I drive a lot of cars, and every time I hop inside a new one, the first thing I do is connect my phone to Apple CarPlay. It’s a must-have for most. A CNBC report said 79 percent of shoppers would only buy a car if it had Apple CarPlay. For younger buyers especially, it's a necessity.
But that's not so much high praise of Apple's software—good as it can be at times—as it is an indictment of built-in automaker interfaces everywhere. Most of them are just outright bad. Cluttered home screens with fussy graphics, dense menus that require multiple selections from innumerable options, and worst of all: Screens that are slow to respond. It's 2024, your touchscreen shouldn't be lagging like an early 2000s Palm Pilot.
That's not to say there aren't outliers. When Toyota introduced the new Tundra in 2021, it brought with it a new in-car interface that finally felt modern. It was Apple CarPlay and Android Auto adjacent, not a rung below. I wasn't immediately reaching for a cord to project my smartphone. Toyota’s interface featured a simple layout with options arranged neatly on the left side of the screen and big, bold text devoid of complex graphics. That made the system easy to use while doing 65 miles per hour.
Finally, someone understood the assignment.
That's still the same system Toyota uses in its cars today and it's still great. I recently drove a 2024 Toyota Crown and—while I still used wireless Apple CarPlay out of familiarity for the most part—I had no issue keeping Toyota's UX active for short drives or using some of its baked-in features like native maps, music services, and praise be, a smartphone-level touch responsiveness.
What's amazing, though, is how many companies still can't nail the basics in this respect—not even counting interfaces that are well past their prime. Infiniti, for example, thinks more screens are the solution.
"Let's slap another screen right here for functions that require two to three hard buttons at most," some well-paid Infiniti executive must have said at a design meeting for the QX80. When your basic UX doesn't even rival a four-year-old smartphone, what makes you think I want to see more of it? Bewildering.
Trying to play catch-up results in other problems, like the dreaded tablet-style screen slapped up on the dash. A product planner told me once that, with how fast technology evolves, it makes more sense to stick a screen on top of or jutting out from the dash knowing they'll eventually need to replace it or increase the size with the next facelift. That makes sense from a product planning standpoint, but it's an eyesore that so many people (not just people like me) complain about.
It's 2024, your touchscreen shouldn't be lagging like an early 2000s Palm Pilot.
Data collection is an especially interesting aspect of all of this. Let's face it, if you own a smartphone, those companies have already collected every piece of info they need. Hell, they get a free picture of your face every time you open your phone in the morning (you're welcome, Tim Cook).
But at least Apple does a decent job of preventing external companies from collecting the same dirt on you that Apple already has. Apple has safeguards in place to prevent things like automatic location sharing and tracking from apps unless you approve, and that extends to use in the car. A Cars.com study revealed that Apple CarPlay and Android Auto don't share any data directly with the vehicle itself—it's just mirroring what's on the phone.
Plugging your info into an automaker’s native interface, meanwhile, could leave you susceptible to data collection from those companies. A 2023 study suggested that automakers are "terrible" with privacy, and some of them are even selling your data for pennies on the dollar. Not great.
And then there's the familiarity aspect.
The iPhone is the most popular smartphone in the US by a large margin. And not because the hardware or software is so much better than the Android competition (I say this as a former OnePlus owner). It's because green text bubbles are icky. Not being able to properly reply with an exclamation point or thread a message is a damning indictment among young people. And trying to send videos or gifs—forget about it. Might as well print out a picture of Skibidi toilet and send it to your friend via carrier pigeon.
So what's the solution?
Whatever General Motors is doing—not that. By getting rid of smartphone mirroring entirely, GM is setting itself up for a disappointing and expensive next few years. At some point, CarPlay will be back in GM products that have ditched it, and more than half of those very expensive tech experts they hired to create a competitor will be out of a job. No matter how seamless or clever or pretty your new UX is—and GM's latest stuff is typically pretty good—your Gen Alpha son or daughter will almost certainly reject it because it isn't exactly what they're used to. Again, familiarity.
Some companies are starting to get it. Ferrari, smartly, decided it wasn't going to spend any more money on in-house-developed maps. What's the point? Apple and Google Maps are far superior to any in-house product even the largest automaker might roll out, let alone a smaller (in the larger scope of car-making) company like Ferrari.
Ultimately, automakers who continually try (and fail) to innovate their in-car interfaces are doing themselves and their potential buyers a disservice. The key is to nail the basics: A simple home screen, not too many buried options, knobs for basic functions, and most importantly, give the kids Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. And while you’re at it, make sure it’s wireless.
