay/AndroidAuto already (as far as I know).
Fundamental mistake is pretty simple, don’t reinvent the wheel. Both companies have done the work for you, and practically every driver has a phone.
Not to mention – you are GM. Did you forget about the brilliance of the CUE platform already?
Also, this talk about seamless transitions is absurd. I don’t want seamless transitions – I don’t want to seamlessly shift from park to reverse or reverse to drive, because I don’t want to accidentally do it. Actions should be intentional and separate.
Who the hell is the target audience for GM anyway? What I want is something that is reliable, affordable, and doesn’t depreciate like a rock. UI/UX just isn’t remotely on my radar. Just another example of poor management hiring poor managers.
Better way to not re-invent the wheel – a decent built-in phone holder so I can just do this shit directly on the phone.
I think the manufacturer that comes up with a tabbed interface, so the driver can quickly switch between “car” and “CarPlay/Android Auto”, will win this argument in the long run. The car’s UI doesn’t have to match the phone’s (and probably shouldn’t) because they serve different purposes, but quick and easy context switch will win the day.
Given the real estate available in current screens, there’s absolutely no reason why they can’t run side-by-side. The only major hurdle probably lies with voice commands
This is what Ford does on my F150. left 2/3 of the screen is CarPlay and the other section is a selectable car menu with maps, radio, and other info
The only argument against sharing the screen all the time is arm length. What I want close to me when thinking “car” is different than what I want close to me when I think “entertainment/maps”. I don’t want one to be the second class citizen (i.e. have to reach farther) when I want to use it.
Maybe they could share if it was easy to swap positions, but I’d want what’s top of mind at the moment closest to me, to make it easier to interact with the interface.
Honestly, Hyundai has knocked it out of the park lately. HVAC and basic controls are buttons, and everything else is Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. All other manufacturers need to follow suit.
Naturally Kia does this too, my wife’s ’24 K5 has buttons for everything except selecting the infotainment. It even has a volume knob.
Remember when “AM/FM radio” was a featured desirable option? Then we improved to “12-speaker stereo with GPS navigation, and DVD players in the headrests”.
Now we’re back down to “has a volume knob”.
Automakers, for the most part, have proven time and again they can’t write this software. Look at the Blazer launch, for cripes’ sake – the vehicle was IMMOBILIZED by their shitty software! And it’s not hard to pass data back and forth – my Mercedes heads-up display, with nav info, works with the native Merceds software AND Apple CarPlay – seamlessly.
This is really a grab for money. They want to sell your data, and sell you maps (that you have for free on your phone) sell you music (that you either already have for free or already pay for), put ads up on the screen (I’m looking at you, Ford), all with their proven user-survey interfaces. There are reasons people choose their phones over the usually crappy built-in interface. And all of that ignores updates/upgrades. If I want to swap out my phone for an-newer one (or a different brand) I can, for a lot less money than buying a new car, which may have an interface that’s obsolete the second it’s released.
GM won’t be on my radar as long as they keep this BS up.
Agreed, and I would like to thank GM for making my next auto purchasing decision a little simpler. Anyone too young to be rocking a Jitterbug is probably in the same camp. May I suggest a Deathwatch so we can all have some fun speculating how many more months this idiocy will survive?
This.
But also they want to collect data, just like everyone else. The time will come when auto manufacturers are data centers/brokers that happen to make cars.
Agreed, also if we go back just 10 years, the majority of cars sold didn’t even have screens, it’s only recently WITH Carplay/Android Auto that cars have had screens mostly for carplay/android auto!
So where was their amazing UX team before that? Picking how many station favorite buttons to include? Is it 5? Is it 10 with each favorite button holding 2? That’s pretty snazzy! And we could have the nice scrolling led screen showing the song that’s playing with RDS, woo-hoo!
You’re right, to go from that to “We know the best design for car displays” in less than 10 years is very arrogant.