Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
money.cnn.com
money.cnn.com
I was in another city and rented a car and it came with navigation. I knew I could just use my phone, but I decided to use the navigation that the rental car came with, just for fun.
1. First, I knew the name of my hotel, but not the address. I tried to search the business directory. I had to input the CITY AND STATE, which is painfully slow on the pressure-based touch screen, but I did it and did a search. I couldn't find it.
2. So I took out my phone and found the address and went back to the navigation in my car to type it in.
3. I slowly input the city and state again before it lets me input an address starting with the number.
4. When it came time to pick the street name, it was ambiguous. There's one street name that looks right. There's another with a W in front of it. There's another highway number that could also be it. I pick one and I can tell it's not in the right spot. Now I have to start all over.
5. I start all over, input the city and state and address and I think I have it right. I start to navigate.
6. It can't find a GPS signal. Maybe it's the parking garage I'm in. Maybe it just takes a while. I sit there. I'm about 10 minutes in and I still haven't gotten any navigation instructions.
7. I get nervous because I won't even know what direction to turn when I leave the parking garage. I take out my phone and say "Ok google, navigate to the blah blah Hotel". It says "Ok, sure" and my phone has no problems finding GPS and I have navigation instructions pulled up in about 5 seconds.
That's because your phone isn't actually using GPS ( e.g. Navstar or Glonass ) at that point, it's using cell triangulation or wifi-based location.
For example the fastest possible first-fix with Navstar from a warm-start, using cached prior-location and ephemerides, is 30 seconds[0]. From a cold ( position-unknown ) start, such as a car nav-system powered-down in a parking-lot for an extended period, the first-fix will take longer than 12 minutes. There is no technological way around that, it is an artifact of the system architecture.
[0] and that's for a top-end receiver than can sync to four satellites 'simultaneously' using time-division.
The software has improved dramatically, using some combination of previously saved location, WIFI triangulation, and dead reconning to figure out a near accurate location to within 50 feet so long as you're in a city.
Car navigation systems can do better. They're not even 'pure' GPS services, they have access to mobile cell, they do online updates for maps, and their accelerometers are far better than phones. The software though is simply worse than what Google can provide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS
I wonder if the average car system really has the sensors for high quality inertial navigation. If they don't, the navigation won't work very well anyway until it has a decent GPS fix.
My bluetooth GPS, connected to a non-cellular iPad tends to get lock in under 2-3 minutes, even when it gets turned off, tossed in checked luggage, and flown halfway across the world.
If you ever block me from doing something on a computer that I know it can do, I will hate you forever.
You know, I might have a passenger who could work the nav system, but, oh, no, the car is moving so you can't enter a new destination.
So many people disabled this "feature" on the Prius nav system that Toyota removed the ability to disable it. I kid you not.
And then they wonder why everybody uses their phone.
http://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/telematics/
there are exemptions of some kind for navigation systems in many places.
I've heard "it's not allowed by law" often, but I have yet to track down the actual law. Hopefully automakers aren't doing this based on hearsay....
Is it because Canada and Mexico? They have lower speed limits. Is it because the car could be exported to Germany and driven on the Autobahn? or what?
Remember that footage of Japanese drivers fleeing from the tsunami floods? How many more would have died if their cars had been slower? How many more would have survived if their cars could have gone faster?
There are plenty of survival situations (e.g., tsunamis, volcanoes, tornadoes, gas explosions, etc.) in which it's desirable for your car to go a lot faster than one should drive under normal driving conditions.
I see plenty of very dangerous driving within speed limits, ie people unable to keep in their lane, playing with cellphone, randomly breaking in semi-empty roads and so on.
These are my experiences from highways from most weekends. In towns, speed limits make much more sense and could be enforced by speed bumps or stationary radars
But I think the real reason is that people would be very, very grumpy about that law and regulators need to pick their battles.
For example, in Washington: http://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.425
An example is that if the speed limit is 55mph, it would generally be allowable to speed up to 60 to pass a farm vehicle traveling at 45mph on a 2 lane road provided that you're at a location where passing is allowed (clear line of sight, and the center line would be dotted instead of solid, no oncoming vehicles that would have to brake, etc.).
The second paragraph of that act does note that some roads may have minimum speed limits posted which you're not allowed to go slower than provided the road conditions are normal.
I believe Montana gave that up in the last few years, so there wouldn't be much of a case against putting an 85MPH governor in cars, except I guess against the possibility that some state might at some point raise their limit.
Some states (e.g. Texas) have been raising their speed limits, seemingly in keeping with the safety enhancements in cars, which is an interesting example of "risk compensation".
And extra 10km/h to account for instrument / measurement errors. Giving it an enforcable maximum of 160km/h = 100 mph. Yay :D
Back when the national speed limit was forced to 55mph because of the energy crisis, Montana legislators thumbed their nose at it by making it a cash fine of $5 IIRC that did not go on your record.
There are plenty of reasons not to do it. A lot of people take cars to the track, and not just those with high performance vehicles. I've seen people drag racing stock Camrys at a legit quarter mile track just because they wanted to see what it could do (not much).
Wouldn't work for controlling child, but on a freeway would work just as you expect.
Also, no offence, but if you can't trust your kid with a car, then maybe you shouldn't be lending them it in the first place? Or get them a less powerful car for the start?
A speed limiter is an incredibly one dimensional tool to try and modify accident chance.
It's called valet mode IIRC.
You make the erroneous assumption that drivers will suddenly obey the new speed limits. That isn't going to happen. Second the fatality rate and total number of motor vehicle crashes is lower now than it was when the NMSL (National Maximum Speed Limit) was in effect.
They circumvent this with their own car tuners which release the cars without this restrictions (AMG for Mercedes Benz as an example)
German here. No normal untrained person should be driving at those speeds. The general recommended speed for the autobahn is 130 km/h. Typical speeds on the middle and left lanes are up to 200 km/h though most days the typical "high" speed is probably closer to 170 or 180.
With good weather, no traffic and no roadworks (hah) you might be able to go over 200 km/h for a while but unless it's a long straight stretch you're probably way out of your comfort zone unless you're an experienced driver.
I would say a normal untrained person is safe to drive at speeds up to about 180 km/h. Most ordinary cars seem to handle noticeably worse with every 10 you go beyond 160 km/h or so.
And of course the entire discussion of typical speeds is philosphical when most of the Autobahn has speed limits (roadworks often limit the speed to 60 or even 40 km/h (or less) and even on normal parts the speed limit frequently is as low as 120, 100 or 80 km/h).
I got once 220 kmh with by older BMW 330d on unrestricted part of German highway, but it's quite stressful experience. You feel via your senses how fast everything is, you feel how long it takes for car to break to something more reasonable (ie 150) because of other drivers - this happens all the times, so it's almost never a smooth ride. And you know that any issue with the car like tire blowing means instant horrible death, and probably not only yourself.
Most normal tires have rating till only 220 (that is for new ones!), at speeds around 250 and more you will trash whole tires in 1 day (and you need good ones, not some cheap chinese crap with no grip), and whole car is just suffering much much more compared to regular driving.
Interesting one time experience, but even me I don't go over 150-160 on an empty road during day.
All new cars in EU have to be limited to 155mph by law, but manufacturers are allowed to remove that restriction if you complete an advanced training course. So for example - mercedes will remove the speed limiter on your AMG vehicle, if you finish their advanced amg handling course.
Can you give a source for that? To my knowledge the 155mph limit is just an informal agreement between BMW, Merc and Audi, and not law. The agreement also expired a decade ago.
I am fairly sure that you can just buy an RS6 or an AMG Mercedes with 190mph top speed, no courses required.
And yes, I've done a bit of digging at it appears you are correct - it's not actually the law, just an agreement between manufacturers.
Edit: Ok, I've looked through technical specs of all AMG vehicles, and it looks like every AMG model from A to S class is limited to 155mph unless you do the course, but the AMG GT isn't. So....yeah, I'm just completely wrong on this. My apologies.
And there are plenty of way less expensive cars out there with 300+ BHP. Again, not much point if you're limited to 85mph, which means the car industry has one less lever to pull to charge premium prices for premium models, and thus makes less money. And we're talking about an industry that's already, at least in some quarters, struggling.
(This could be complete nonsense of course.)
How’s that? In some jurisdictions (I would imagine in most, but can only speak with certainty about Czech and Slovak ones), it’s legal to do anything that would otherwise be illegal if you do in the course of protecting a person from imminent danger to their life. There are nuances to it, but the gist is that.
So imagine your son was bitten by a snake. Ambulance won’t get there and back to the hospital (because they won’t have a serum with them) fast enough. The fastest, best way to save your son is to drive him to the hospital as fast as you can. Fuck speed limits, a life is at stake, and it’s perfectly legal for you to ignore them (or any other laws you have to break to save his life) while doing so.
The car wouldn’t be able to judge this. It would have prevented you from driving fast enough and your son would die, even though the car’s restrictions would not be preventing any illegal behavior at the time.
Can't we at least compromise on that requirement? If there's a passenger, unlock the controls.
On a somewhat related note, this graph[1] show that the deaths of children in cars due to heat stroke started increasing after 1998 (which is when passenger side airbags were mandatory equipment in new vehicles).
[1] http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/76289000/gif/_...
It appears that passenger side airbags that automatically disable are not required, but they were explicitly allowed ca 1997 by the NHTSA (as well as allowing a manual on/off switch). So my original point was somewhat mistaken. Of course, cars do have a weight sensor to alert you when the passenger seatbelt isn't fastened, so still, the car knows when you have a passenger.
1) http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle-Shoppers/Air-Bags/Deactivati...
I'd prefer to call the person there the "first officer" or "copilot", as "passenger" seems more... passive.
There is no such expectation for "guests" on the backseat(s), so this is a pretty distinct role.
If so, then perhaps the real blame lies with legislators. They could revise torte law so that drivers, not manufacturers, are the ones responsible for the safe operation of a vehicle. But apparently legislators are unwilling to make such changes.
Too bad the MirrorLink consortium dropped the ball so epically. MirrorLink arguably does the same thing as Carplay/Android Auto and has been deployed to millions of vehicles, but nobody uses MirrorLink 1.1, why? Because to get your app certified takes tens of thousands of dollars, months, and tons of paperwork.
Carplay/Android Auto literally exist because the MirrorLink group created so many rules, regulations, and nonsense in the name of safety that MirrorLink 1.1 has like twenty apps total after two years(!). So if your vehicle has MirrorLink on the feature list, just laugh and forget it exists, you won't be using it.
PS - MirrorLink 1.0 allowed two way screen sharing, which was legitimately useful. MirrorLink 1.1 is a very different beast, most newer cars and phones only have MirrorLink 1.1 (no 1.0 at all). 1.1 defines things like how big buttons have to be, what kind of animations can play, how many button presses to reach each task, etc. Then everything has to be certified by an independent auditor.
PPS - Most depressing part is: MirrorLink could certify Carplay/Android Auto themselves, and instantly add both to millions of existing vehicles on the road. But they're never going to simply because they're effectively in competition with both.
Even if CarPlay/Android Auto last more than five years, I expect new versions will come out which render old vehicles incompatible.
[0] http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-average-c...
So what was the deal with that?
Also with the early iPhones, if accessories were just "Made for iPod" certified but not "Made for iPhone" (which usually required TDMA emissions testing and iPhone testing) a message would pop up.
Carplay/Android Auto are just, at their core, dumb protocols for transmitting screen information and receiving back touch inputs. If you go disassemble Mirrorlink 1.1 apps they use the VNC protocol behind the scenes, the protocol isn't complex (the certification nonsense is all artificially added).
The reason for the fragmentation and pain in this particular space (infotainment units) is a combination of: raw greed, vehicle makers trying in vein to retain control, not-invented-here syndrome, and "safety."
The only issue I see with Carplay/Android Auto is that Apple & Google should have worked together to create a single protocol, which would have made implementation easier and likely resulted in a faster rollout. They both benefit by having the infotainment unit hand off to their respective smartphone OS.
Because CarPlay in 2016 doesn't support the new hotness of 2018, because we are an industry of attention-deficit twentysomethings.
Granted, were I forced to choose between attention-deficit twentysomethings and bureaucratic, glacial fiftysomethings … well honestly, I don't know which I'd choose.
Things like onboard navigation, voice controls, parking sensors? All 90s technology on the S class. Autopilot came before the Tesla's, radars, adaptive suspension, etc are all things from several years ago in the S class land.
They just use that line to showcase all the cool things that a car can do.
Even if they just default to a remote desktop with touch screen interface, that's still fine for most in car applications.
CarPlay works well enough though no Google Maps, having issues with Android Auto mostly due to issues on my phone side :(
Larger display and physical buttons are really quite a good idea when you're driving 2 tons of steel at 60mph.
GPS units like Garmin use touchscreen instead of physical buttons and are safe, road legal. Tesla ships cars with a huge touchscreen console - safe and road legal. That's a pretty weak excuse.
We could also debate that things that hinder concentration while handling "2 tones of steel" are :
- listening to the radio,
- talking to the passenger(s),
- singing.
Common sense would also advise to enter the destination, set music etc. before starting to drive.
I have never had the same issue with European/Japanese vehicles.
1. My sample size is small, I could have been unlucky. Anti-glare coating on rear view mirrors on American cars makess night-time driving awesome though, I wish the European/Japanese vehicles would copy that
The technical term is an 'electrochromatic auto-dimming rear-view mirror'. It's been an option on higher end cars/trims for the last ~5 years, even in Europe. On eBay there are DIY kits too.
It's a fantastic feature, it just annoys me that the sensor gets hit by the car ceiling lights when they're on, so if the light is on you get a completely dark mirror. I call it a quirk because it sounds better than "terrible design".
In Europe and Japan (and most of the rest of the world), automotive headlamps conform to the relevant ECE standard which allows for less glare compared to the US standard (defined in FMVSS 108). So, at least in those markets, the anti-glare coating isn't as necessary.
Unfortunately, there are inconsiderate idiots engaging high-beams everywhere in the world.
Luckily the NHTSA is requiring backup cameras on 100% new cars by mid-2018.
I appreciate that approach has certain disadvantages for device and car makers, but really, the only additional value they could add from my perspective is a more convenient display location and larger, car-centric controls. The apps, the configs, accounts, audio, etc. I only ever use my phone anymore anyway.
And, yes, I have built in nav and never use it in favor of the phone. I also have a Bluetooth-to-FM relay device for the audio.
I believe all the car provides is a screen, some speakers, a microphone and (possibly) a touch surface.
Built in Nav in cars is so shitty that I would personally pay extra to not have it.
But to answer my question why there's no standalone mode for Android Auto/Car Play - probably because they struck a deal with car vendors to sell more extras with the cars or newer cars.
So if you drive something older - fuck you and consume.
Honestly, the blame lies with the carmakers. They made these terrible digital dashboards in many cases with no after market upgrade paths. Obviously their incentive is sell/lease you a new car every few years... so why would they make it easy to upgrade. No incentive
Biggest reason I ended up getting the 2016 model vs 2015 (which had a much bigger discount) because of Carplay/Android auto. I won't be a frustrated by the digital NAV that never is upgraded.
I'm hoping the Carplay/Android auto compatibility is there for at least 6+ years of new phone models. But honestly I don't know how much I trust the above mentioned phone vendors.
Anything I connect to that system would be categorically better than any OEM car interface.
About a month ago I was driving with a friend of mine in the passenger seat. Driving 45 minutes to some trails upstate. I asked him to put his Maps on (Android) so I don't need to get my phone out of my bad and fuck around with it while driving. He's got Galaxy 6 edge+ so I figured it just work... Boy was I wrong.
When he plugged it in nothing happened except autoplaying some music. Since I'm driving how no idea how to make it work. Turns out you need to download an App from the app store to make it work... but Android gives you no notification about it.
Then there's a whole on-boarding process you got to click through. Then you need to agree to let the Android connect to the Car all in all about 5 different agree prompts. Took about 30 minutes to get this going.
After all that the car would lose Android Auto connection with the phone every few minutes. Apparently it's a know issue with that model of Android and VW.
What a terrible experience. For a while I was thinking of getting an Android phone next time I need a new phone (break, slow/sluggish). Not going to happen now.
The connectivity issues with VWs are a valid complaint, but not pushing bloat on everyones devices really isnt.
If you include the "guide" that you have the scroll through and then the 5 "Accept" popups for allowing the car to connect to the phone it's like about 9 clicks. Pretty crappy UX.
But really it's the whole process of getting setup. The Android phone didn't put up a prompt when plugged in to tell you you needed to download the Android Auto app. My friend had to Google how to make this thing work.
Compare that to the CarPlay experience. Connect, click accept once in car UI and accept in iPhone to allow the car to access it. From plugin to navigating on the dash about 30 seconds.
Isn't that just the standard Android permission prompts?
- set the destination in Android Auto friendly UI,
- clip his phone in the car holder.
Done with no extra fuckery as you described.
I guess MirrorLink is trying to solve that problem by more thorough testing.
I'm certain that Android Auto compatibility is part of the Android Compatibility Test Suite that all OHA OEMs have to run for phones in order to get Google apps. The tests probably are not perfect
Not sure about that. In many cars you have to take your eyes pretty far down from the road to look at the radio. Touchscreens honestly don't belong down there, I'd much rather have physical controls I can operate by feel.
Phones can be mounted in the visual scan across the windshield (close and small enough to not occlude anything).
While a lot of car GPSs have some of this, they are no where near what Google Maps or Apple Maps (or a targeted app like Waze) has. I bought a new car last year, and intentionally didn't get the GPS, even though my car has a 7-inch touchscreen. I would never use those crappy maps when I have my phone with me. If the car supported Carplay, I would 100% use maps through that.
This is why Carplay and Android Auto are the future. Their apps, APIs and data are so superior to whatever car companies can come up with.
I think one of the other issues is how many GPS systems refuse to let you enter addresses en route and make you stop and / or pull the handbrake. This increases frustration hugely.
The Audi system says "please don't do this while driving" - you say "Okay" and are able to do so.
Whatever car I buy next, I wouldn't buy without CarPlay. There are also replacement stereos which support this (e.g. Pioneer appradio) but given how most cars don't still use a 2 DIN slot for the radio and have much more integrated systems (drive modes, HVAC controls, etc on the "radio"), it's not even possible to upgrade many without losing significant factory functionality.
My hope is that auto mfgs wise up and realize that they've been wasting billions developing these in-house systems, and instead switch to just having the car be a dumb monitor + speakers with a connection to your phone which runs all of the non-critical systems.
http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F8J198/
http://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightn...
Given how much the OEMs charge for the systems (often it's a $2K upcharge), plus how much they charge for updates (typically $150 - $200), the manufacturers undoubtedly saw it as a potentially profitable product development effort.
While I do see telematics going the "dumb terminal" route, Google and Apple's approach of becoming a major reason why you buy a car has brought automakers into an uneasy truce with big tech. Cars just become more data pipes to fuel the ad engine while becoming a primary interaction point with drivers, cutting auto guys out of the information loop.
That's partially what's been holding up adoption. You have entire divisions inside big auto being threatened. Their "new feature" pipeline also starts coming from Google and Apple, requesting deeper control and functionality in the car as consumers demand a more seamless experience.
Nissan wants ~$800 USD for a map upgrade (which is just a microSD card, if I understand correctly) for my 2014 Nissan Altima and Dodge wants a little under $200 for a map upgrade for my 2013 Dodge Ram. Yet I can freely download updates and perform map upgrades myself on my 2014 Harley-Davidson motorcycle in about 10 minutes using just a USB flash drive.
Ironically, the Harley is the only one of these that I would ever actually consider paying for.
On the rare occasion that we find that the maps aren't up to date, either the girlfriend or myself will just whip out our iPhone and open up the Maps apps instead -- just as described in this article.
I'll probably stop paying extra for all of the "upgrades" the next time I buy a vehicle. I typically spring for every feature/option package that's available but they are becoming less and less "worth it" as time goes on.
Seems to have traffic info though, even though it's quite old. Around London it basically displays a huge jumble of arrows, to the point where you can't see the Thames.
Seems to me what they need to do is just let the phone use the touchscreen in the car. You want to show movies to the kids anyway, and your media will all fit on the phone.
That's exactly what Android Auto and Carplay do. On my Ford with Sync 3, I installed the Android Auto app on the phone. Then I plug the phone's usb cable into the car's usb port, and the dash display transforms to something controlled by the phone.
If you are a google/apple map user. Searching for an address is a million type easier: roughly type some part of the address and it will find it. No such luck with car gps.
At this stage you wonder why car manufacturer even bother. They should just allow to plug a tablet and run software made by people that understand software, and restrict themselves to providing a simple interface to car metric, hud and maybe cameras.
Somewhere in that car you purchased is a clock that sets itself, it just doesn't cooperate with the rest of the car. Bummer.
IMHO it's the smart web-based search interface that makes web-based maps so superior to car maps. And yes, the web-based live traffic data is nice to have too.
By the way, I still prefer the built-in unit because it has better integration with audio system and windscreen HUD. The usability is actually pretty good despite its age.
Similar issue: the built-in navigator can show realtime location-aware traffic warnings from TMC broadcast, but only if they are non-encrypted. In my country they switched to commercial / encrypted TMC broadcasts few years ago, rendering the feature unusable for my car, and Toyota won't update the navigator unit to support encrypted TMC.
If you're buying a new car today, the reason to get navigation is for the LCD screen and not for the GPS. The LCD is used to see the rear view camera image for parking. Also, playing music shows the song titles.
I use my in-dash GPS to gauge distances on big trips. If I really need to know where I'm going, I use my phone.
I could have sworn the US govt mandated that all new cars, after some soon to come year, must have rear facing cameras. Perhaps I heard incorrectly.
I've been happy with it thus far, and with the lifetime map updates it's pretty nice. I do with the model I got had weather overlays, but that's just me being picky.
Screenshots: https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3855/14390588297_f2743d8f05_b....
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5233/14573660131_396715c2bf_b....
Just a slider that goes between "minimum number of turns" and "most efficient" would be nice. Optimizing a route for complexity vs efficiency is a very important consideration when planning a route. A way to do that in a navigation app would be really nice. I appreciate the intention but taking four extra turns and a one way street or two to save one minute when going somewhere that's one turn off a main road is rarely a good idea. If I'm driving rural state highways for three hours I'd much prefer to go 150mi on two roads than go 120mi on ten roads.
Google has been improving over the years, but still hasn't caught up with the user friendliness of garmin. Garmin seems to give the kind of directions that a human navigator sitting next to you would. Google seems like a machine that knows nothing of the real world!
It will almost always suggest a confusing “shortcut”, which takes more time because it doesn’t account for all the additional turns, stop signs, speed limits, etc. It would be nice to have an optimization slider, or even a global setting for which mode you prefer.
The answer to your question is: because it's hard to make some of these adjustments on-the-fly and still have reasonably fast queries.
On embedded devices, space and processing power are limited - so you need to perform optimizations to speed things up so it's usable. These optimizations usually limit the flexibility of features like you're requesting. That's a basic trade-off.
For server-side routing solutions, you need response time to be fast so you can scale - again, you need to optimize your data and you lose flexibility. Route calculations are CPU heavy, it gets very expensive to serve lots of users if your route calculations aren't fast.
There's a lot of algorithm research being done in this space - the last 5 years have seen some really smart new approaches. However these haven't been deployed commercially in very many places.
If you'd be happy with 10s of seconds to calculate a route on your phone (offline), then you can have all the flexibility you want :-) This is rarely desirable, so very few implementations are as flexible as you want.
I believe UPS has done this for years to streamline their delivery-truck routes, albeit probably not in real time.
Here's the kind of route you get:
In reality, the metric probably needs to be a lot more complex than what I hacked together here. It's actually more like "don't turn left across traffic, left turns are ok onto one-way streets, etc", my metric was simply based on turn angle, and there are a bunch of scenarios where that falls down.
The rule probably works well in travelling salesman-like scenarios - you want to optimize the route to deliver multiple packages.
Having played with adjusting these kinds of metrics quite a bit, it's never as easy as you want :-(
A simple "don't use this road" marker seems to me like a really useful feature, yet I've never seen it in any of the satellite navigation systems I've used.
I've looked into this. Apparently you set turn restrictions per-intersection in the maps data editor. No one has the patience to go check "u-turn not permitted" on all the Chicago intersections that don't have it currently, so we're stuck without major architectural changes from Google.
"Avoid u-turns" should be next to "avoid highways."
I have to manually toggle that every freaking time in a city with tolled roads. And you usually only end up saving a minute or two over free routes.
OTOH the interfaces of built-in navs &al tend to be unmitigated disasters.
At the end of the day, phone integration (Android's Auto and Apple's CarPlay) are probably what you want.
also satellite radio and weather/traffic is useful. if i want directions my phone will play them audibly over bluetooth while i look at my dash map (it's the same map!)
i think any car with bluetooth and a halfway decent regular map will be useful for years to come. my parents have a 10 year old car with a map that's still useful for basic nav.
The "big-screen dinosaur" is incredibly helpful for showing routes and directions, much better than the dinky smartphone screen.
Easily replaceable, cheaper, better design.
No thanks.
I assume most people take their phone around with them these days. I have a magnetic mount in my car, so as I'm sitting down I just lay it on the magnet on the dash and go.
For $400 I'll stick with my phone. If only Mazda got CarPlay working on their dashboards as they've been promising for two years now.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the touchscreen/command knob is the way things are now. You can't do terrestrial radio, satellite radio, bluetooth, USB music playback, etc with a single knob and 20-character display. All of these features have worked their way into being standard now. Nobody ships an AM/FM radio.
And now that backup cameras are mandatory in the USA as of the 2018 model year, you're going to need that LCD display anyway. So it's easier to throw all the HMI/IVI on that board and be done with it.
The Mazda Connect is run off an NXP iMX6 SoC, which is very powerful yet affordable enough to put in Mazda's base models for no upgrade charge. It's also highly hackable. =)
Oh, and HVAC is still done with physical knobs in a convenient location.
So weird that it came with a CD player, though. I thought those would have been gone by 2016...
Will it recognise an ext4-formatted drive, or does it require FAT, NTFS or something else?
Perhaps there are two people in the car charging their phones?
I really, really don't understand the hatred for CDs. Why, someone downvoted my original comment because I noted that they can be useful for a long road trip! Honestly, I'd expect that to be non-controversial: CDs require no data connexion; they are a physical audio format, which means that they can be converted to MP3, FLAC or whatever else one likes; they are owned by you, unlike a streaming music service's tracks.
I think that they still have their use cases.
(as an aside, why am I getting hit with 'you're submitting too fast' recently? I'm really not submitting that many comments!)
The 2nd easiest-to-use interface in our vehicles is the USD$85 Pioneer DIN 1 head unit we put in our '81 VW camper van. It does all of what you list, as well as Pandora and (some other music service). Lots of buttons, not just one knob, but I'll bet that display doesn't do a whole lot more than 20 characters.
The most easy-to-use interface we have is CarPlay on the aftermarket head unit in our '04 Scion xB. Any cars we buy in the future will have CarPlay or no sale. I'm done with crap ass automotive UIs done by some designer trying to make her mark on the world. And though I'm sure some makers have UIs that don't suck, I'm not going to the trouble to find out which. CarPlay or nothing.
Unfortunately it also runs less smoothly and it's uglier and RDS traffic info is less reliable than phone one. At least for me the simpler UI and phone battery saving rally outweigh the downsides though.
(I got my nav included with the car, but compared to VAG group which charges 1000EUR+ for nav unit, 400EUR didn't seem to be all that much IMO.)
Integrated navigation systems can provide more value than what a phone can. The obvious point is that the screen can be bigger, but more valuable is integrated with the car audio to turn down music when giving directions. When driving in tunnels and there is no GPS because it can talk to the car it knows the speed and can provide better estimations. And having permanent buttons right on your dash that you can hit without taking your eyes off the road is something that no phone will have. These are the type of features that a integrated navigation system should absolutely nail.
The navigation in my 13 year old car might be a dinosaurs, but in the world of car software what matters more than age is usability.
Now on the flip side I have used various navigation systems that are almost the exact opposite and are always a pain to use. If that is all you have ever experienced it is entirely understandable that you might think that this years system is a dinosaur. Having recently car shopped I was saddened at the state of many of the systems I tried. They probably have 10X as much computing power, but they were slower and more difficult to use. I could easily see how someone who bought one of these thinking how next years model would be better simply because it would be faster from the faster computer when it is clear that it was lazy coding and a failure to prioritize usability.
In my '13 Hyundai, the navigation UX is pretty good, but I swear that the entertainment part of it was written by a summer intern.
This is also the case using e.g. Waze via Bluetooth connection to the car.
If you live in a place where new roads are built with any frequency, car GPS's become quickly obsolete.
I also find that a car GPS often requires you to use your smartphone anyway, to look up the address of your destination.
The interface was what I loved though. The screen popped up out of the dash* which meant that it was super easy to see without looking down at the center console, and it didn't replace our radio or other screens with the nav, the screen was nav only.
The controls were cursor based (not pointer, but just menu selection) so the buttons were on the back of the steering wheel, so you didn't even have to take your hands off the wheel to run it. All it needed was a 4-way pad and an enter and back button. There was an IR wireless remote that the passenger could use.
One of my favorite features was that it easily supported multiple waypoints, search along route, and it stored routes even when you turned the car off. Taking a multi-day road trip? No problem!
* How the motorized screen still worked on a 10 year old volvo is probably a small miracle considering what didn't work on that car.
Yes, often the maps are bad, out of date, and require one to go the dealer and pay money to get an update. However, once out of the city, and cellular data ceases to be a thing, Google maps and similar applications built with an assumption of an always-available Internet connection become kind of useless. Yes, you can add maps for the areas you are planning to be to your offline areas, but that requires planning ahead. And if you ended up somewhere you didn't plan to be, well, good luck.
The UI for these in-car navigation systems is bad, but at least you have _a map_, instead of a featureless void with a blue You Are Here in the middle. Personally, I like a map book for such situations. Sure, it's ancient and obsolete technology, is quickly out of date, but the UI is quick an easy to learn, and it doesn't require power to use.
What is with the garbage they call software these days? The response time on some of these in-dash systems can be measured in seconds.
But maps for car companies is an afterthought, a secondary luxury feature.
You can't expect car companies to drop billions on mapping and full time software devs in perfecting the navigation system.
The way I see it, the best way would be for them to use google maps in their car. There'll probably be a slew of privacy issues with that though, because you can close the maps app but it'll be more difficult to control the GPS system build into you car.
Customizing an existing Android-for-cars platform sounds like a way better plan than whatever junk these manufacturers are shipping today. I've seen better systems in the 1990s in terms of responsiveness and performance. The only thing consistently worse than the UI in cars is the UI in set-top boxes which I can only presume are designed and implemented in North Korea and intended to run on CPUs made in 1985.
Apple is probably working on this exact thing, so I'm surprised Google hasn't made any inroads here. They can take more chances than Apple can.
I don't think a default offline android will ever be in the picture. If everyone is offline, how will it make money? (android is free, so its far fetched to think it will start charging for that). It is risky for google to just give away lot of map data. Google spent a lot of money trying to acquire it. If it starts distributing it in a nice little package, people will start flashing their in-car devices with it.
Garmin has tons of map data too, and they "give it away" when you download it for your device. The offline mode might not have all the detail of the live version, but it could be good enough for travelling in remote areas without reception.
A lot of that comes down to the fact that people have a much higher expectation for a car than a phone: if the map in your car fails due to some weird bug, the potential downside is a product recall and lawsuits; if the maps app on that phone has the same bug, they might just point you at the you-get-nothing EULA or suggest you download the latest Google Maps app or buy a new phone instead.
This is why things like Apple's CarPlay / Android Auto make so much sense since they're basically just a remote UI for your phone: the functionality requirements are orders of magnitude simpler, you can upgrade independently, and the car manufacturer isn't on the hook if you install a navigation app with a bug.
The car software was customized for that particular vehicle's combination of knobs and buttons, will be a check-box on the feature list, doesn't have any alternatives (except the phone) once you've bought the car, is lacking real-time traffic and constant map updates, was designed five years ago, was sold from a tier-two supplier to a committee at a tier-one, who sold the whole instrumentation package to an OEM, is burdened by safety and legal requirements (the vehicle must be in park, because you can't know whether it's the driver or the passenger doing the programming) ...
The problems are numerous. Two things seem like a possible fix:
1. Let it hook up to your home wifi or tether to your phone. We're close to having phone data plans that can handle that in the US. 2. Provide two things: A standard set of controls (wheel, buttons, touchscreen) and an open app store. Android or iOS compatibility would be nice for developers.
Together, these would mean that even if their own developers didn't get a good solution in place, the market could fix it later.
Ask a car company to design a useful and functional suspension system, an engine, a transmisison, a brake system, and they'll have little trouble doing so. These are all things that rather fundamental to having a functional car, and the car companies have had decades to work out the various difficulties in engineering and building such things.
However, a nav system is not (yet) a hard dependancy of a functional car. As such the man hours that car companies (or their contractors) have put into their (non-essential) nav systems likely pales in comparison that Google has put into maps.
Your smartphone is designed to die around 2 years (expoxied battery), is designed for something like 40F - 100F, and will survive a light rain if you are lucky. All the while charging you $50 a month.
The 2 year phone replacement cycle used to be driven by innovation and large performance/capability increases. Which have pretty much stopped. 2 year contracts on sponsored phones used to drive them as well, mostly stopped. So manufactures seem to have decided on making phones 0.6mm slimmer and expoxing in the battery to drive the replacement cycle.
Unfortunately every car I've seen (including some rather expensive cars) look like Maemo Mapper from my ancient (pre-android pre-iphone) Nokia 770 tablet.
However I'm weird, I have a note 4 with a replaceable battery, wireless charging, 3GB ram, and a microSD slot. A phone that could easily last 5 years. It's VERY hard to find similar on the market today.
Considering that tablets in the hands of babies are commonplace (with special distraction apps) it seems that phones / tablets have or need to have this too.
The software in your car is just another of the thousands of line items on the bill of materials, along with brake calipers and lug nuts. The car company sourced it from the cheapest supplier that could manage to sign a contract and barely throw something together--and did so 5 years before the car was even built, using even older technology. Whoever actually wrote the software may be several tiers down the supply chain and have no idea what the end user wants. They're implementing from a list of requirements someone from the vendor wrote, then it's off to supply the next vendor. Not to say one's software developers are any better or worse, but the mentality is totally different. Software is a cost to minimize and, if possible, mark up when selling.
Google Maps also supports offline downloads, but from what I remember, they expire every 30 days, so you need to keep re-downloading.
This means that as part of your trip preparation, you can download the maps and use them on your trip in the boonies. I don't know how well it _uses_ them, nor what amount of data connection it still wants, but it saved us a bunch of mobile data usage on our last trip.
Here maps blows this out of the water in comparison.
That's not true at all: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?co=GENIE.Plat...
I usually plan my routes while on wifi (restaurant, bar, home, or work) to avoid any cellular data charges. Similar for music and podcasts I use for driving.
I'm one of the few who still uses a Nokia smartphone (from before the deal with Microsoft), and it has an application called Here maps that allows you to download maps for offline use. I have all of the US, Canada and Mexico pre-loaded into it. It takes around 3 GB of space on the phone IIRC and I haven't had any issues with lack of map data at least in the areas I drive (plenty of which do not have adequate cellular signal on any network).
The struggle for Waze is keeping their traffic data up to the minute, the struggle for cars is keeping their roadmaps on par with a decade-old atlas.
Sometimes Waze gets a shortcut for me that actually saves maybe three or four minutes...but at the expense of driving down dangerous roads and making numerous turns. Typically it's not even worth it.
About the only time Waze is worth it is when there is an extraordinary event, such as a very bad wreck or a closed road. In those circumstances rerouting can save time.
At least Waze is up to date. Apple sometimes gives me impossible routes (e.g. illegal turns) and has some street and highway names that have been out-of-date for at least six months. Google on the other hand has an infuriating way of asking me to confirm reroutes that supposedly save me time, and giving me only a few seconds to do it. But Waze has a muddy, horrible interface. All these services have flaws.
If you have a truly intelligent system it would spread the load across the roads equal to what they can handle rather than the system now where everyone seems to take the "main" road leading to congestion on that road and quiet side streets.
Similar to Braess Paradox :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox#Traffic
In some European countries, streets are configured to prevent through traffic. That leaves them quiet for the enjoyment of residents.
Their fair share of traffic is very low, only traffic to or from a building on the street.
Property owners claiming rights to how public property near them is used is rediculous
So do main streets.
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2008646
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261504...
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1181966/
I have read a paper (which I can't find now) that claimed that cooperative optimization had visible effects on overall routing with as little as 7% of the traffic population participating in the cooperative routing scheme. So it doesn't even require that everyone use the same scheme to get some benefits, which is nice.
In theory, it's a best of both worlds situation; the UI doesn't really need to change very often; what is most important is the maps/POI information, which can be downloaded either in-app or via an update. Practically, the UI is just irritating enough that I end up using Google Maps anyway, and just letting the voice directions get me where I'm going.
(edit: punctuation, because my inner copyeditor won't shut up)
For example, let Android or iOS supply an interface to view my contacts based on the reported dimensions of the screen and capabilities. Let Pocket Casts present a list of podcasts to choose from. Let Pandora show my thumbs up/down stored for the song, and register my new preference. If I'm at my desk, and I'm using one of these apps, there's no reason a simple app that provides the same interface couldn't provide me info about the connected phone through bluetooth, to let me know who is calling me, let me stream my podcasts through my desktop speakers, etc.
Does this exist, and I just don't know about it (or it isn't implemented by anyone)?
That's a shame, because I think they missed out on a real opportunity to attempt to define a standard that could have been useful for more than a closed ecosystem, and more than just cars. I'm sure it would be less featureful than what they came up with, but I think that would have been justified with the expanded scope. Imagine, if you will, if your phone could just as easily export controls to some virtual/augmented reality device you are wearing, without having to run the Android Auto operating system on that device. Such a shame.
I am pretty happy with my built-in system - it is fast, always on, integrates well with the car, provides dual-screens (in dash and bigger console screen output), free quarterly OTA map updates, uses Google for POI search, live traffic. Most important I don't need to fish my phone out of pocket, mount it somewhere and connect cable for longer trips.
Yet I am also sometimes (1%?) use phone for directions. Most of the time it is when I need to lookup something nearby and I am not in the car.
[1] https://blog.agendashift.com/2016/10/06/better-user-stories-...
In the meantime, my TomTom 5000 satnav is still unbeaten - free lifetime upgrades, clear, fast interface, free and constant internet connection in every country of the world, with accurate traffic and speed camera updates. And it only cost me ~$250 new.
I just don't understand why anyone would get a built-in satnav over a dedicated device.
- The car model probably had the first iteration of Garmin satnav solution for in-dash car infotainment systems. Garmin's architecture was basically built for PNDs(dedicated device) based of their own internal custom OS. This was quickly ported to support in dash infotainment market. I am sure consequent releases got better in performance and usage.
- Garmin solution is optimized to perform well based on available resources. SD card read writes, low memory requirements, and other resource restrictions are accountable for the slow performance as well.
I am not trying to defend but just want to share the challenges that Garmin faced while they tried to gain market share. I am confident that their solutions will get better with time and deliver better user experience and innovation in the car.
-- SW developer and long time user of Garmin
Honestly, the car ux for entertainment, etc in general feels like something that should have been state of the art half a decade ago... it's too slow, unresponsive and irritation imho, depite positive reviews.
For references it's the fullscreen uconnect interface on a 2016 dodge challenger. Also, the fact that it's 3g instead of lte on the antenna makes the mobile hotspot option worthless and not even a consideration.
I hear it's cause whatever they use works offline, but also because Google wants them to send back real time data, but Tesla doesn't want to (forgot where I heard this though).
I would much much prefer to use the Tesla UI for nav, but the directions are really that bad.
However, the routes are not the most efficient, and although it supposedly uses Sirius for traffic, the data isn't very accurate. Google Maps often gives me a much more efficient route that can be twice as fast given current traffic conditions, but is more "unusual".
Audi's GPS likes to stick to main roads that become heavily clogged. And even though I have an update that came out within the last 2 months, it still doesn't have a major construction project that has been completed for a year added, and always tries to route you around it.
So basically I use Google Maps for navigation within the city or areas that I'm familiar with, and Audi's navigation for long trips (ie inter city highway trips) where the route will mostly be the same on both systems.
That being said, the GPS in my car ALWAYS gets an accurate lock right away. My phone (Nexus 6P) has an awful GPS that doesn't work in hilly areas or around tall buildings and constantly loses the signal. It barely works inside the car, and even then the accuracy isn't great. Guess the all metal phone really kills the GPS signal, since the Nexus 6 had an amazingly good GPS with high accuracy in the same conditions.
They've also doubled down on their refusal to not include Carplay/Android Auto. They're putting something called "SmartDeviceLink" which is yet another MirrorLink 1.1 clone (which is itself a disaster), but this time controlled by a different consortium of companies.
Although amusingly the other major auto maker putting SmartDeviceLink in their vehicles, Fort, has already given up and put Carplay/Android Auto into their latest Ford SYNC3 infotainment system software. Leaving Toyota the only major company providing SmartDeviceLink.
I legitimately think Toyota will slump in sales when seemingly every other major manufacturer has Carplay/Android Auto. All because Toyota is greedy and wants to profit off of the infotainment unit rather than the vehicle itself.
I just do...not...get this. In what alternate reality do they live that would cause them to think "this time will be different"? History has shown time and again that your proprietary special snowflake platform is not going to cause app writers to flock to you when there's something like CarPlay/Android Auto available. I mean, MirrorLink was a pretty good idea, didn't have any real competitors at the time, and it still sold like dog shit sandwiches. Save everyone some time and money, suck it up, swallow your pride, and just put CarPlay/Android Auto on there. Because as I've said elsewhere in this thread, not only will I not buy your proprietary infotainment system, I won't even buy your car.
Even I, a long-time geek who will endure a lot of pain to get something working, cringes at the thought of the hoops I'd have to jump through to get "SmartDeviceLink" to an even minimally useful state. My CarPlay head unit also has MirrorLink, and while I was waiting for Pioneer to update the firmware to include CarPlay, I thought I'd give MirrorLink a whirl. First, I apparently needed to go get a special cable. Yeah, fuck that, you exceeded my tolerance for friction in the first sentence of your user manual. CarPlay? Plugged my iPhone in, waited to see what Apple's special version of frictional hell would be and...it just worked. There's your competition, car makers, and if takes more than just plugging my phone in I'm not buying it.
[0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/05/18/waze-come...
Do you use the in-built GPS, or just use your phone?
I would think if anyone has it right, it would be Tesla.
The built-in navigation isn't great. It lacks some pretty obvious options (it doesn't offer multiple routes, and you can't give it intermediate waypoints) and its routing is occasionally stupid. Although the big screen shows Google Maps, the actual routing is done using an onboard database which is not as good as Google is. But it's good enough that the convenience of just using the big screen in the car outweighs the superior results I get from my phone.
It is getting better, which is one thing most cars can't say. We recently got the ability to have it avoid toll roads, for example, and while that really should have been there from the beginning, it's pretty cool that it can be added after the fact.
Navigation is one of the top complaints from Tesla owners in my experience, and I agree with a lot of those complaints, but it's not bad enough to have me going for my phone except in rare cases.
Most gps let you pick to include or exclude car pools, but it is such a pain to change the setting that it is usually left on excluding car pools. But Tesla could know exactly how many people are in the car, and do the right thing automatically. It would also affect journey times since car pool lanes are often quicker.
There are also some HOT lanes around here (where you can either drive for free with 3+ people, or pay a toll with less) and it never routes me onto those, even though it happily routes me onto other toll roads. Not sure what's up with that.
* voice commands for navigation actually work. Recognition is quick and accurate.
* Should you need to type in an address, Tesla treats you like an adult, and lets you do it while the car is moving. All the other recent cars I've driven won't even let the passenger enter an address unless the car is stopped.
* Map display is fluid and uncluttered
The UI just got a refresh with version 8.0 and it is now even easier to use. With a single swipe I can navigate to home or work (it is location and time aware, so it will navigate me to the right destination automatically), and the navigation now sticks to the top half of the screen when I have two apps open. I tend to leave the nav in fullscreen mode though since I like to see more of my route.
Its critical for long distance trips because it will also navigate you through superchargers automatically as needed, and will tell you how long you will need to charge at each, along with an estimate of your trip time. I have taken a lot of long trips since getting the Tesla so this has been invaluable.
Supposedly the next update will use the navigation to guide the autopilot (it will take exit ramps between highways automatically).
Even in the Model S, I use my phone's directions. Tesla's map app is great, and the UI is _really_ good (even better in the latest update!), but their source for navigation is garbage (and also their routing algorithm).
I hear it's cause whatever they use works offline, but also because Google wants them to send back real time data, but Tesla doesn't want to (forgot where I heard this though).
I would much much prefer to use the Tesla UI for nav, but the directions are really that bad.
I've used the built-in nav for about a year, and had to go buy a phone mount.
The only time I don't use it is when I can't get the friggin' bluetooth to connect right away.
There are very nice units with native Android experience. They usually have either a 7" or 10" screen. There are also some discussions of the various chinese units on xda forums in case someone is here interested...
The aftermarket head unit market has been in shambles for a few years now. Demand has dropped dramatically and units have stagnanted for years, in some ways even moving backwards.
I would love to see DINs make a comeback in cars, hopefully it would breath some fresh life into the HU market.
Reasons to use it over my phone:
* 11" screen shows me a high quality map overlayed with current traffic, with 1/3 split for lane guidance when needed
* Directions also shown directly on the dash - no need to look far away
* Spoken instructions dim the music volume
* Pretty accurate traffic information with automatic OTA updates
Downsides:
* Voice control is shitty; saying "set destination to leamington spa" will change to a random radio frequency
* Slightly awkward to send routes from PC to car, has to be via Remote Control App
Most of the features you've named are exactly what Android Auto/Carplay provide, but without limiting you to just a single maps/navigation vendor.
You're likely leasing that vehicle for 1-3 years. Do you think that if you purchased that 4-series that the navigation would still be updated and solid by the end of its 9-15 year vehicle lifespan? I certainly don't. But I do an apps platform like carplay/android auto will continue to provide quality apps for at least that long.
CarPlay/Android Auto certainly improve quality on average for most cars, but I'm not convinced they will solve the problem of outdated technology.
I previous had a Mercedes with "Apple Certified Connectivity" which was great, until they switched to lightning cables and the connectivity broke.
Whilst I'm sure CarPlay/Android Auto will last longer, I don't believe there won't be any breaking changes in future that will break compatibility. Given that we replace phones a lot faster than cars I can see a future where there are cars which only support CarPlay version X, and the standard is now version Y.
At that point you then end up with no navigation or media, because you aren't going to use an older phone just to have it work with your older car.
I use the car's nav only when I don't have to worry about delays caused by traffic, otherwise google maps is my first option.
BMW's nav is pretty bad in offering alternative routes based on traffic data, but I just LOVE the directions on the HUD.
I'm in the UK and my maps get updated frequently (it often has a % downloading bar for the update) and when I compare with my phone the route and traffic is very similar to Google Maps.
Seriously, I am blown away that car manufacturers manage to pitch navigation systems as a value add to the car. "Would you like to spend an additional $1500 for a system with a UI workflow developed as the first GPS satellites were being launched? For an additional $50/mo you can even keep the information up to date so it doesn't suggest you drive across the hoover dam."
I hope that by 2020 it is the expectation that your car will continue to update and improve its interface over the years you own it.
I say this because people point to smartphones as always being more updated- and there's no reason for this.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/524791/why-your-car-wont-...
As an example - I have a car with a USB port, but the music player interface is so atrocious and is missing key features that it's actually worse than my Sansa Clip from 2008. The car is a 2012 model.
There are two concrete, real examples, of a routing UX that anyone can just try out - just grab an android phone or an iphone and directly copy the experience. Just sit down and try the most basic goal of using a nav system - enter and address and start and do it on your car system and on either phone.
Oh, wait, differing goals. I, as a user, want a usable system. The maker of these awful nav systems have an entirely different goal. They are trying to sell an "option" upgrade to car makers who then include it in "option packages" with the car... usability is way way down the list after bells/whistles/marketing/subscription sales
Secondly, the vast majority of built in GPS is on a console a good 6 to 12 inches below the windshield. Meaning I have to remove my eyes far off the road in order to look at everything. My garmin mounts to my windshield or dash. It is a quick glance and then eyes back at the road.
Both my previous car (2013 Ford C-Max hybrid) and current car (2014 Audi A4) both had options to adjust whether the nav map view was locked to cardinal directions, or if it followed the car's perspective.
Newer ones give you directions on the dashboard and I've never even seen a system that doesn't give you a 3D map.
So I use Google Maps on my phone. It's significantly faster, shows more meta-data relative to my route, e.g., delays and alternate route suggestions, and if it has to re-route it's usually immediate.
And this leads me to having a Steve Jobs moment: I wish the car dash computers would work as simply as smart watches where they are just dumb remote controls for phones.
I don't have Android auto or carplay. But I have used moto360. And I find that is all I really ever need when driving. The voice recognition is awesome. The interface is simple. And like all simple things it leads the mind to wish for more.
It seems like the car manufacturers tried to swallow too much at once and sucked at all of it.
It looks like the field is in flux anyway, VW keeps dramatically changing the UI in every new car.
There are advantages to the built-in navigation - it works when there's no GPS signal due to inertial navigation (compass and tire rotation). Mine has a head-up display so I can see navigation cues without taking my eyes off the road. The voice synth is much better than Apple Maps or Google Maps.
I've only had to pull out my phone a couple of times in 3 years.
Maybe car windows are tinted more often now? I often get a marginal signal in my car, seems worse than in my house.
Anyone had luck with a magnetic attached bluetooth GPS they can put on their car roof or similar to improve a smartphone's GPS signal inside a car?
OTOH, my car's system knows about highway amenities like food & gas, and has a neat feature where it displays a preview of what certain turns look like.
I would love to integrate them somehow.
So, yes, I'd better use my phone's GPS: maps are always up-to-date, I can choose between Google Maps and Apple Maps (or any other), can select any language.
Same for my friends with their cars, I never saw them using their built-in gps.
I already used carplay in another car, but apple plan on it is not as good as google map.
You can preload Google Maps onto the iPhone for say Point Reyes. You won't be able to find a route but GPS location and the map should be good enough.
That said, having it has saved me on several occasions when my phone ran out of power and when there was no signal and I missed a turn.
Integration with speaker/mic is already done via bluetooth but charging is still a problem.
The navigation system on 2016 Volvos is usable.