That last paragraph. The Android model would be very attractive for cars, even for Apple. On smartphones, that model suffers from the hardware being all too indistinguishable. Glass rectangles with or without rounded corners, maybe a button here and there. Car manufacturers by contrast have a century of experience with making mechanical differences count, on top of the same UI everywhere.

For Apple and Google, the case is clear: if they want to defend their incredibly valuable gatekeeper position for local search (the market formerly known as the yellow pages) they need to provide the UI for the car or else they lose much of that gatekeeping. The question is, will any car manufacturers be willing to play, or are they all trying to succeed where Nokia failed?