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Comment by JustExAWS | Hacker News Reader

The cars I have had don’t let you change BT settings or many other settings and Apple Maps at least doesn’t let you type in an address while you’re driving from the display I don’t think. I’ve done it from my phone as a passenger.

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The Bluetooth thing infuriates me. If the connection fails on my way to work, I have to fucking pull over and park to reconnect my phone. It's literally just pushing the Bluetooth button on my dash. But oh no, that is not available when in motion. Navigate through multiple screens to adjust anything else? Totally fine.

I use CarPlay and plug in my phone. I don’t have to worry about BT. My ancient old 2011 Sonic supported the iPod protocol. That meant I could plug my phone into the USB port for audio, on screen display of what was playing and I believe it could control it.

And passengers don't exist and would never like to play music or navigate from the passenger seat! Gives me road rage every time.

The passenger can grab the phone that is connected via BT, CarPlay or Android Auto. In the case of CarPlay, someone in the backseat can connect to the phone that is using CarPlay by using Shareplay and control the music.

Not on my 2015 Subaru it can't.

A passenger can’t use your phone connected with BT and control the audio?

But it looks like the USB port in that model year Subaru supports the iPod protocol meaning if you have an iPhone, why wouldn’t the passenger be able to control the music?

If you have an Android it looks like it supports just using your phone as a dumb mass storage device that contains music.

The car has to be stopped to do anything involving pairing. I also do not have any iProducts.

If you have an Android device, you still should be able to connect it to the USB port and play music from the phone without Bluetooth pairing.

https://www.subaruxvforum.com/threads/playing-over-usb-with-...

I don't see how this realistically helps passengers play their own music

Well two things - if the driver has a CarPlay connected and then used SharePlay to allow the other person to control the playlist, then the other person can play anything they want to.

In our 2025 Kona - one of the cheapest cars sold by Hyundai - you can have CarPlay connected with one device and have another phone paired with BT for audio.

CarPlay doesn’t use Bluetooth. It is either wired or using WiFi direct

Voice controls are much better for that kind of thing anyway. I expect they'll continue to improve.

The problem is that they imply that the car listens to all of your communications at all time, which many users would find creepy.

My last two cars had button-triggered voice controls, which solves that concern.

Yup, this is how I use my voice control in the car. It’s on the steering wheel.

IMO physical-world safety measures are underused. Not just because they provide pretty hard barriers to certain attacks, but also because they often exist in a world the human user can notice and verify.

For example, I would prefer to press a fob-button to unlock or start a car, but there are systems out there where thieves simply boost/relay the signal of your keys in order to open and and drive it away.

Sure, there are countermeasures involving complicated speed-of-light timing tricks, but it could have all been avoided with a button.

It solves that concern if the trigger is built in hardware, not if it's software-driven.

Most people already have a phone with a software-controlled microphone in their pocket; that’s generally considered good enough.

For someone who really wants that level of hardware control, they’re probably better served by an older car with less or no computers.

It's an Apple thing to limit keyboard access when the car is moving. Android Auto doesn't have it.

Android Auto also doesn't let you type while driving. Source: I was the one who wrote the system UI and Keyboard integration. It's still there last time I checked.

What was the discussion like around passengers controlling the UI?

Passengers can just grab the phone and do whatever they want.

Which is something the driver can do too, which is why this stupid restriction is making the system less safe.

If they do, it’s not on Apple or the car manufacturer for making it unsafe. There are a laws all over the world about having an infotainment system and distractions.

Except apps like Waze will show you "this app is being controlled by Android Auto" and won't let you do anything on the phone's screen, you have to use the Android Auto display to interact with it.

I don’t think it’s universal, I have a car from 2023 and both Android Auto and Apple integration let me change the maps destination.

You can’t type on the keyboard though. You can push large buttons to look for and choose gas stations, restaurants, etc.

I literally just used android auto, while driving, to type in an address in Waze using the on screen keyboard(well, my wife was driving). Stock android on a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

There's a bug. I don't know how to replicate it, but a week ago the keyboard popped up while I was in (slow) motion (I was trying to select a previous saved destination) and I tapped on a random key to see if it worked, and it did. This was the only time in 5 years of me using Android Auto that it happened.

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