Apple CarPlay, General Motors,and the battle for control in the front seat

When I climb into my car, I set the map to my destination and then start to play music on Spotify. I could accomplish both of these on the vehicle’s inbuilt display but I find it awkward, so I plug in my iPhone and use Apple’s CarPlay software instead.

I therefore took a keen interest this week in General Motors’ appointment of Mike Abbott, a former Apple executive, to head its software unit. It followed GM’s announcement that it will stop the use of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto on some of its new electric vehicle models in North America, starting with the Chevrolet Blazer EV. Drivers will be forced to rely on GM’s new dashboard display instead.

Surely I am not the only one to groan at this prospect. Many people prefer their smartphone software to their vehicles’ inbuilt displays. As Benedetto Vigna, Ferrari’s chief executive, remarked at the Financial Times’ Future of the Car event recently: “For a car company to become a tech company is not easy... We are used to the operating systems we have in our pocket.”

It is hard enough to adapt to the regular updates to Apple IOS or Android, let alone tackle a different set of swipes, symbols and habits for the limited periods that most of us spend driving. I am not entirely sure how my car’s air conditioning works, or what the wiper settings mean: spare me from learning new technology for each brand.

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GM is not declaring independence from all software partners. It is using Google’s underlying technology for its new EV infotainment display, and it will include apps such as Spotify and Google Maps. Drivers will also be able to connect their iPhones via Bluetooth to hear music or to make calls. But the days of Apple being able to mount a takeover of GM’s EV displays are waning.

I don’t wholly blame it for snubbing Apple. The technology company has flirted for years with producing its own self-driving vehicles. Tim Cook, its chief executive, talked in 2015 of giving drivers “an iPhone experience in their car”, but the project has so far come to little. Perhaps it discovered that car-making is a tough business, especially in the costly transition to EVs.

Apple has instead grown more cheeky in trying to wrest data and display space from carmakers. Last year, it unveiled an expanded version of CarPlay in IOS 16 that can be deeply integrated into vehicle software, controlling not only music and navigation, but heated seats and air conditioning. Apple’s widgets would spread right across the dashboard display.

This would suit me fine, but I understand that it might irritate carmakers to invest billions in EVs, only to find Tim Cook occupying the front seat. “We feel that we need to have control over the experience,” Nick Festa, GM’s director of digital business, told me this week. GM will, for example, integrate its own navigation data with Google’s to guide drivers to EV charging stations.

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Few others have so far rejected Apple CarPlay (Tesla has never supported it), but GM is not alone in wanting more control. Apple last year showed Mercedes-Benz among brands “excited to bring this new vision of CarPlay to customers”, but the carmaker has also announced plans for its own infotainment and software system, again using Google technology.

Such investments reach deeper than tensions with Apple over infotainment screens. Carmakers are used to building mechanical and electronic devices but EVs rely far more on software. It controls everything from how fast cars can accelerate to how they manoeuvre, how often they need to be recharged and how comfortable their passengers are.

Software also offers the prospect of making money. When so many aspects of the connected car can be altered or upgraded with software updates, it is natural for carmakers to get a case of Apple envy. They also want to sell software and services on a platform they operate, linked to an electronic device they design and make: for the iPhone, read the Chevy Blazer.

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But not so fast. Apple is good at what it does. The fact that so many drivers use it on their displays is not just a matter of familiarity but of design expertise. So if a carmaker wants to ditch CarPlay, its new software must work as well and look as good. Few have cleared the hurdle yet and this is a competitive industry; if some do not co-operate with Apple, others will.

Nor will it be easy to make the billions the industry hopes from selling new services. Customers are not accustomed to buying cars and then being told that they will have to pay a fee or subscription for the heated seats to be activated, or for the acceleration to be boosted. In theory, a software upgrade is equivalent to better hardware; in practice, it can feel exploitative.

Meanwhile, the industry has other challenges to tackle, such as making its EVs more reliable and comfortable to drive – the invisible technology that makes the biggest difference. The free software fix I really appreciated on my own car was the one that stopped the engine cutting out without warning. That, not blocking Apple CarPlay, is what I call progress.

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023