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Comment by haliskerbas | Hacker News Reader

The best car OS so far (even better than Tesla IMO) has been Apple CarPlay. Just be dumb and let my phone handle it, and make the touch screen decent. Bonus points if you implement the multi screen CarPlay concept! Just give up!

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This is the same reason I do not want a smart TV. I have one (a Sony), but thankfully it must have lost contact with our WiFi network at some point and I never notice that it does anything other than act as a monitor for our Apple TV. It used to be that it would periodically bug me about software updates and I would endure its dreadful UI just long enough to get through that.

This is the saving grace.

And luckily, the next generation CarPlay will span the entire dashboard, including in front of the driver [1]

I can’t wait to abandon my native “infotainment” cluster**

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/12/28/next-generation-carplay...

This is a nice idea if don’t plan to have your car for more than 2 years or to never actually own it.

It will still require stupid touch screens and will not integrate with custom hardware (HUD anyone?). It is subpar experience now, and using multiple screens to show even more "widgets" is strange value prop. The widgets I am interested while driving are not coming from some app. I want these screens to show information related to the car - cameras and parking sensors, cruise/lane control data, tire pressure, etc. Not a meeting reminder or current time in Tokyo.

The 2 main things I look at on my car screen are "now playing" and navigation, both of those come from third party apps and both would be handy to have situated between the dials so I don't have to look off to the side

CarPlay already doing navigation-in-the-instrument-cluster part in my car. It is much worse than built-in navigation integration. It is just a stack of direction arrows. Now Playing works perfectly fine via regular BT over the last 10+ years. Any rental car I had will show it in the instrument cluster.

Interesting, you did not mention speed or gas/charge gauge as the main things to look at. I for one will not trust apple to display my current speed (see mockups shared above). I've seen plenty of cases when CarPlay will pretend that it is working (play music, show message popups) but totally forgets to update navigation position since 10 miles ago.

Given CarPlay history, either very few OEMs will actually adopt this or it's going to take a long time for your favorite car to get it. Sadly, no one wants to give up control to Apple and Google.

“Apple says the first vehicles with support for the next-generation CarPlay experience will be announced in late 2023, with committed automakers including Acura, Audi, Ford, Honda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Volvo, and others”

They had similar statements when CarPlay was first announced. It took years for OEMs to support it. Maybe it will be different this time.

This looks amazing, tbh.

Looks stunning, but no thanks. I want analog dials and physical buttons and knobs for features like gauges, air conditioning, and volume.

Yes! Screens and flush buttons are not good UX for a car. One should be able to change volume, air conditioning settings, radio station/song without taking their eyes off the road.

Mazda is great at this. They don’t pretend to make better software than Apple. They just give you nice hardware interface and a reasonable screen that you don’t have to touch to manipulate it while driving a large chunk of metal very fast.

Agreed, except the last bit. My phone should have nothing to do with the UI showing speed or RPM.

I can get behind this. I'm okay with a simple car display for the vehicles vitals.

Or analog dials and indicators instead of a display

Yes! Every car infotainment system should only cover the basics (bluetooth, radio, critical car controls). Then act as a dumb terminal for CarPlay and Android Auto.

Cars are trying too hard to do things our smartphones already do way better.

Really dislike that idea. Forces all the ios stuff on the dashboard, usually in low quality and limited controls.

BMW CarDrive starts getting bad but it’s still pretty decent good quality, fast os. What irks me about it is that the BMW people start dumbing down the ICE UI to match the simplicity of the EV, which takes away a lot of of good stuff.

Best visible when comparing the 2019 vs 2022 model UI. 2019 was by far the best.

Right. I don’t trust Mercedes to build an OS any more than I trust Apple to build a car. They should focus on their strengths.

That’s not a car OS; it’s the infotainment part of the car’s software.

FTA: “MB.OS benefits from full access to all vehicle domains: infotainment, automated driving, body & comfort, driving & charging”

I don’t think you are arguing your phone should connect to the cameras, acceleration sensors, LIDAR, etc. in your car and handle the self-driving, do you?

I'm hoping thats what the "apple car" project actually is. Mobile devices are getting very, very powerful. I would love for my phone to handle all the processing for my car in the future.

You would love your brakes to depend on a USB or Bluetooth connection?

Anything that doesn't require the processing power can and should still run on the car, brake by wire is totally fine. I just don't mind if my phone has access to a few more sensors here and there, having CarPlay tell me if my tire pressures are low or being able to adjust my EV's profiles from the CarPlay UI would be nice.

> The best car OS so far (even better than Tesla IMO) has been Apple CarPlay

Which in itself is a very interesting statement.

It's taken a while for that to sink in - Apple Computer, who have never designed or manufactured a vehicle, make the best vehicle entertainment system.

Tbh I think Android Auto is better. Both mine and their statements are just conjecture.

JFYI, Apple CarPlay never have been an OS. People often get confused between the foundation SW that OEM provides and consumer overlay that companies like Apple, Google provide. Both are not the same. One cannot replace another.

You can refer to this blog about more popular misconceptions among consumers. https://blogs.blackberry.com/en/2022/10/the-top-9-misconcept...

Disclaimer: Worked for a Teir1 SW provider in past.

This is why I can't wait until the next generation CarPlay is released. When your phone is rendering the infotainment and the driver display it's going to be game changing based on the examples Apple showed.

Android Auto/CarPlay changed car infotainment forever, and the next logical step is to just take over the whole thing.

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