At the 2014 Geneva auto show, we got the first hands-on demonstrations of CarPlay, the feature of iOS7 that Apple announced last year as iOS in the Car. From comments on the Internet, you might think Apple software has now taken over car dashboards, leaving Android users with the choice to convert or walk.
It may seem unlikely, but many Internet commenters are wrong, at least about CarPlay. I was one of the first journalists to get a demonstration of the system at the show, and I was impressed.
Rather than a revolution in dashboard infotainment, what I saw in CarPlay was an evolution of iOS music library integration in cars. For the last 10 years, cars have increasingly featured USB ports that let you plug in an iPod, iPhone, or iPad with its white cable, and control music playback using the car’s own touch screen LCD or dashboard controls. With this integration, you can browse music by artist, album, genre, and track, select something, and play it.
CarPlay takes a step forward from there. You still have to plug the iOS device into the car’s USB port, but then the CarPlay interface takes over the car’s LCD, with all processing running on the device. Much like the iOS interface, CarPlay shows app icons, although in a bigger format. For the Geneva demonstration, CarPlay gave me the choices of Apple Maps, iTunes music, and iOS phone and text messaging. The only third party apps were iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Beats Music, and Spotify. I’m sure the folks at Pandora are feeling snubbed.
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Additional apps will come, but they will go through far more scrutiny than the great variety found in the iTunes app store. Apple will be the primary gatekeeper of apps approved for CarPlay, but automakers will definitely need some say, and probably veto power, as they will be in the sights of any lawsuits over distracting features in the car.
Date: March 10, 2014