General Motors recently announced plans to completely axe Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its vehicle lineup by the 2028 model year. The plan to do so with its EV lineup has been in place for a while now, but with the latest release, GM CEO Mary Barra confirmed that the plan will now extend to all internal combustion vehicles as well.
Mainly, it's about your data
Then again, so is everything...
Believe it or not, you can tell a lot about a person simply based off of where they go and how they get there, not to mention what they do and listen to en route to those destinations. There's a hefty mine of data that Apple and other companies pull from CarPlay and Android Auto usage, and automakers are not about to let that continue for what is essentially free. Your car collects a staggering amount of data on you at all times, ranging from in excess of 25GB in an hour, measuring well over 100 data points. However, without control over the infotainment and location services you're using, there's a large hole in that data pool, and manufacturers desperately want it.
In theory, this should all go towards automakers creating a better product. However, when we start throwing the term "data collection" around, it tends to get people a bit worried, which is more than understandable. Could manufacturers do harmful things with your data? Absolutely, but it wouldn't be any worse than what data is probably being tracked around your digital footprint right now. All in all, if this is the overarching issue that manufacturers want to present, it's a logical step.
Brand identity is lost on CarPlay and Android Auto
Where a car could impress buyers before, it fails now
One of the main draws of CarPlay and Android Auto is that you can make your car's screen look like an Apple or Android product. However, that's not what it is. In reality, it's probably a Harman, Bosch, or Continental product, which all get paid big bucks to give brands under the umbrella of Stellantis, GM and others their own identity within infotainment ecosystems. When a user decides to fire up CarPlay or Android Auto, all of that work goes towards making the car and its ecosystem feel like an Apple or Android product, and that doesn't sit well with them.
GM is the first to take this leap of faith in its consumer base, and only a few financial reports will tell whether it's successful or not.
If you're a manufacturer, you want everything in the car to feel like your own, because you never know what a driver might realy like. Increasingly, drivers are falling in love with their infotainment selection and ease of use. For instance, as recently as 2023, many drivers have said a vehicle not having CarPlay or Android Auto was a dealbreaker in their purchasing process. That alone has created a rift between Apple and other tech companies. Manufactures don't want them in cars anymore, but they might not be able to sell cars without them. GM is the first to take this leap of faith in its consumer base, and only a few financial reports will tell whether it's successful or not.
It will lead to better native UI/UX designs
Competition brings out the best in all of us
With GM making its announcement, the User Interface and Experience battle has officially opened up to brand-new competitors. GM is designing its own in-house system, which companies like Mercedes-Benz have already taken stabs at, and many more manufacturers or brand groups are likely to follow suit, depending on whether GM takes on a massive sales hit or not. Competition tends to bring out the best on either side of a conflict, and what should result out of this is a better UX/UI experience for most drivers.
We've already seen manufacturers push back on the first iteration of CarPlay Ultra, citing that it's not complete enough nor ready to handle things like fleet limitations and other niche, but important features. That sent Apple back to the drawing board in a hurry, and now, many manufacturers have done the same. Most of the results of this redesign process won't be seen until the next generation of vehicles hits dealership lots, but we should start seeing teasers and concepts sooner rather than later.
I'm sick of everything looking the same
In a world full of similarities, at least something will stand out
This one is more personal than anything, but I, for one, am sick of everyone's dashboards looking the exact same, with the same apps, the same display, and the same little icons. I have fond memories of collecting old dash displays from junkyards, because at one point that was an integral part of a car's design. The way the radio fit perfectly into the dash or flowed along a seamlessly designed line was satisfying, and added an individual sense of style to each car.
Nowadays, I can get into just about any new car and now that I'm going to have a screen in front of me and a screen to my right with various colors of plastic around it, and the chances are that the screen on my right will be far bigger than any other that I own aside from my living room TV. This is a trend that has ruined design language in most modern cars, and inched us ever so much closer to the Wall-E world that we joked about just a few years ago. Cars are supposed to be different from one another, and each have their own personality. I'm tired of driving things that are just extensions of the little device in my pocket. Hopefully, this change will bring some life back into car interior design, because it can't get any more boring than it is right now.