Apple’s CarPlay gives you the ability to safely use what you love about your iPhone while you drive, but it’s not long for this world, according to Patrick George.
Patrick George for The Atlantic:
Last month, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced that new cars made by the auto giant won’t support CarPlay and its counterpart, Android Auto…
Because GM’s software isn’t tied to a phone like CarPlay is, access to the full suite of software requires its own data plan—through GM, of course. (The cheapest plan costs $10 a month.) Get used to these kinds of subscriptions, regardless of what kind of car you drive. In recent years, automakers have realized how much money they can make from in-car technology…
For GM, eliminating Apple as a middleman provides more opportunities to charge for things. “It’s a turf war, and the car is real estate,” Craig Daitch, an auto-industry analyst and a former GM marketing manager, told me…
Some automakers have made a point of proclaiming their allegiance to CarPlay, knowing that’s what buyers want. Toyota’s EVs tell CarPlay how much electric range they have left, so that Apple Maps can prompt the driver to stop at a nearby charger on a road trip…
No matter what car you drive, the glory days of CarPlay may be numbered. For the auto industry, there’s just too much money to be made from creating their own versions. Get ready for a day when your car’s technology expenses are another line item on the credit-card statement, right next to the Netflix subscription.
MacDailyNews Take: The death of Apple’s CarPlay has been greatly exaggerated above. There are currently over 800 vehicle models from over 60 automakers that support CarPlay. Smart vehicle makers will continue to offer CarPlay and they will be rewarded with increased sales that are shed by every poorly run peddler of mediocrity like GM that fails to offer customers what they want while attempting to monetize them.
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Without CarPlay, I’m not interested. Period. Even with its quirks and hiccups, CarPlay provides a seamless interface with my phone, texts, music, and apps. I have not seen an automobile manufacturer create anything as intuitive.
More, and this is what the auto manufacturers don’t understand – we don’t want to learn to navigate multiple infotainment systems. I own a Toyota, Infiniti, Porsche, and Rover. I like being able to get into any of them and have the layout look and feel the same. Apple takes the pain away.
Somehow GM eliminating choice, they declare it as choice! Only GM….
The reality is this. People overwhelmingly use Apple CarPlay or android auto if that’s the flavor of phone they have and not the stupid car systems..
General Motors cannot make money that way off of selling services and monthly fees. They want to charge for their maps. They want to charge for any kind of messaging or Wi-Fi. They want to charge for cellular they wanna charge for 100 things that you already paid for or get free via your cell phones..
I was interested in a new C8 Corvette… Screw them.
Haha. Like the OEM’s could build something good. Remember the Apple Pay wars and retailers were building a pay app. How did that work out. The smart OEM’s will keep it and prosper.
Inherited a fairly late-model Benz SUV, great riding car, super comfy seating, etc. But my goodness, the Mercedes OS was absolutely atrocious, could not stand it. Somehow they managed to make even the most basic operations cumbersome and convoluted.
Sold it, invested the money.
Wouldn’t this open them up to the same (mostly ridiculous) lawsuits Apple has faced requiring them to open up their devices to other apps and app stores?
GM (and other carmakers) haven’t quite figured out that my car is an accessory to my phone, not the other way around.
My next car WILL have CarPlay. Period.
If forced to… I will simply go back to a phone mount and my iPhone screen.!
Can Cook just allow free use of Apple software so their hardware will sell? Steve Jobs embraced this and Apple was loved. Apple is terrible today. Nothing works. Badges for updates everywhere. No privacy in syncing. You have to use iCloud to get anything Apple to work. Then Cook charges you for storage. Steve is rolling!
Has GM failed to realize it can monetize its cars with its own app running on iOS or Android? We will pay a (small) monthly fee to our car manufacturers (NOT GM!) after the free period ends, in order to have access to remote functions like climate control, charging status for the EV, locking/unlocking, etc through the car’s app.
Is that kind of stuff necessary? No… but it’s addictively nice to have, and it’s an adjunct to using CarPlay, instead of replacing it. GM should be working WITH the mobile companies, not AGAINST them.
Of course, GM had already lost my purchase when they pulled the manual transmission from the C8… I’ll buy another older something to eventually replace my 4+3 C4.
I love CarPlay, and I am definitely NOT paying a car company am extra fee for whatever glitchy nonsense they come up with.
GM can’t even make cars properly… now they are going to master SOFTWARE??
The Enshitification of GM cars.
They just don’t get it, do they?
People will buy Car Play. It is the automobile that is the expendable excessory.
No CarPlay. NO SALE! Fact.
Just gonna leave this here… the future of in-car infotainment from GM.
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2025/11/these-gm-vehicles-can-no-longer-download-apps-through-their-infotainment-system/