I’m ditching ever considering them for a vehicle purchase for my own sanity.
Fucking OEM infotainment systems are bullshit and I will never buy a car ever again that doesn’t support CarPlay and Android Auto.
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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It doesn't even really need that.
All we actually need is a Bluetooth receiver, maybe a FM radio for backup.
I would be 100% fine with that. If I want my car to have a screen, I'll stick my phone to the dashboard somewhere.
My current car has a regular double DIN head unit in it, which I can take out and replace at will (or just replace with a big 3D printed pocket for all I care). I am dreading ever having to purchase a newer car, because I know it's going to be wall-to-wall integrated proprietary electronic bullshit blaring in my face and nagging for subscriptions all the time and it'll be impossible to disable or remove.
I have a car with the bullshit.
The built-in Bluetooth is laggy, and this on what was a high end car at the time.
Glad I got it for less than half of new price.
People ask me why I have so many motorcycles. Lots of reasons, really.
But I think I just decided on a new one. All of my motorcycles have no bullshit. A full manual riding experience; one engine, two wheels, the road, you. End of list. Two of them are fancy enough that they include a clock. That's the full extent of rider distraction features.
Android Auto / Car Play Nav systems are the best though. Although the stock one has a HUD on mine.
Good choice. We have a 2023 Suburban for work, robot didn’t seal our passenger door correctly, steering wheel misaligned from factory, they installed a broken door panel on the rear passenger second row door, electrical gremlins make the auto mirrors adjust randomly, backup system sees ghosts. Absolute embarrassing they ask $80,000 for this. We got it brand new with zero miles.
I considered the Suburban but ultimately chose the Ford Expedition Max. I'm glad I did, I couldn't be happier with it. Android Auto is on all the time. No issues whatsoever. Got it new in '21.
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This feels like something a C-suite came up with to carve out extra profit and had some bean counters crunch the numbers on, fluffed them up a bit and then had the company roll with it on his idea.
I’m usually disappointed by consumer apathy, but from everyone I talk to who has a car with a screen, if they have CarPlay/Android Auto they couldn’t do without it, and if they don’t have it it’s the biggest thing they wish they had.
I've ridden with a friend who has it and uses it a lot, and I can understand the attraction for users who like to be connected while driving. The speech to text stuff actually worked pretty well. I don't feel desire for it myself, but for me its absence is at most a minor inconvenience.
It does seem like it could mostly be replaced by a software app though, plus some kind of dash mount for a phone.
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What they mean is that you have zero reason to pay GM $20 a month for their substandard, unsecure garbage navigation and cloud services, and that's not allowed.
“We are dropping carplay and android auto because mobile phones distract the driver”
But the dashboard looks like this
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Yes, let's trust a corporate that's doing things for our safety out of the kindness of their heart.
Like Google
Yes but also Google provided useful software and services in exchange for your data and OEMs give you nothing but a shit infotainment system.
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This is going to cripple them in the market. Removing features does nothing to make a vehicle more attractive to the average idiot. Maybe GM thinks they can get away with it because the demand for cars exceeds the supply right now, I don't know.
They are going back to the days of a $100 proprietary hdmi cable and annual maps subscription with ads for your own safety
They see how much money Google and Apple are making selling your data and want a bigger cut so they need to make it so they're the only source of data extraction then your data is more valuable.
This isn't much different than smart TVs pushing their shitty outdated apps on you versus using something like a Roku or Firestick which is third party and updated regularly. This is a classic GM move of taking the exact wrong action on something and expecting great results. This is why they keep going bankrupt.
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As they mention in the article, tesla and rivian are doing quite well and both have opted not to integrate with phone mirroring options. So it's a gamble, but they may think they can get away with it. Like you say, the high demand may be giving them the confidence to try.
Tesla and Rivian are both newer electric-only manufacturers, though (unless there's something I don't know about Rivian). Their market is quite different from stodgy old GM's.
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Lmao. Shortly followed by their own systems that are subscription based.
Even if they manage to get big players like Spotify to develop apps for them, a lot of people - at least on the Android side - have smaller, niche apps for audiobooks and podcasts that would never bother to port their apps to GM services. Heck, even Apple Music and YouTube Music wouldn't bother. I smell an upcoming BOGO deal on their overstocked dealerships, just before they get another bailout check.
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As if I needed another reason to not buy a GM.
Good reason to continue my GM boycott of their garbage vehicles.
GM is seriously so fucking trash. Everyone I have ever known with a GM product had seriously regretted it within 6 months.
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Currently, this a dealbreaker for me. As in I won't buy a vehicle that does this, or charges me a subscription fee for a built in feature like heated seats.
There really needs to be a standardised open protocol rather than Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to use a non-Apple/Google app for my in-car infotainment. Apple and Google just want our data.
Let Android Auto and CarPlay be options in a competing market, rather than zero choice and just having to use whatever your phone provides.
There are aftermarket options to support screen mirroring over usb, so I think it is possible. Is anyone else putting in the work to compete with Google and Apple? I've been watching as Google ads integration to various cars - as an example they didn't show turn by turn directions on the screen behind the steering wheel a while ago, and added it on Honda at some point. These features take investment, and perhaps the OSS options aren't keeping up?
There needs to be a lot more to it than just screen monitoring, it needs to recognise touch inputs, high-fidelity, low-latency audio (both ways), and importantly the car needs to be able to send information back to the device (is the handbrake on, are the headlights on, etc). That requires integration from the carmaker.
Open source solutions at the moment cannot be used with in-car infotainment, because of that requirement that the car needs to send information to the device. I think there should be an open protocol for this that all cars implement.
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I don’t want to even rent a car without CarPlay. Good luck with that GM.
Knowing GM they will lobby to ban Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
I have a GM vehicle I like. I already don't pay them for OnStar. I'm certainly not going to pay them to replace my phone. And then likely have to pay for cellular access for my car.
The only safe solution is a proprietary GM solution.
Has anyone jailbreaked one of these cars? Can you install your own OS on them? Seems like that should be doable.
That would be highly not recommended.
The Car Radios these days are so integral to the functionality - you're likely to brick (total) your car.
Hyundai and Kia it is, then.
Their warranty isn't a sign that their cars are good, it is a ploy to make you think their cars are good.
Kinda middle of the pack overall, but they're our ahead of every American manufacturer, so there's that.
They started the 100k warranty to build confidence after their engines were failing do a design flaw they blamed on a manufacturing error found in 1.2m cars. They screwed owners by not replacing the engines due to mileage, then they upped the mile limit after the owners spent thousands replacing the engines with used ones that had the same design flaw. Why used and not new? The new engines, that still had the same design flaw, were backordered for 6 months or more.
They have almost 4m recalled vehicles going from present to 2010 because of random fires on multiple components and have instructed owners not to park indoors.
Their hybrids have an active louvered grill that opens with an electric motor which is not weatherproofed, which can cause the grill to stay closed and cause thousands in damage when water gets in it and the car overheats.
Seeing the problems I have seen with them while working automotive means I could never recommend someone buy one due to their consistent poor design and lying about their engine failure cause.
I had one of those engines. 6 month wait for a rebuilt one where I couldn't drive my car. Got the new engine, and the same problem developed a mere WEEK later. I basically had to walk from a freshly paid off car and get another car loan :( they have decades of proving themselves to do before I'd ever even consider buying one again. I fell for the "but their quality has really improved" BS once now.
I felt so bad telling people what the situation was. Ya'll got screwed so hard.
I think the best they can do is the Genesis line. I only say that because looking at how they are engineered is leagues better than Hyundai/Kia. They are more like a German car than an Asian car. I still wouldn't own one though.
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Just put an aux port or a tape deck in. I'll be okay.
Great. Now we have nanny companies?
I'll spend my money accordingly.
It's not actually for safety - it's because they want their own software to be the only option.
It's the same move Apple uses whenever they block something in the name of "security".
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