“150 million Americans now own smartphones, which they generally carry with them into the car. More importantly, embedding mobile technology into the car is a recipe for obsolescence,” Andre Mouton writes for MarketWatch. “The average automobile on the road is 11 years old; the average smartphone was bought in the last 12 months. So while your next car might seem pretty clever as you’re driving it off the lot, rest assured that for the majority of its existence, it will be about as ‘smart’ as that tattoo you got in college.”
“The whole idea of smartcars needs rethinking, and that’s what makes Apple’s CarPlay so interesting,” Mouton writes. “Known during development as “iOS in the Car,” Apple did well to rename the product, since CarPlay pulls its functionality from the phone itself rather than loading the iPhone’s operating system onto the dashboard.”
“Mercedes has raised the possibility of adding this service to preexisting models as an aftermarket solution. If so, that’s good news for software developers, who will need to do some work to make their iOS software CarPlay-compatible. In this case, they’re immediately guaranteed a large and committed market, and it wouldn’t be surprising (or difficult) to see Apple develop a quick lead in apps,” Mouton writes. “From Cupertino’s perspective, the best part about CarPlay may be that no one else is in a position to copy it. Google will have a hard time convincing carmakers to adopt Android wholesale. Too many of them see the dashboard as a piece of branding and a potential revenue stream. On the other hand, Google’s operating system is so fragmented that it will take years to get something like CarPlay adopted… I suspect that CarPlay will be a big deal.”
Read more in the full article here.
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I can see one immediate benefit. This should quickly get the automakers out of the habit of charging a crapload of money to upgrade the nav maps.
They’re going to need low or free updates (and much more frequently updated) to compete against Apple Maps in Carplay. I’d expect offline mapping configurations to appear in Apple Maps in iOS 8 (or maybe sooner).
“car might seem pretty clever as you’re driving it off the lot”, I realized this back in ’08 when we bought our Acura MDX and opted not to get the technology package.
I will install CarPlay as soon as Pioneer releases their upgrade solution
“can’t innovate anymore my ass” — Phil Schiller
All the car needs is a means to connect the iDevice, a great speaker system, and perhaps a HUD on the windshield.
the iDevice can deliver everything else – navigation, music, communications.
Yes seems to be a brighter prospect by the minute than an inbuilt solution which initially would seem more attractive but less and less so as your car ages.
I just wish the apps were less cartoonish but being an Apple geek for the last 20 something years, I’d still be excited in getting it.