upvote
To continue your point, one use case where I’m always glad I have CarPlay is when I searched for the hours of some business on my phone via Maps, then seeing they’re still open, get in my car, and the same business’s address is pre-loaded on the CarPlay maps screen ready for me to tap “go”. Ditto any Calendar event that’s coming up where I have the location field already filled in. Just tap Go.

My car’s integrated nav is… fine. But having to re-enter addresses drops the convenience considerably.

reply
Some manufacturers are attempting to address this via apps and account syncing, which I think is still much worse than carplay/AA.
reply
I think this is in the same vein as continuity and user centric and what you were describing but it’s a different part - more than one person drives my car. I want my things and my wife wants hers. Having accounts or something extra on a new shared device is annoying.
reply
My Audi has user profiles and they can’t even get that idea right - for example, a key cant be assigned to a user permanently, it just defaults to the most recent user. So if she hands you her keys to borrow her car because you forgot yours, then her key is now your key until she switches it back. This would be minor except it takes like 30 seconds to “load” settings whenever you switch users… it is like they are being read from a freaking floppy disk or something.
reply
You picked a bad example. You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth. Likewise, you even get controls for music and audio metadata displayed.

What you don't (usually) get from car's regular infotainment:

- Maps that don't suck

- Maps that get updated often

- Navigation that is aware of more than just what HD Radio tells about highways

- Helpful notification when you get into the car that starts navigating to whatever is next on your calendar

- A choice between what navigation software to use

- Ability to switch between audio sources (i.e. go from audiobook to spotify)

IMO Android Auto and CarPlay generally implemented pretty poorly in pretty much anything, but Mazda.

reply
> You get any music/podcast/any-other-audio continuity with just Bluetooth.

Tesla bluetooth UI is pretty ass, actually.

reply
Locations as well. Carplay picks up locations from calendar appointments, messages etc, so very often you just plug it in and click "Go".
reply
That can be achieved if you are app-centric as well (i.e. Spotify app in al lthe places), but your point still stand nonetheless.
reply
Agreed, if you’re a single-app user then something like Spotify works just as well, as long as they do a great job of maintaining to-the-second sync across devices. Audible does a good of that as well.

That just puts you in the space of needing all apps to be available on all devices.

reply
Does the car support different Spotify accounts on each driver profile? If not then you can say goodbye to personal playlists and favorites and podcast progress…
reply
That way also makes it mandatory that you pay for the redundant car data plan that most people wouldn’t need but which they so badly want you to buy for another $30-40 a month.
reply
That's right, my 2 point wasn't complete enough
reply
That still works with apps though. Spotify app in a car would do the same thing.

But I get the point.

reply
> You missed the biggest one: continuity. Start listening to music at home, take it to the car. Start a podcast in the car, finish it in the gym.

That would still work, as you can use Bluetooth.

reply
Or the aux port.
reply
And use the phone’s UI for anything more complex the pause/skip?
reply
Nah, I would not do it.
reply