Apple just unveiled its ambitious plans for taking over the experience of interacting with your car
Apple may or may not ever release a car of their own, but they’ve got some intriguing plans to take over every other company’s cars in the near future.
In some ways it got lost in all of the other hardware and software news out of Apple’s WWDC event on Monday, but Apple took a few minutes out of the keynote to announce some bold plans for the future of CarPlay. Emily Schubert, who is Apple’s “Senior Manager, Car Experience Engineering,” started by stating that CarPlay is now available in 98% of new cars (Tesla being a notable exception), and that 79% of buyers will only consider a car that comes with CarPlay integration. As a man once said, “big if true.” She then went on to unveil what Apple has planned next for CarPlay.
Up until now, CarPlay has simply been a way for your iPhone to take over your car’s touch screen stereo, and give it an Apple interface and access to car-appropriate apps. Going forward, Apple wants to take over the entire user interface of your car. This possibility exists because more and more new cars are coming with not just one display, but sometimes several. At the very least it’s becoming more and more common for the gauge cluster to be a computer display with the ability to configure what data is displayed. Volkswagen, for example, calls this feature “digital cockpit,” but just about every car company is doing it.
With this new version of CarPlay, you won’t just be controlling your stereo or getting driving directions, you’ll do all of the interfacing with your car’s controls through CarPlay. Speed, RPMs, fuel status, range, climate controls, seat heaters, engine temperature, plus several of Apple’s iOS widgets like weather, calendar, and home. And you’ll be able to customize what data is displayed and how. Apple didn’t go into detail on how this will work, but they mentioned having multiple templates you can choose from.
Honestly, this was probably the part of the keynote that was most “blow away” for me. (To use a Tim Cook-ism.) Although the original iPhone was announced and released in 2007, it had been rumored for years before. It was something I always wanted Apple to make because cell phones always had terrible user interfaces, and I knew Apple could do it so much better. That’s how I feel about this new iteration of CarPlay as well. Car companies are good at making cars, but they’re usually pretty bad at doing in-car computer technology and user interfaces. Apple can solve that problem for them.
So what’s in it for the car companies? Well, no doubt Apple is selling them on this using customer satisfaction stats like the ones above, and I’m sure the car companies are all well aware of how popular CarPlay is with their customers. How will this work? Well to start with, it’s probably not coming to any existing cars on the road. Apple said they’d announce vehicle availability late next year. That’s a very long lead time for an Apple product announcement, and very uncharacteristically so. Still, they showed a slide featuring several car companies including Mercedes, Porsche, Volvo, Ford, Polestar, and others, so they must be well into discussions with these car companies. So we’re looking at 2024 model year cars at the earliest. This will also still be iPhone-dependent. In other words, this interface and these features won’t be baked into the car’s software, they’ll only be available when you connect your iPhone to your car. So the car will have whatever interface the car company designs for it. So if your iPhone gets disconnected, or your Android-using spouse gets behind the wheel, the car will still function. I’ll be really curious how you manage the customization of your gauges and other screens. Apple didn’t say how this would work, but I’m imaging Apple is working with car companies on a car version of HomeKit. Think “CarKit” and a Car app similar to the Home app. Theoretically this might also let you interface with car data even while not in your car. But all of that is speculation on my part, though I think an educated guess.
Another question is, what does this mean for Apple’s plans to develop their own car? Based on Emily Schubert’s title, she seems like someone who would be involved in Apple’s “Project Titan” car development plans. Apple’s been working on building its own car for around a decade or so at this point, but so far with nothing to show for it, and with many high profile hires and departures. Is this new expanded CarPlay initiative the first real product to come out of Project Titan? Certainly this is exactly the kind of user experience a full Apple car would have. Is there any chance that Apple is delaying or scaling back those ambitions and opting to be the in-car experience provider for the rest of the industry? Only time will tell.
I’ve been sitting in CarPlay FOMO land for years. I’ve never had a car with CarPlay, and I hate that there’s an Apple product I don’t have the ability to experience apart from occasionally seeing it in action in a friend’s car. Maybe in a decade or so I’ll buy a car that has this full, expanded CarPlay experience. I certainly hope so!
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