GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because they're unsafe

Re:GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto beca... by dntrkv on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @01:04AM (#38623299)

The problem is that you need to architect, build, and maintain that system for years, or decades, to come. That requires an in-house software team that knows what it's doing. Building that first version that "works" is easy. Building that first version that actually works and supports everything you need it to, is quite a bit more difficult.

Building and then maintaining that software, year after year, without slowing to a crawl because of all the tech debt that's piled on (especially so since you have subpar engineers or you're contracting out to cheap workers abroad), is even harder.

And if you want to provide a user experience comparable to what the top software companies in the world are capable of, that's just not gonna happen at these car companies.

Tesla was born from the software industry, that's why they're the only ones that can compete.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto beca... by jonathankoren on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @01:33AM (#38623470)

Uh… cars don’t really change from year to year. Pretending that an acceptable infotainment system is hard to do, just isn’t so.

The real problem is dumbass “features” (my MDX likes to show an animation of the keyboard typing out all the words a half second a letter, whenever you click autocomplete… for some reason) The real issue is that the infotainment systems are underpowered, because they’re considered an afterthought.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto beca... by fl7305 on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @02:27AM (#38623778)

> infotainment systems are underpowered, because they’re considered an afterthought.

Also, cars sell in the millions. Car manufacturers will redesign a circuit board if it will save them cents on each board.

So it is always a struggle to put a more powerful CPU in there.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto beca... by jimmaswell on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @08:43PM (#38636791)

Infotainment responsiveness needs to be a NHTSA regulation. The mental load of dealing with laggy and unresponsive radios is surely causing accidents. Even if at worst it adds another $100 to the cost of the car to get a good enough cpu, so what?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto beca... by sbierwagen on Thursday December 14, 2023 @12:33AM (#38638162)

Apple made a computer with a fast, responsive UI in 1984 using a chip that ran at 7.8 mhz and had 128 kb of ram.

You don't need a fast chip to eliminate lag. It's just incompetence.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto beca... by fl7305 on Thursday December 14, 2023 @02:12AM (#38638649)

Sure. I've used home computers since 1979. The graphics were instantaneous back then even on a few MHz and 16 kBytes of RAM.

We don't want slow and laggy UIs because the software is bloated.

But I responded to this part:

> The real issue is that the infotainment systems are underpowered

And my point was that it is far harder than it seems to put more powerful CPUs in cars.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:GM says it's dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto beca... by jonathankoren on Thursday December 14, 2023 @01:47PM (#38645355)

They weren't doing that much either. I doubt an Apple ][ could even stream modern audio codecs via bluetooth, let alone simultaneously run a local search on the GPS database.

[ Parent | on HN ]