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How Apple's CarPlay Could Shore Up the Car Stereo Industry
Velcroman1 writes: "Car stereo salesmen and installers around the country are hoping Apple's CarPlay in-car infotainment system will have a big presence in the aftermarket car stereo industry. The Nikkei Asian Review reports that Alpine is making car stereo head units for between $500 – $700 that will run the iOS-like system Apple unveiled last month, and Macrumors added Clarion to the list of CarPlay supporters. Pioneer is also getting into the game, with support said to be coming to existing car stereo models in its NEX line ($700 – $1400) via firmware update, according to Twice. Given Apple's wildly supportive fan base, its likely that a lot of aftermarket CarPlay units are about to fly off stereo shop shelves. Indeed, CarPlay coming to aftermarket stereo units could bring back what Apple indirectly stole from the industry going back as far as 2006."
no further comment.
I wouldn't trust Apple. When this becomes successful, before you know it, they will force other manufacturers out of the market. Look at how they are controlling the app-store, and forcing developers to not compete with Apple's products.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I don't know if CarPlay will gain any traction. Since Apple has no control over quality of implementation, we'll see some really awful interfaces on top of CarPlay...
But one great aspect of CarPlay has already done something I thought would not happen for a while - breaking the car manufactures monopoly on in-car mapping. Car makers have been constantly pushing very over-priced terrible in-car GPS systems for a while, and CarPlay at least brings a reasonable and cheap mapping system into cars without having to replace the whole stereo system and/or shoe-horn in a screen. I could see many people adopting a CarPlay stereo just for that.
One thing I really wish would happen would be to have the car industry be also mandated to provide third-party access to all of the screens that will be mandated in cars soon because of the back-up cameras... that could lead to a real renaissance in what smart-phones can do for you in-car.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I recently bought a new car with the USB dongle in the glove cabinet to hook stuff directly to the car stereo. (a 2000 bucks option)
They failed to mention it only supports apple products.
Its time that a ISO standard arrives for cars so i can hook any device to it that supports the standard.
If Apple infotainment is great why don't we see it in the airplanes. We don't see it because it is damn too expensive. I do respect Apple's commercial acumen, quality, design and innovations, but I don't own any of the apple's products nor am I planning to, and I have tried..... No offense to Mac owners and I have heard a lot about their quality and durability. When someone is buying and Iphone, it is easy to bury equipment depreciation to service provider fee. When someone will buy a car in the nearest future, apple infotainment will be one of the many junk services that people will just cross out. I quietly hope that Apple infotaintment will take the same place among junk fees and services such as extended gold service plan, super coated seat protection, anti-theft glass engravings, floor plan fee and other.
about Apple. The products are not worth the acquisition cost or the ensuing lock in.
Let's not even discuss their attitude towards security.
Car stereo salesmen and installers around the country are hoping Apple's CarPlay in-car infotainment system will have a big presence in the aftermarket car stereo industry.
Well, it could have, but after investing in a head unit with the expensive licensed connector for my iPod, then finding when my out-of-warranty iPod died that my new one would not work with the very expensive head unit any more because they changed the connector ... well.
As the saying goes: "Screw me once, shame on me, screw me twice, Fuck you Apple - NEVER AGAIN!!"
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I'm pretty sure I've seen Android frontends for a while now.
After listening to the kids for a while, all she says is, "Don't make me pull over and come back there!"
Have gnu, will travel.
Like this? Where it's free? Across a whole airline?
http://www.cultofmac.com/26985...
What I really want is someone to design a micro USB car dock and app so that I can plug my android phone in and have it replace the Stereo and GPS, charge, and allow me to display performance data (a la Torque) at the same time. All I really need mounted in the dash is an AMP and speakers. P.S. make it compatible with tablets as well..
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
All I want from a car unit is a touchscreen + audio. Alas, while most phones can handle external displays, external touchscreens are generally unsupported.
A car has to last at least a decade. Trying to build in intelligence is futile, and adding 3G/4G is not much better. In a decade, CPU's and software and data transfer standards will hopefully have advanced greatly.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
An Apple head unit? As in super expensive?
Jumping the shark?
First of all, most modern car stereos do much more than play the radio or act as an amplifier for an mp3 player. They also serve as controllers and displays for other computing units in the car. How will the Apple head unit reset the maintenance reminder?
Further, the head unit is probably the best piece of a stock car audio system. Money would be much better spent upgrading the speakers, or adding an external amp with a subwoofer.
And another step further, Apple can shove In-App-Purchases up it's own ass. Definitely not gonna make an entrance in my car.
and frankly, in-car entertainment is dangerous. like the other poster said, all I want in there is an amp and speakers with a jack for audio input. the stuff is expensive, too tempting to look away from the road, and between Ford and BMW, is a monster. totally ergo inappropriate. put the frickin' screen in the dash where the speedometer is now, and stop the contortions.
I'd like my 1964 Dodge back. fixable, the controls fall where your hands are, no menus, and no nonsense.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The car electronics companies gave away the market. I was in car audio for years while in college. I sold and installed almost every brand you can stick into a dashboard - that was in the 90s.
Mobile electronics interfaces are still stuck in the 90s. The mobile industry has completely ignored the user interface advancements of the last 10 years. Take a look at the average aftermarket radio - buttons and dot-matrix LED displays that should have been replaced years ago.
Don't even get me started about bluetooth in car - absolutely no mobile manufacturer makes a stable bluetooth implementation. They all universally suck.
The best thing I put into my car was a bracket to hold my smartphone. After trying 5 different headunits, I finally gave up trying to find one that approaches the functionality and usability of my Nexus and iOS devices.
The mobile electronics companies screwed this up - apple stole nothing from them.
The wife just got a car with touch screen doodad that controls pretty much everything. Talk about device which main purposes seems to be to cause distracted driving. I'll take buttons and knobs any day.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If Apple infotainment is great why don't we see it in the airplanes.
How exactly would this work? You'd be able to airplay GPS to the screen in front of you for a turn by turn play?
While it would be great if all cars used some sort of standard system, for now I'm happy they're using any kind of standard.
In a few years time, either Android phones will start having an iPhone compatibility mode, or a standard will emerge.
(Frankly I don't know which will happen since both have happened in the past)
A bit of a sore spot, eh? You work for MS? Maybe on the SYNC?
As Steve Jobs once remarked (about iTunes for Windows users), like giving a glass of ice water to someone in hell.
iTunes for Windows? I thought that WAS hell?!
Required reading for internet skeptics
like the other poster said, all I want in there is an amp and speakers with a jack for audio input
That's what I put in my truck. You can't listen to optical media in it unless you have a heavy load, because the suspension is too hard. So I have a $20 amplifier with stereo in and four outputs.
I'd like my 1964 Dodge back. fixable, the controls fall where your hands are, no menus, and no nonsense.
Yes, if I had perfect foresight instead of excellent hindsight, I'd have kept my 1960 Dodge. It got over 20 mpg on the freeway and it was stupid simple. But I didn't know how to rebuild a brake system then (dirt simple, as it turns out) and so I couldn't afford to keep it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You using an Apple adapter or a knockoff?
The lightning adapter is Apple - not sure if any knockoffs exist at this point. But, apparently, it depends on the Alpine deck you have, and the cable used to connect to that. I guess it's complicated.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I recently spent $35,000 on a peripheral for my phone, but I forgot to check if the peripheral worked with my phone.
Can someone write a law that says that all peripherals have to work with my phone?
Thank you very much.
Signed, ignorant consumer.
You know those USB ports in the back of some airlines seats? You can use them to stream video from an iPad.
That was from 2006... I thought I had read recently where some airline was working on a system where you could get in-flight movies on your iPad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I use the adaptor in my own car, which provides a custom cable from 30-Pin iPod to the car's USB port (but it needs that cable in order to run an app specific to the car).
I've been using the lightning adapter with the iPhone 5 every since it came out, it charges just fine.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There was already a OS-Agnostic standard for this - MirrorLink. Yet again Apple pushes another proprietary standard when an open alternative already existed. Airplay/DLNA, ALAC/FLAC & now CarPlay/MirrorLink and the iSheep will eat it up a think it's the best thing since slice bread.
I'm confused. Wasn't the last car capable of a having an after-market head unit installed manufactured a solid 10 years ago? I fail to see the point. The number of such cars is on a rapid decline. For collectors if you're going to buy an ancient car, then wouldn't you be buying it for nostalgia's sake and want the old crappy radio that came with it?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
There is no service or fee associated with this feature. It's not something you subscribe to, any more than you subscribe to Windows or your Sony alarm clock. This product is simply an app that sits on top of Blackberry's QNX operating system that drives a lot of the high-end car stereos, allowing the stereo to interface more easily with iOS products. Nothing more. You're not even locked into using it, since you can exit out to the car manufacturer's QNX interface.
Moreover, suggesting we'd see it in airplanes first makes little sense, given that retrofitting entire fleets costs a HELL of a lot more than adding a new feature to a line of cars that gets updated every single year. Besides which, some fleets actually are testing services where they offer in-flight movies free to iPad users, though that's in no way relevant to this discussion, other than that both involve Apple products.
How well do the maps work when you don't have cell coverage in most cars? Just fine.
Same is true of the phone. Either you can buy any offline mapping program ranging from $10-$20, or just use what offline maps exist in Google/Apple maps (Apple maps once it starts a nav route no longer requires a network to get to where you are going).
Those are all updated automatically, for free, and I can chose the navigation I think works best for where I am.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
all I want in there is an amp and speakers with a jack for audio input
Yep, me too. I have a 1999 Holden (Isuzu) Rodeo V6. It's a low-tech car, no computers or gizmos at all (excluding the engine's ECU). Like an old nail, it's utterly reliable - it has 350,000km on it and it just works, day in, day out. In the Australian climate it's not even going to rust away.
My one concession to modern in-car electronics was just last weekend upgrading the stock radio (with cassette!) to a new Sony head unit which plays CDs, FM and (key feature) has a front input jack. Along with a 12V cigarette-lighter to USB power adapter, I'm all set. The whole kit and caboodle cost me $AU85.
Even the meth-heads have stopped stealing car stereos. That is how stagnant the industry has gotten.
Try getting a good reception on an iWhatever inside a car and then try changing channels on the move.
Car stereo crime has more or less stopped because car manufacturers shifted from having standard stereo enclosures to fitting decent model specific stereos that wouldn't fit in other makes or models of car.
Standard interfaces are not always a good thing!
One of the reasons I didn't buy a Ford was because of the Microsoft crap and I am not going to buy a vehicle with anything from Apple installed. If they want to conform to an industry standard port / interface then maybe their products will have a use in my vehicles.
Then it's a good job that Apple won't be installing anything in a vehicle.
This is about the Carplay protocol, not about Apple making head units or stereos.
Man, I know that slashdot users can't read the articles, but it's getting bad when they don't read the summary either before rushing to post.