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Comment by UVB-76 | Hacker News Reader

The average age of cars on the road in the US is something like 11 years [0]

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...

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Why would new versions cause incompatibility?

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.

> Why would new versions cause incompatibility?

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.

I believe you're describing the choice between Tesla and Mercedes...

If you're describing mercedes as the glacial50somethings, you're not aware that more often than not Mercedes are the first to market with a huge amount of every feature imaginable in the history of automaking. Want to see what features regular cars will have in 10 years? Go check out an S class today.

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.

Believe it or not, Android Auto and Carplay are a single standard underneath. They both use the same core technologies (very similar to Miracast) to do what they do.

Apple takes backwards-compatibility very seriously for MFi protocols, because they know that the "accessories" are cars that people keep for a long time. I used to work at a company making iPod car kits--we took an interface from 2006 (with a hard-wired 30-pin connector), hooked it through a FireWire->USB charging adapter, a 30-pin->Lightning adapter, and it worked fine with an iPhone 6.

I distinctly remember iPhones complaining about "obsolete device" when plugging them into a few years old Audi and VW cars around iPhone 4 era. That was then followed up with connectivity and charging issues.

So what was the deal with that?

I have an old car and it definitely doesn't work with anything newer than a 2G iPhone. No errors indicated, just can't hack it. It does work with a usb stick full of mp3s, though.

Could be FireWire charging--the original iPhone and earlier iPods could charge off 12V (FireWire), whereas the 3G and up only took 5V (USB). Adapters were available (although Apple didn't make them themselves)

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.

Standards can last a fairly long time. DVI and 802.11b are both over 16 years old and backwards compatibility is still common.

Even if they just default to a remote desktop with touch screen interface, that's still fine for most in car applications.

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