Apple's CarPlay will also be abandoned by the times?

A few days ago, the American auto giant General Motors did something that was madly sprayed: they were going to give up Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto (for the convenience of everyone’s reading, only CarPlay is mentioned below).

Of course, GM didn't dare to go too far with this kind of early bird. Castration CarPlay is not aimed at models that are already on the market, and fuel vehicles that will be released in the next few years will not be affected. The restrictions are only on the electric vehicles that will be launched by the company.

However, when the news of GM's castration of CarPlay came out, I didn't say big guys. Just look at the attitude of the media and you will know how unpopular it is.

Since everyone is upset, why would GM do this?

In fact, it just did what car companies wanted to do but didn't dare to do.

As early as when CarPlay first came out, car companies were not interested in it. For example, the wireless CarPlay solution launched in 2015 was not installed on the car for the first time until 2016. After that, car companies competed with each other for selling points. Only various installations.

A few years ago, some media people said that Toyota thought it would be a huge mistake to hand over such a valuable property as a car to Apple, but the reality is that it didn’t take long for almost all of them to come standard with CarPlay.

Other manufacturers have not been able to completely reject CarPlay, is GM floating?

Of course, this is not decided by GM with a slap in the head, mainly because GM CEO Mary Barra (Mary Barra) proposed a business diversification plan before, saying that it is to "actively expand software and service revenue."

And to do this, CarPlay is of course a thorn in the side.

But if you want to unplug CarPlay, is GM's own car hard enough?

From historical experience, it is actually very soft.

As early as 2011, GM launched the car-machine system CUE, but at that time, the stinky car maker couldn't play the system.

Almost every button has a delay of more than 5S, and it crashes at every turn. The voice recognition is too stupid to understand anything. To this day, everyone still shakes their heads when they talk about CUE.

But General Motors did not give up. In the same year when they announced the comprehensive transformation of electrification, they launched a new car-machine platform Ultifi, which was officially used just this year.

So many people also speculate that cutting CarPlay is to make way for its own Ultifi. Does this mean that GM is confident in Ultifi?

It's possible, but probably not the main reason.

Everyone knows that in the past, car companies were limited by their technical strength when building cars, and on the other hand, they were a bit arrogant in managing production and neglecting maintenance. As a result, the cars and machines back then were simply synonymous with disaster. Bad interface design, confusing page layout, lagging, etc. are too numerous to count.

Until 2014, Apple brought CarPlay, this little cutie and the various cars and machines of car companies back then, and the experience gap in all aspects. Its entry made the car screen no longer eat dust.

In just a few years, CarPlay has swept the entire automotive industry, and various car companies have "supported CarPlay" as a major selling point of their models, and many old car owners are willing to pay for additional installations out of their own pockets.

Today, CarPlay has become one of the most important needs when people buy a car. According to a report by Strategy Analytics in the past few years, 23% of new car buyers in the United States said they "must" have CarPlay, and more than three in China 1 in 10 love CarPlay.

Apple has also publicly stated that nearly 80% of car buyers will only consider buying a car that supports CarPlay.

But the days when car companies are equipped with CarPlay are obviously not so happy.

Starting in 2020, many car companies have begun to cancel CarPlay pre-installation on some models and use their own car-machine systems instead.

For example, the Ford Edge supports CarPlay before the 2018 model, but after the 2020 model, it no longer has built-in CarPlay. Many models of Honda and Volkswagen have also canceled the original CarPlay. . .

There are many reasons why people don't use CarPlay.

The first is the cost issue. Although Apple does not currently charge CarPlay usage fees, access to CarPlay requires MFI certification, hardware purchases, and other expenses.

There is no public data on how much it is, but it can be speculated from the subscription fees that BMW has collected from users for CarPlay: a down payment of $300 and an annual payment of $80. The price is not too big or too small, but the car manufacturers are more or less unwilling to pay:

I obviously brought the car with me from the factory and you don’t need it, so I have to pay for the service for everyone to use for free, and finally Apple will take the data away.

In the past, car companies' own cars were not strong enough, and all colleagues in the industry were "paying tribute", so everyone gritted their teeth and followed the trend.

More importantly, after the wave of car intelligence hits, the value of car-machine systems has risen again and again. McKinsey analysts predict that by 2030, the sales of car software may reach 50 billion US dollars.

Therefore, car companies have found that using CarPlay is not simply losing the sesame seeds. If this continues, they may not even be able to keep the watermelon.

In addition to the huge software market, another reason why car companies are chilling is that they feel that Apple's new CarPlay has crossed the line.

At last year's WWDC conference, Apple's ambitious announcement of a new generation of CarPlay once stole the limelight from the M2 chip.

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The next generation of CarPlay will no longer be satisfied with just controlling the big entertainment screen, they have extended their hands to a deeper layer of the car.

According to the description, after the new generation of CarPlay is installed, the car dashboard, temperature control and infotainment unit can be unified and integrated, and the screen and dashboard in the car can be retuned by Apple in the future.

To meet these functions, it is not solved by projecting a screen like the first generation. It requires car companies to open up more interfaces, and also needs to transmit various real-time information from the car to the user's iPhone, which will be analyzed and integrated into Apple. In your own software, and finally send it back to the car screen.

The launch of this thing is likely to require car companies to strip themselves clean and "play" with CarPlay naked. Who would be happy to change it?

Although according to Apple itself, heavyweight manufacturers such as Honda, Nissan and Renault are "happy" to support the new CarPlay, but more car companies are still struggling.

Land Rover and Jaguar said: "It is too early to comment on future products."

Mercedes-Benz also said that it has not committed to a new generation of CarPlay: "We internally evaluate all potentially relevant new technologies and functions.".

Those with more intense reactions, such as BMW, which was once a loyal supporter of CarPlay, jumped against it. They feel that it is risky to hand over the entire system to other manufacturers for control, and even complain that CarPlay is a technology game that can be played in a few years. How can a century-old car company bow its head easily.

Anyway, after looking around, there are no public commitments from car companies, and the new generation of CarPlay will definitely be used in the future.
Although everyone will not doubt that CarPlay is the pioneer and leader of car intelligence, it tells everyone that cars can be smooth and concise.

Many older models will continue to enjoy the convenience of CarPlay for a long time to come.

But before CarPlay was easy to use, and the original car machine relied on the defense, but this does not mean that CarPlay will always lead, and the original car machine will always be difficult to use.

The birth of Tesla does not prove that car companies can make cars work well without CarPlay.