Why would I pay hundreds of $currency for a new head unit or thousands for a new car, if I'm already walking around with a device capable doing all that? Android Auto/Car play should just run as a dedicated mode on the phone.
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.
Luckily the NHTSA is requiring backup cameras on 100% new cars by mid-2018.
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
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.
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".
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.
Common sense would also advise to enter the destination, set music etc. before starting to drive.
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.