Apple carplay

[Bryan Savage]

Fast forward to the Gen5. It connects to my phone. Controls my phone. Has Nav already. Downloads contacts and interfaces my phone. It doesn't MIRROR your phone perfectly, but it's pretty damned close.

My questions is: Do you really need CarPlay or are we maybe splitting hairs here? How often are you using your phone in your car that it needs to looks differently and operate the same. Just a thought... I love the OEM integration. Would CarPlay be cool? Sure... necessary and not have the extras...? Hell no!

It's a YUGE expenditure for auto manufacturers to develop their own hardware and software and takes years to get things certified. This is why even a brand new vehicle's infotainment system isn't as good as the phone that's (likely) in your pocket.

What manufacturers ought to be doing is building a system offloads as much data processing and interface updates to an external device. I believe Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are the first steps to doing just that.

The Uconnect RA4 in my '14 is awful for the following reasons:

• Neither Pandora or Amazon Music will display track information
• The touchscreen is slow and unresponsive
• The maps are always out of date
• Vocal recognition can't understand 85% of commands
• "Search along route" for stops is not possible
• Inputs while already in motion are not possible
• I can't hear anyone over the hand-free phone unless the volume is turned up to 50

I use my phone for 100% of my infotainment needs and don't even have my Bluetooth connected.

I might consider an in-dash upgrade to the current system if the touchscreen is faster and it shows what my phone shows, but I don't know if $1,600 is worth it. If I'm locked out of in-motion user inputs and searching and I'm forced to unplug my phone in order to do so, it's gotta be a no for me, dog.

Oh, and while I'm at it, this is the best climate control interface ever made. Evolution should have stopped right here. It would have saved billions of dollars of R&D.

Climate Control.jpg