People with CarPlay are mostly just listening to AM/FM radio | Hacker News Reader

People with CarPlay are mostly just listening to AM/FM radio

9to5mac.com

24 pointsmertd10 comments

I'm concerned about the quality of an article written by someone admitting they don't know how to listen to FM in their car.

There's no way to stop my car from automatically playing FM, and I never use FM!

The issue with CarPlay is that it’s too annoying to use.

With wired CarPlay, I need to physically plug in the cable. Which is now mildly complicated by the whole lightning vs USB-C problem.

With wireless CarPlay, it tends to connect to one device which may or may not be the driver’s phone. Switching the connection to another device is a nightmare.

When renting a car, Wireless CarPlay is even worse as there seems to be a maximum number of phones the head unit can remember. I’ve often had to factory reset the head unit to get it to work with my phone, which ironically deletes all the AM/FM presets.

Also the limited Apple Music interface is not good, forcing you to use Siri. The Siri button on the steering wheel often defaults to the cars voice control system. Siri itself is a very weak part of Apple’s ecosystem.

None of these problems are necessarily Apple related. But they point to fact that Apple CarPlay is often tacked onto an in-air infotainment system, rather than an integral part of the in-vehicle experience.

The interface is designed to be used by voice. Siri isn't great, but it's good enough to control Apple Music. I use wireless CarPlay (through a 50 dollar dongle from amazon) in my 4runner every day and have no issues with it.

don't use the button, just say "hey Siri play ____" and it does it.

This article is trash but the data from the research is actually interesting.

Without CarPlay it’s still super easy to stream audio from any app and has been for a decade (sure maybe CarPlay makes it even easier?).

It is interesting and contrary to the headline that people with CarPlay listen to radio 20% less than people without. More so they listen to streaming services almost 10% more if they have CarPlay.

Obviously correlation is not causation. If you can afford a higher end car then you are also more likely to be a premium Spotify/Apple/Sirius subscriber. Regardless it still looks like a good investment on Apple’s part.

The original source explains the study methodology:

https://www.edisonresearch.com/in-car-listening-and-infotain...

Edit: Also, the headline and the analysis in the article are completely wrong. The study says that 49% of listening time is spent on AM/FM.

It doesn’t say anything about what percentage of people just listen to the radio and don’t listen to the other audio sources.

What about people who drive in silence?

usually if I listen to the radio... via either the advertising, or the music... I turn into one of those :)

It’s because cars are programmed differently I default to radio.

No matter what. My car turns the radio on. There is no mode to turn it off and not have it turn back on the next ride.

For my car the fix for this is to plug a cable into the aux port. I just have a plug with no cable permanently plugged in and the car defaults to aux (with no audio) when it starts. Then Android Auto will happily take over from that if I wasn't to listen to music.

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