Automakers Warn Apple Over CarPlay Ultra

• Apple CarPlay Ultra is supposed to provide “the ultimate in-car experience” for Apple smartphone users.
• It takes over numerous aspects of your car’s software experience and displays, including vehicle settings, climate control, driving modes, navigation and more.
• But automakers don’t want to cede their software operations to Apple, and they’re pushing back.

For iPhone users, it sounds like a dream: everything you love about Apple CarPlay, but spread out across your entire car.

Gone is your car’s wonky, sluggish native interface that was developed by a car company that’s just now branching out into software—and maybe not successfully. You get a familiar interface with all your favorite apps and settings built into the car itself, and it all goes with you when you leave the vehicle and take your iPhone with you.

That’s the promise of Apple CarPlay Ultra. And it sounds great, unless you’re a car company that’s invested billions of dollars into the software side of things and sees a lot of potential in user data. 

Photo by: Apple

More and more automakers are pushing back on Apple’s plan to expand into your vehicle’s dashboard, a new report from the Financial Times (subscription required) indicates. One unnamed executive at Renault put it very bluntly, per the report: “Don’t try to invade our own systems.”

So far, that company, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Polestar and a few others have indicated they have no plans to offer a full-blown iOS expansion into their vehicles. While they aren’t going as far as General Motors in cutting Apple CarPlay out entirely—the more basic, standard version of that system offers smartphone mirroring only in the main infotainment screen—they seem to be drawing a line at letting Apple take over all the car’s functions.

Apple CarPlay Ultra recently debuted on Aston Martin’s vehicles, none of which are fully electric yet. Porsche, however, does make EVs and it will offer Apple CarPlay Ultra soon as well. Ford, Nissan and Infiniti declined to tell the FT what their plans are.

Apple CarPlay, even in its current form, tends to be one of the most requested and most-used features on any new car. It’s a seamless, fast integration between the car and your phone for easy hands-free calling and texting, navigation and various apps like Apple Music and Spotify.

Put simply: CarPlay is just a hell of a lot easier to use than most software systems developed by automakers, and there’s commonality between what’s on your phone and what’s on your car. That’s remarkably convenient and requires no learning curve for new systems.

But it’s understandable why many automakers don’t to hand Apple access to even more functions, like additional screens, sensors and even vehicle functions. If Apple can do software better than they can—and let’s be honest, it probably can—then what future does a car company have? Are they meant to be merely chassis manufacturers for tech companies? 

Photo by: Apple

Photo by: Apple

Photo by: Apple

That’s a scary proposition when many automakers around the world are looking at stagnant sales growth and want to achieve new revenue streams over time, especially recurring revenue. Hyundai, for example, wants software-driven features to make up 30% of future profits one day. That includes subscription features, one-time downloads and other digital add-ons—not to mention the lucrative potential around selling your data.

That future seems quite unlikely when someone could have full access to an Apple-style interface, all of their smartphone apps and settings, and possibly even for free. And as Apple tends to do, it’s set clear boundaries on what data CarPlay Ultra collects or even shares with your phone. It’s an exciting feature for users, but a blow to their software-driven vehicle dreams. 

Then again, the Apple CarPlay Ultra interface reminds me a lot of cars I’ve seen in China, including new models from tech giant Xiaomi. Those cars are directly integrated into a common ecosystem to allow control over home devices and personal file storage even from your car. Very few, if any, automakers that sell vehicles in the West can match that level of software integration.

If automakers think they can do better than Apple, they had better up their tech game.

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Source: Apple

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com