I hate driving (specifically in the city), but I am fascinated by the next generation of Apple's CarPlay, which I recently wrote about, here.
One of the reasons why I'm fascinated is because so much of our built environment is built around the car. And since the built environment tends to be very sticky, I think one can safely assume that -- for better or for worse, it's actually worse -- we're going to need a lot of cars for the foreseeable future.
According to Apple, 98% of new cars in the US come with CarPlay already installed. So, all cars. And the obvious reason for this is that many or most people want it. According to this survey, about 1/3 of new car buyers say that they wouldn't buy a new car if it didn't have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
Apple believes this number is much higher at 79% of US buyers. I don't know what the right number is, but I do believe the number is substantial and probably closer to Apple's than the 1/3 figure. I certainly wouldn't buy a new car without CarPlay.
The result is a suboptimal situation for carmakers. Apple is still going to do whatever it takes to make carmakers want to use CarPlay. My recent post was largely about the design efforts that they have undertaken. But in the end, I'm not sure the auto industry has much of a choice.
There's likely no way they're going to be able to compete with Apple (and Alphabet) from a software perspective and, in the end, consumers are going to want whatever pairs perfectly with their existing phone, since that's where their entire life already lives.
No wonder Apple killed their car project. They can just use everyone else's cars. Even if this is a departure from their typical approach of controlling both the hardware and software.
