Comment by kiawe_fire | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kiawe_fire | Hacker News Reader

Well this sucks.

I bought a Chevy Blazer last year, and it’s the best car I’ve ever owned. Great balance of design, gas mileage, comfort, etc.

I was definitely planning to make my next car the EV version of this.

Part of that package is flawless CarPlay integration. It’s simplified the music and navigation experience more than I ever thought possible.

The only reason I wouldn’t demand it on my next car is if something demonstrably and overwhelmingly better came along.

Everything described in the article sounds worse.

Subscription services tied to my car and not my phone?

Needing to maintain navigation routes on my car AND my phone?

Being forced to use only built in apps like Spotify instead of “whatever is on my phone that supports car play”?

Waiting on my car to decide when I can get the newest navigation app or the latest update to Spotify like this is some janky non-Roku smart TV from 2012?

No thanks.

> GM's decision to stop offering those systems in future electric vehicles, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, could help the automaker capture more data on how consumers drive and charge EVs.

That doesn’t even make sense.

NONE of those things would require an absence of CarPlay, nor would they require the presence of some omnipresent Google / GM replacement.

Those metrics are all collected by the systems using them, with the infotainment simply being one possible UI for display of those metrics.

Sucks. Just when I found a car brand and manufacturer that seemed to be doing things well, and I was excited for the EV version of it, they pull this.

Why can’t I have nice things?

    Part of that package is flawless CarPlay integration. 
    It’s simplified the music and navigation experience 
    more than I ever thought possible.

Yes. CarPlay and Android Auto support is absolute table stakes for me to even consider a vehicle.

Personally I don't use Android and could live without it if needed, but I have friends who do and it's nice for them to be able to plug their phones in and navigate or DJ when in my car.

People don't want another device to manage. They want their auto to be a display device for their mobile device, with which they are already infinitely familiar.

I think the data collection part is a surmise from the author.

Thank you. Re-reading it, I’m sure you’re correct.

> GM would benefit from focusing engineers and investment on one approach to more tightly connecting in-vehicle infotainment and navigation with features such as assisted driving, Edward Kummer, GM's chief digital officer, and Mike Himche, executive director of digital cockpit experience, said in an interview.

This is the actual reasoning provided by GM sources in the article. I jumped the gun.

I can very much sympathize with the desire to concentrate engineering efforts, and I’m sure there are things they would love to spend time on that would be eclipsed or ignored if the user lives in CarPlay or Android Auto.

But this is concentrating resources in the wrong direction, for the wrong reasons, with little useful gain.

It's not supposition. Every vehicle that has telematics hardware, regardless of subscription status or options purchased, is sending a near constant stream of location, vehicle, and environmental data back to the manufacturer.

The only way to stop it is to disconnect the antenna for the cellular modem or cut its power.

Yeah I noticed this on my 2023 Mazda CX-5. What’s worse - even if you don’t use the MyMazda app, telematics data is still sent to Mazda. Is there a YouTube video series that explains how to rip out these TCU’s?

More on telematics control units:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telematic_control_unit?wprov=s...

I mean, GM did gather the listening habits of 90,000 "volunteers".

https://boingboing.net/2018/10/23/dont-touch-that-dial.html

> if something demonstrably and overwhelmingly better came along.

I'm pretty sure that is what GM's play is here. There's a lot of confusion. They are moving to Google Automotive Services, complete with Android and the Play store where you pick what is on your car. Apple music is one of those apps.

> Subscription services tied to my car and not my phone?

Data Subscription, it is Google play under it all.

> Needing to maintain navigation routes on my car AND my phone?

Google Maps is on both and would likely work as well.

> Being forced to use only built in apps like Spotify instead of “whatever is on my phone that supports car play”? Google Play, how you get apps in next-gen GM Android Automotive would have the same apps.

It works exactly like having a Mac/PC and a phone.

Google Maps is on both

Not mine. Oh well, another reason to skip GM.

> It works exactly like having a Mac/PC and a phone

Have you seen the shitshow which modern TVs are with their smart apps that stop functioning over time? A car is supposed to function for longer than 2 years and who is gonna force the manufacturer to support updates longer than that?

With CarPlay I am able to bring a functioning Nav, Music and everything.

    It works exactly like having a Mac/PC and a phone.

Right. It's now two devices to manage (car and phone) instead of a single one (just your phone, which treats the car like a second monitor)

Now I'd have to manage credentials on two different devices. Change my Spotify password? Two places to update it. Etc. And now I've got credentials stored in my car? That's a security situation to worry about in case of breakin/theft.

It also totally kills the use case of letting multiple passengers simply plug their phones into the car's head unit. Might have my phone, my wife's phone, or the passengers' phones plugged into the head unit depending on who's doing the navigating and who's doing the DJ'ing. Now thanks to GM instead of simply swapping the cable, I guess we can take turns signing in and out of a bunch of different apps? lol, nooooooo thanks.

I thought auto makers were finally wising up about a couple of things. One, it looks like they're finally slowly coming back around to physical controls where it makes sense.

Two, I thought they were giving up on the idea of their own bespoke entertainment solutions in favor of giving people what they actually want, which is Airplay/Android Auto. People don't want another device to manage. They just want to plug their freaking phone in.

Normally I wouldn't be irritated; I'd be happy to let the market vote. But cars are complicated beasts these days and there's an awful lot of functionality to demo and digest when shopping. There are a lot of auto features that aren't obviously terrible or obviously amazing; they only reveal themselves as such after you've lived with them for a little while.

> There's a lot of confusion. They are moving to Google Automotive Services, complete with Android and the Play store where you pick what is on your car.

Thanks. That clarifies, considering the article gives the impression this would be a GM-siloed system built in collaboration with Google.

The problems remain mostly the same, and the notion of GM de-facto crowning Google and its Android-based solution the "one true solution" feels like something that will isolate iPhone users.

There's a big difference between being able to use Apple Music because it's an app offered on the Google Auto Services version of the Play Store, and the general-purpose solution of being able to use it because Apple Music supports CarPlay and your car supports CarPlay.

There are other potential issues that I don't know the answer to without a bit more research. What about multiple users? The beauty of the Android Auto / CarPlay model was that my friend could hop into my car, plug in his phone, and immediately get access to his Spotify app, already on his phone, with his stuff. And just as quickly as he does that, he can unplug and let my paired phone take over again.

It's really a beautiful design in its simplicity for the end user - no installing apps, no signing in to an account on "yet another device", if it's on your phone, and it supports CarPlay, then you get it in your car.

Not only does it sound like this replaces that for iPhone users, it ALSO sounds like some of these problems will exist equally for Android Auto users, as once again you are moving the environment of apps and services from the individual user's phone, into the car.

Edit:

Doing a bit more research on Google Automotive Services specifically, I found this in an article [1]:

> Android Automotive is also responsible for every interaction with your car's in-dash display. [...] Even iOS users will launch CarPlay through Automotive, a humorous convergence of the two platforms.

If this applies, then it sounds like CarPlay could indeed be an option, by way of an app downloaded from the Play Store. If so, this mitigates a healthy number of my issues. However, if so, then why the article declaring CarPlay is going away in GM if it isn't?

Just very poor article writing? Lack of knowledge amongst the people interviewed at this stage?

Also, next from the article is this:

> GAS (yes, the acronym is almost certainly on purpose) is all of your favorite Google system applications rolled into one package. As an end-user, you'll never interact with GAS by its chosen name. Instead, you'll see the benefits of this system, specifically if you purchase a car from one of Google's partners.

> Considering how many drivers, especially in the U.S., rely on iOS and CarPlay to get from place to place, it makes sense that some automakers (especially smaller companies) might pass on adopting these services.

So... what does this mean? CarPlay and GAS are mutually exclusive? Can individual auto makers determine which apps are available in the Play Store?

I'm left with about as many questions as have been answered.

[1] https://www.androidpolice.com/android-auto-vs-android-automo...

It sounds right: in my car, Xdrive is the actual underlying stack beneath CarPlay. I can use my car without launching CarPlay, but it will route Siri request through CarPlay in a fairly seamless manner. It sounds like Android is going to replace the underlying stack that CarPlay can still be implemented on top of. I’ve heard that Apple is implementing a similar base OS as well.

My biggest issue with this would be that the Apple Music app only streams from the streaming service. Those of use happily chugging along with iTunes purchases and iTunes Match are out of luck.

CarPlay will stream via Spotify. But Apple doesn’t extend the same to HomePod’s for some reason.

Presumably the downvotes are because, from the point of view of an Apple user, every single thing you mentioned is demonstrably worse.

- Apple Music, but now Google can spy on my music tastes? No thanks!

- Data subscription for my car? Why would I possibly want to pay for that?

- Google Maps: Again, Apple users have opted out of this ecosystem. Apple Maps is fine. Other options are also fine. Google Maps is my 4th or 5th choice. The whole point of this integration (per GM) is to force users onto Google Maps, and off competitive map services.

- It's like having a PC and an iPhone, or a Mac and and Android. Either way, all the cross device synchronization stuff breaks badly. Concretely: will my android maps car use siri in a privacy preserving way to check my CalDav calendar to see that I have a meeting across town, then offer to start navigation with a single tap? I think not.

You can use google maps to route in your car via Apple CarPlay. You just have to tell Siri to use google maps. My BMW also has its own routing software, which I use sometimes due to a spurious gps bug that affects CarPlay but not the BMW Xdrive stack itself.

If the car does not support carplay, how would that work though?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com