Why Are Cars Getting Rid Of Android Auto?
8 months ago by themachinestops to c/technology
For the most part, it's believed that carmakers are doing way with Android Auto support simply as a way to expand their control over user data. Because Android Auto utilizes your phone's connection, all of the data that runs through it goes straight to Android and the phone manufacturer. So, by utilizing built-in systems, the car manufacturers would indeed be able to collect more data about how you use the systems in place, while also possibly getting more money out of you through subscriptions.
You are unfortunately correct.
And then carmakers will cry that Chinese cars are reading over the market.
It's not free you know.
Yes, the software doesn't cost anything but the chipset is supplied by a single manufacturer Qualcomm and costs a bomb.
You can't run it on a Mediatek or a Rokchip or whatever?
There's more than just Qualcomm in the ARM market.
Also, so what? Do you think the cars are currently sold at a loss? They profit on each car sold, and that includes the infotainment.
That's such an obvious deflection, though. My last car was a GM vehicle, with built-in OnStar right there in the box behind the rearview mirror. Built into the price I paid was hardware I didn't want, didn't pay a subscription for, yet was collecting my driving data and selling it.
Building a functionally useful infotainment system to replace Android Auto, with all of the bells and whistles needed to complete, is going to cost them the same or more. The difference is the rent seeking behavior, the demand for subscriptions, and getting more opportunities to spy on their customers for profit.
It already is for a lot of modern cars. Especially EVs. I imagine they are so tied into the functionality of the car that it makes the vehicle impossible to drive without the OEM headunit.
Couldn't a savvy user just find an exploitable firmware revision, never connect the vehicle to the internet, and install aftermarket software or hardware to bypass the authentication checks? It would be more of a pain in the ass than the previous drop in system, but I'd imagine it's possible.
The vehicle comes from the factory connected to the internet.
You'd have to find the exploit before they do, and it would be hard to replicate because once they find out, the only cars vulnerable to your exploit are ones manufactured before the patch who have been disconnected from the internet (which is like 2 cars).
It's theoretically possible but very hard to replicate. And on top of that theres always the risk of the car manufacturer voiding the warranty on your $50k vehicle and/or cozying up to your insurance company and convincing them any damage is a result of you preventing their systems from running as intended.
It's a messy high risk low reward game to play. Better option is to just buy a different car if you can.
Right, but that requires somebody to find and document exploitable firmware revisions, create and distribute hardware/software to exploit them, develop the aftermarket software/hardware, and all that potentially separately for each car model. And then that just becomes a war with the manufacturers, who might try to update their firmware more aggressively, lock things down more, and threaten/sue people working on such things.
I doubt it will be completely impossible - we'd just be returning to a situation similar to game consoles and modchips - any aftermarket parts need to lie to the "authentication" checks in place first.
I would expect that certain aftermarket groups would specialize based on popular models, maybe even prioritizing models designed to be interoperable with others design and parts wise (Subaru and perhaps Toyota comes to mind).
If it doesn't affect emissions those mod chips will not violate your warrantee - magnuson-moss was writen decades ago to protect replacing your factory radio. There are a number of other laws around third party access to car diagnostics.
I just had a little magnetic clip for my air vent where I could attach my phone and put up a map.
I'd sooner go back to doing that than use a "Gemini-based AI assistant" in my fucking car.
That's another reason the manufacturers are increasingly locking vehicle features behind the touchscreen. If you buy a 3rd party replacement, you can't control the AC.
I'd rip out the touch screen SO fast
That's the "why I can't do it" part.
But if it was possible to get knobs and buttons for everything and a small-ish screen only for info, I'd take that. I'd pay for that. Touch screens are dangerous. I'd at most be comfortable to swipe on the screen to show different infos like GPS, temperature/airflow, music/radio. Otherwise I want buttons and knobs with little lights.
I 100% understand what you mean. I just bought a VW ID.4, and IMO they have a good balance. Everything needed for normal driving is handled with buttons, and although some are touch, they do have haptic feedback, and it works OK IMO.
I was looking at the Skoda Enyaq, because it has traditional buttons and more things operated through them.
But it cost about €5000 extra for the same features as is in our fully equipped ID.4 when used and 4 years old.
But now I'm happy we chose the ID.4 instead of an Enyaq with fewer features. Because the ID.4 works way better than I expected.
It's crazy and previously absolutely unheard of that the Skoda version of a similar car to a genuine VW is more expensive.
And replace it with what? You can't just hot glue knobs on the center console and expect them to work.
That's the "why I can't do it" part.
But if it was possible to get knobs and buttons for everything and a small-ish screen only for info, I'd take that. I'd pay for that. Touch screens are dangerous. I'd at most be comfortable to swipe on the screen to show different infos like GPS, temperature/airflow, music/radio. Otherwise I want buttons and knobs with little lights.
No need to do that. You could get a Slate and put in what you want.
Good luck. Everything is integrated now with nonstandard form factors. The work and cost to do my 2020 transit is ridiculous. Phone mount and Bluetooth it is.
Not only will Automotive Linux not save us it will power the new proprietary car systems
You probably can, just nobody bothers to do it. My Subaru has installable apps. Hell older Hondas (and possibly current ones) just run android. You can even get to the regular android UI on them.
I'm pretty sure the sofware that is running on the information entertainment system from VW is fully proprietary without any way of flashing it with a custom rom or running Linux on it.
I'm not taking about connecting other devices like apple or android phone to this system.
You can, but it's a Google filled minefield. A good view of it is reading into all of the trouble of using Android Auto in GrapheneOS without destroying all the privacy protections. It's essentially impossible to get navigation going without doing so, but audio for music and phone calls can be done with some hoop jumping. You're still probably better off just using bluetooth though.
No, you misunderstand what I was trying to say, so I probably didn't communicate it well. You cannot use any of them, open source or not, without allowing the Google Play Services some rather invasive permissions. That's the Google I was referring to.
Best thing to do is remove google play services if at all possible. Installing microg will solve most issues. This of course means rooting the device. Which is admittedly not an easy task when dealing with head units.
It kind of makes sense to not allow people to do that - just imagine what horrors people will create that totally will kill people. Cars are dangerous.
There are two things hidden here:
- People totally got killed by doing their own maintenance
- There is a difference between physical maintenance and, well, you know that people will install some buggy self driving app
the entertainment system should have zero access to anything that controls the movement of the car. androidauto apps can't implement self driving functions either. if it's possible, the car manufacturer was incredibly irresponsible and needs to be sued into oblivion. see, the actual problem is not that irresponsible users could implement "self driving apps", but that the entertainment system lacks any real security, is filled with vulnerabilities, and often even have remote access capabilities with bluetooth/wifi/cellular, and bad actors could load malware wirelessly that would kill the passengers and whoever else on the road.
People totally got killed by doing their own maintenance
People have totally gotten killed from maintenance done by a "professional" (new kid on the job at the shop.)
I watch YouTuber CarCareNut and he's shown many stupid mistakes made by dealerships.
I assure you I take greater care doing repairs than a tech who will get yelled at if they don't finish the job fast.
Why are you assuming that the infotainment center in a car can take over steering at all?
If saftey is your concern I hope you do not blindly trust manufacturers given their history of "safety and security". My concern is software freedom: being in control of your own computing (instead of the creator being in control). All software has bugs, but at least 3rd party software isn't intentionally adding anti-features and spyware.
100% fearmongering bullshit designed to erode property rights. Cars have been completely "open" throughout their entire history until recently, and the problems caused by irresponsible owner modification have been both negligible and entirely acceptable (compared to the alternative of going full-blown police state to stop them).
Make no mistake: full-blown police state is exactly what you're arguing for when you suggest people shouldn't have the right to modify their own fucking property!
They would probably have a panic attack if they learned about megasquirt. Cars being locked down is so unnatural that most of their design allows them to be controlled by open source solutions.
Your car radio can't kill people lmao
I am always surprised I don't hear more discussion about Automotive Grade Linux.
You heard it on Lemmy first!
Because it's corporate controlled embedded Linux, you aren't guaranteed any freedom or control. Hell you aren't even guaranteed access to a debug menu. Technically a car manufacturer could make a open a free car running embedded Linux that does give you freedom but the chances are absurdly low.
Man, that sounds INCREDIBLE!!! Never heard of this! Linux on my pc, my laptop, my phone, and now my CAR! 🤣
That's what most? cars used for a long time (there is also GENIVI)
Many manufacturers are switching to Android as the base OS so they can just hire app developers rather than developers that know other UI toolkits
Gonna be honest. Its a multi thousand kilo death machine. I'm going to leave it to professionals to fuck with. I'm going to force as much of the liability on others as I can.
- nowhere in their comment are they saying they blame automakers by specifically
- nowhere in their comment are they saying they should get cars for free
Stop getting so offended, snowflake.
day old outrage account
We found the biggest moron on the internet.
Bait used to be believable
Are you a billionaire or are you lazy?
Rock and roll is too loud and oatmeal is too spicy!
The cars (in EU) used to be under 20.000€ ~6 years ago. Yes, I understand inflation exists.
So manufacturers can bill you monthly for the same features...
Why I like Android Auto:
- I can plan my route on my phone at home and see the map on the big screen instead the little phone ui, or worse putting in the adress manually with the keyboard wheel in Korean instead of copy and pasting it from the Element chat
- I already have all my music on my phone, I don't want to copy and organize it again for hours in my car
- I already have integration with many apps on my phone, I don't want to set everything up again on the car, especially I can't copy and paste my long ass passwords from my KeePassXC into the car and need to painstakingly put in every password with their clunky keyboard, if they even have a keyboard.
I could go on forever. But as long as I can connect bluetooth and set up my phone somewhere so I can see the map while driving I'll be OK. The worst part, at work what I do is car infotainment system software, but it never has any of the features I would want from a car.
In the car manufacturers mind, these are all uncommon issues because you should be using cloud services for everything.
Removing smartphone integration from its vehicles opens the door for GM to grow its in-vehicle subscription revenue. Yep 💩
I'll happily celebrate whatever loss hits Google.
but this is so shitty I prefer Google
Honestly, I think consumers allowing manufacturers to start integrating screens into cars was a mistake.
Knobs and dials are way easier to nevigate blind (whilst focusing on the road like we're meant to), and none of that stops you plugging in your own third party device for other features, or replacing the headboard yourself.
Giant tablets with complex menus are dangerous to drivers, and only serve to milk the consumer for things they already had access to in their car as standard not 10 years ago.
Yes. It needs heavy regulation, physical buttons is all the driver should have access to.
We also need to ban subscription services in vehicles.
Consumers cannot be trusted to spend responsibly and look out for their best interests.
The consumers did not allow anything. This is the crap they were eventually forced to buy due to lack of any other options. Electro-mechanical-chemical vehicle with a delco radio should be enough. We adopt new tech because it exists, not because we should.
The bigger and more intrusive screens have gotten, the more sales of new cars have flagged. People are sick of them, and lawmakers are starting to catch up on regulating physical controls back into vehicles.
The last time I bought a car one of my stipulations was a car no newer than 2016 because that was the last year that RAV4s had the small screens in the middle of the dashboard instead of mounted practically on the windshield, and the guy at the dealership that I talked to said that practically everybody who came in looking to buy a car had similar sentiments. People generally hate the big, intrusive screens, it's just that car makers aren't making any other options and then claim that that's what people want.
Money.
There I wrote the whole article in one word.
Because GM sucks.
People aren't asking for much. People just want their phone navigation and music controls displayed onto the infotainment. Won't consider any car that cannot afford me this tiny bit of convenience for the sake of nickel and diming me.
And if every car manufacturer starts forcing me to adopt their own stupid software I'll just buy a fucking phone holder.
And GM has shitty reliability anyways.
Its not just GM, but their are certainly a good example of Enshitification.
I'm perfectly happy with my 2012 car + magnetic phone holder
GM are saying that their customers want a more seamless integration. Shareholders are slavering at the idea of owners collared to their subscription system. Buyers need to stop buying cars with stupid subscriptions. My 2nd hand BMW has a heated steering wheel that requires an annual fee to use. Nope, heated gloves are the solution!
As a BMW tech, what car has a subscription for the heated wheel?
I heard of the heated seat subscription, just not the heated wheel option. We don’t have that in Canada.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62142208
I can't find a list of models, but they still use the same system for other subscriptions
2 series hybrid. UK variant
Ah, UK. Makes sense.
I won’t buy a car without CarPlay.
My current car has it and I love it. So I imagine Android users feel the same way.
If there is truly no option, then my phone is getting the window/airvent mount option.
I’ll never subscribe to their bs.
My car is from the 2010s.
I bought a GPS looking screen for $40 that has android auto and carplay. I already have Bluetooth added onto the radio for audio streaming.
Works perfectly for GPS off of my phone and as a media controller.
Only thing I'm missing is steering wheel controls.
I’m in a country where stuff in the car is not regulated as much as the US.
One of my ride share drivers had basically a 13” android tablet instead of the stock radio in the car 😂
It was all hooked up to the car to act as a legit part of the car.
Yeah this is the kind of shit I was looking forward to when I got into driving in the 2000s. But then car manufacturers started doing thier own non standard radios.
Then the car mod communities made kits to for a dual bay fit.
Then the corpos made radios required to service the car...
No regulations to protect the consumers let them do what they want.
The car part of the car should be completely independent of the entertainment part of the car. Fuckers.
The line can get blurry when you talk about EVs but protections should still be possible.
This is the way.
So, by utilizing built-in systems, the car manufacturers would indeed be able to collect more data about how you use the systems in place, while also possibly getting more money out of you through subscriptions.
2015 cars came with bluetooth support for hands free calling using your phone. This was great.
After that, it was replaced with carplay or android auto as the only means to get hands free calling. Stupid...stupid.
Plus, last 2 new cars i bought, i had to take the interior roof apart so i could access the built in cellular antennae wire and remove that spyware P.O.S. And by the way, car works fine without it.
Yeah, I finally got a car with Android Auto earlier this year and was excited to get it. I thought it would basically let me mirror my phone on the car touchscreen, but instead, it only uses specific apps for things. I hate it. I just use Bluetooth for phone or with Revanced for audio and I park my phone in the cupholder for nav. Works better.
I still use that Bluetooth everyday in my Mitsubishi Outlander I don't need more than this.. I also installed some magnet mount for the phone case.
The only problem is that since December 2024 android release on Pixels it stopped connecting "media audio" automatically due to some timing issue or something. So I have to manually toggle that button on my phone since that day.... (Google Pixel) And now Samsung seems to have the same issue since they started updating to newer android versions.
Google is not focusing on fixing this and just focusing on Android auto instead. But it only impacts some Japanese makes. I think some Mazda also have the issue.
I have a Samsung and I've had two of them this year actually three of them this year one fold three, one fold six, one s24 ultra and one pixel 9 and none of them have had this issue that you mentioned.
I don't have a mitsubishi, you didn't mention Mitsubishi in your comments. You mentioned some Japanese cars. I had a quest which I recently traded in and I still own a 2014 tacoma. Both of which are Japanese vehicles
On most cars, it's probably easier to unplug it on the head unit side. They're generally designed to be accessed for repair
I would be shocked if there wasn’t a single fuse just for that antenna.
I think it's common for the antennas to contain both GPS and LTE. I think the fuse would power the whole fin?
On the head unit side, they're generally separate cables
Toyota didn't have Android Auto for many years after 2015
2017 Toyota. Android auto was optional. We opted not to pay for it
Toyota also had Bluetooth before then as well in fact many cars had Bluetooth before then. I had two 2014 vehicles including one Tacoma which I still have that is Bluetooth but not Android auto. I will say having Android auto is nice but it is limited as well. My new 2024 RAV4 has Android auto wireless and it's fantastic.
We need a Linux OS and DE for cars
i use carch btw
KDE Plasma Car: can use Customize Panel to move around physical parts of the car (HELP the steering wheel is inside the engine somehow HOWDOIFIXTHIS)
Help I used grub to switch engines but forgot to switch fuel type now it only boots into emergency mode
My take on Android Auto (I'm sure everyone wants to hear)
pros:
- free to choose the maps app you want (OsmAnd, Organic Maps, Google Maps or anything)
- stream music for the app you want
- decent voice control for maps and spotify
- decent integration with some EV charging apps, you can find and initiate chargers from the dashboard
- you can write your own Android Auto apps
cons:
- Android Auto app is very invasive, polluting phone with stupid notifications
- the standard is shit. Android Auto doesn't work work with Android Go phones but it's not specified anywhere in the documentation, wireless Android Auto only works with latest android but it's also not specified anywhere
- it's controlled by Google and there are no alternative implementations
My solution so far is to use cheap, secondary phone for AA (which was hard to find because of the stupid limitations). If someone would create a open AA client not controlled by Google I would put it on my primary phone. AA should now work with Graphene OS so I may try to set it up in separate profile some day.
I used to champion AA because every car just had that shitty apple connection.
Now at least we have AA. But it took so long, that google went from a good company to just as evil as Apple, so we have two asshole giants to chose from.
We need a Linux open source alternative for phones... But I've been told it'll never happen because the hardware is locked down and too different to be able to run custom roms...
I don't know what the solution is
For usability the solution is using some custom ROM like Graphene OS or iode. They support AA now.
For privacy the solution is to use a very old car with no infotainment. Modern cars have telemetry and always on connectivity you can't control. Even Linux phones will not help with that. We would need open source cars which will never happen.
We would need open source cars which will never happen.
:'(
The real solution would be for the EU to mandate an standardized open source connection platform that all car companies are required to support.
I currently use android auto on my truck. I had to make a bunch settings modifications to make it semi-functional. It took me months to figure out how to get it to do what I wanted, when I wanted it
They've been trying that for a while. They do it by routing critical cat functions through the radio that don't need to go through there.
Daaaamn. The closest thing I could think of was my friend's 96 (98? Whenever the EK body started) Honda civic that had the factory alarm and remote locks in the radio. He ended up splicing some wires and shoving the factory radio into his glove box or something to get around it.
This. Of course, you could just mount a cheap tablet in front of the head unit and be done with it.
Or an aftermarket floor mat or air filter?
Most cars are basically bricks without the main unit, for example the air conditioning is set using proprietary commands on the can bus from the fancy touchscreen. Or setting all the options of the adas, sensors and so on
Every day I get more thankful for my hand-me-down car. It has no heated seats or anything fancy, but that also means no subscriptions, no wifi tracking/stalking, no digital touch screen over physical buttons, etc. All I've ever done is use a clip holder on my AC vent for my phone, so I'm used to it. It's given me time to see how others feel about Android Auto and features in newer cars, and I can make an informed decision whenever my baby decides to kick the bucket. Hopefully I can get something not too stalkerish nor with subscriptions.
I'm super pleased to have gotten a vehicle right in the breakpoint between dumb and dumber vehicles, 2018, center console without touchscreen, mouse/dpad instead, no connected services except offline gps with option to update maps via tethered network, no sos lojack. Got lane assist, adaptive spees etc but nothing actually 'smart'
Next year model got it all, touchscreens, lojack, annoying android..
I bought a cheap chinabox for android auto instead of upgrading software via dealer for higher price, and now I can connect whatever I want to the system below android, enter ui for dashcams, kill it entirely or just use the good ol radio.
Not looking forward to 'upgrading' in the future at all, I'd rather let this one turn to rolling rust.
People also seriously over estimate the effort required to install an android auto/car play stereo and backup camera. One adapter later and green wire connects to green, red to red, etc. most of the work goes to watching videos on how to do it to get a clearer picture. Not to mention that even for something on the fancier side you pay perhaps one car payment and you are done vs signing up for another 5 years of monthly misery.
The sonata before 2018 is great, but you need to play the engine lottery.
I'll just take a bluetooth battery powered speaker in my car if they keep locking it down
You also have a Bluetooth FM transmitter, so they phone audio becomes just another reason station. You can even get a Bluetooth remote control for common media functions to put on the dash.
You want the Rental+ package for an extra $39.99, which enables the car's built-in Garmin.
Way to make people hate your cars even more.
The big question is why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with. But the answer is still the same as ClydapusGotwald states...money. I'm starting to think the answer to most of the worlds woes is...money. Maybe money has been the problem all of this time. Fuck money. We can utilize our resources and feed and house everyone without that shit but then there wouldn't be any space billionaires and we need them to save us all. /s
The big question is why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with.
Originally, automakers tried to shoehorn proprietary subscription services into their vehicles for GPS and roadside assistance and satellite radio. But the opt-in for these services was scant, because they were obnoxious to set up and overpriced relative to - say - a TomTom or a cell phone's core features. And you could get after-market integration added to your vehicle through its entertainment system, so why bother with the clunky manufacturer options.
CarPlay and AndroidAuto were concessions that automakers began to adopt because they sold more vehicles that way. Reversing this out will likely have the same effect it did the first time - by driving people to foreign car companies like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Kia.
I already see Kia cars on the road fucking everywhere. And moves like this will only accelerate the trend, I'm sure.
why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with.
Because fuel injection operates better than even the most high tech carburetors across a wider range of environments. And if you have more sensors and active feedback you can better control everything from emissions to warm up time. Everything trickles down from racing / luxury vehicles. Once you have processors involved, might as well do fancy things with them inside the cabin too.
A lot of the dash / center console nonsense is consumer cost cutting, but frankly it should've been separate from the start. Any budget phone is a better GPS / media platform than a half-baked system by a vehicle manufacturer. At this point it should just be a USB-C or bluetooth connection so the device without the bargain basement processor can do the heavy lifting for a user interface.
At this point it should just be a USB-C or bluetooth connection so the device without the bargain basement processor can do the heavy lifting for a user interface.
But that's what car play and android auto are
Nope, it’s money. Only some of them care about power. They all care about money.
They don't care about money. Only poor people care about money. Once you get a certain level of wealth it snowballs forever (fiat currency).
If Ford cared about money or GM or whatever. They would make a decent car, and try to build their brand. Yet there hasn't been a single positive development in cars in at least 20 years. Maybe more airbags but only because it's legally required. Everything else has been pure degeneration. Even the slightly better fuel economy has come at the much greater cost of reliability as new vehicles will rarely even last half as long as older cars because of stuff like the start stop technology filling the oil with water and the terrible paper thin designs needed to meet fuel economy requirements.
The idea that you think these people care about money is laughable. Money can't even buy anything anymore. Not to mention that the gold standard was removed nearly a century ago. An average home is like 450k and the taxes on it are honestly worse. You will never own a single piece of property in the world. The rich have so much power that they can get 2% interest loans while you can only get maybe 5-6% if you are lucky. So you see even the money is set up for power. To make sure you and everyone else never has any or can ever own anything, but you must work daylight to dark to survive, while their accounts increase while they sleep, having never produced a single valuable thing in their life.
You are just applying your poor person mentality to a world where that doesn't exist. You want money because to you, money is a way to escape a life of servitude to corporations, but even that is an illusion.
Why do you think Elon musk spent billions to acquire Twitter? Why buy a company that has nothing of actual value outside of some IP and data, when the U.S economy has not grown in 50 years? Money? Fuck no. Power, influence, protecting his billionaire pedo friends from citizen justice. These sorts of things.
Money itself is about power. Every aspect of it from the ground up is designed to facilitate the mass stealing of value from the working class, and putting it into the hands of a small class of managers. Money is a treadmill to keep you desperate and silent. You think America has private healthcare because of money? Fuck no, it's because it's just another screw to turn to manipulate you. Another thing you will be without if you are out of work for a month or two from an injury. We have been in a post scarcity world for nearly 100 years. 90% of the people on the planet wouldn't have to work rn and we could have an even better standard of living, but that won't happen because they are afraid of what people will do when they aren't desperate, trying to make it from one week to the next as their wages drop year after year, and also because people in countries without women's autonomy and rights will have billions of little parasitic humans that they have no way to take care of. At this point humans are mostly becoming a liability. The more you have, the more they destroy the environment and compete for the same limited amount of resources allocated to the poor and working classes. Most jobs today simply exist so that they have leverage on you, nothing more. You know what leverage is about? Power! You guessed it.
Wake up sheep.
You sound like like you’re a desperate anime antagonist.
Some of them care about power, they all care about money. In this case it’s money.
How can there be power without wealth (money)? Power and wealth go hand in hand, but you try to separate them. Maybe that's why you seem so angry with the name calling and sheep categorizations, the dissonance. The misanthropy in you is strong. You are the change the world needs, not your words. Help someone in need and you'll find way more sunshine in your life.
the only integration i want between my phone and my car is a 3.5mm audio jack. i'm driving a 2016 right now and am dreading replacing it because i doubt i'll be able to find anything without this "infotainment" crap. i thought i had read that those were being phased out because consumers unilaterally hated them, so reading the opposite here is a huge bummer
Unironically, you’re missing out.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are both just ways to project the smartphone already in your pocket onto an additional screen (like plugging a second monitor to your laptop or PC).
Manufacturers like GM and Tesla hate it because it stops your data from being readily collected and stored with the purpose of building up a profile of ‘you’ that they can then sell to advertisers and insurance companies.
Now if only manufacturers had the good sense to keep things like climate control as physical switches - that’s my own personal bugbear. 🤬
I'm afraid the best I can give you is a proprietary, always online, underpowered, half-assed piece of spyware that will probably end up costing you a yearly subscription fee if you don't want advertisements and get a mandatory, irreversible AI integration over-the-air upgrade 1 month after you buy it.
There's plenty of older cars sitting in used lots. You can avoid newer cars if you buy one of those or simply keep up with the maintenance on your vehicle. Even if the engine dies, its replaceable.
Rust is repairable unless the frame's structural integrity has been compromised. That much rust is an oddity, even in the rust belt. Many owners undercoat their vehicles which significantly prolongs the life of the vehicle.
If you're really against purchasing a modern car, as I am, you still have plenty of options.
A new car is going to cost you thousands anyway. Why not just invest that money in a car you already like?
What you want is the upcoming Slate EV. It’s cheap, looks like an old Bronco, comes in 1 color, and there’s no factory infotainment system. There aren’t even any speakers, but the specifications are all open and it’s designed to easily allow you to install your own (or get a shop to do it).
Spread the word too! When it comes up.
I feel like a ton of people are in your situation but don’t know something like Slate exists.
Same with a lot of products TBH, especially software. Discoverability is really hard these days, with so much spam everywhere.
Knobs are better
I don't own a car but I rent them a lot. Part of my "go bag" includes blue tack. A semi sticky putty that doesn't leave a residue. I use this to stick my phone to the surface of whatever screen is in the car. This puts it right where I can see it and interact with it easily. Then I don't have to learn a new system in every different car I drive.
click saving initiative protocol: because it sucks, but also because it is hostilely proprietary so they cannot monetize on it.
I didn't know it was a thing until about two years ago, but my experience with it has made me want to take a tac-hammer to the center console in the vehicles its been integrated into. It hijacks my phone and crashes the apps that were already running but if you try to turn it off while keeping the phone connected it just keeps restarting.
I just want to listen to some tunes from my phone while using the maps/gps on my phone. no need to integrate beyond that.
Ever since the start of internet connected vehicles this has been on the table, before it wasn't really possible to manage subscriptions like this, now it is as easy as changing $SUBSCR_INF_ACP from a 0 to a 1 on your account to enable CarPlay, once you have paid.
Though, to be fair, I would like better integration with the onboard systems, something like Carplay lite.
It would basically present the content on the phone, music, podcasts, audiobooks, maps, etc. to the onboard infotainment system.
Apps with audio media would appear as audio sources, inside the audio sources, any menu would be presented in a standard UI.
Basically, the phone would simply send something like an XML file of how the menu should be displayed, and the infotainment has a rendering engine to render the UI in a style that is integrated with the car's UI.
That would solve one of the biggest issues with CarPlay/AA, the forced touchscreen.
In my 2021 Seat Leon FR PHEV hatchback, I have a fantastic steeringwheel, it has plenty of excellent controls, regarding media, I have a volume wheel by my left thumb, I can also press it to pause the media, on the right side of the steering wheel I have buttons for skip/previous.
If I could interact with the menus in CarPlay using the thumbwheel and a separate back button, that would be amazing.
The wheel clicks when moving it, so if you could simply have it move the selection on the menu with every click it would be brilliant.
Though I would need another thumbwheel to set the volume....
My point is that if deeper integration of phone media in the infotainment system could enable a UI less dependent on a a touchscreen, I would love to try it.
I don't drive. But if I did. And I bought a new car. The first fuckin thing I'm doing is shielding any wireless internal components or outright desoldering the SIM card from wherever the fuck they put it.
Nothing about what these companies are doing is okay.
Revenue and data.
They think they'll get more money, but they don't realize that people won't even consider their cars due to lack of integration. I recently bought a used car for my kid. One of the nicer ones I looked at didn't work with his phone, so we eliminated it from consideration.
I'll use a 3rd party auxiliary screen for Android Auto if this ends up proliferating to other brands as a grab for subscriptions.
What now, do they want more car-is-a-smartphone or more car-talks-to-your-smartphone instead? Article is confus.
I have equally bad experiences with both Android Auto and Apple Carplay. I don't really want either and am fine with what I've got (only 1/3 of the cars I own even has Carplay/Android Auto). I mostly dislike how it's been implemented with "safety controls" that require the phone to be plugged into the infotainment center in some cars and the requirement that I only connect it while at a stop with the car in park. If someone is driving with me and they want to change to their phone I have to pull over and that's stupid.
The infotainment centers themselves with their stupid touch screens and lack of buttons are where my real problems start, and the end with the tracking BS and telemetry data. You can keep the new cars. I don't want them.
That’s nothing to do with android auto/car play and entirely down to the manufacturer of your car being an asshat.
Is it a Mazda? Mazda is one of the worst about this. I think they’ve gotten better in their latest cars, but that doesn’t fix the existing ones.
It's a Honda. But that's exactly the point I'm trying to make here. With both car play and Android Auto I have issues but they're down to how the manufacturer chose to implement each. Car manufacturers deliberately hamstrung these features and still didn't get what they wanted.
Dacia's implementation isn't bad. The only safety limits in there are the ones imposed by Android Auto.
But I totally agree with you, when your car/android auto/phone combo acts dumb, finger pointing to who is at fault hardly matters, because it doesn't work and that's all that matters (except for knowing which manufacturer to avoid the next time).
You just need a wireless Android Auto dongle. I have an older Honda without wireless AA. I got an "AAWireless" adapter that physically plugs in, then I connect my phone via Bluetooth and WiFi while I wireless charge it. The cool part is that it also removes the safety stuff that prevents you from typing while car is in motion and taking "safety breaks" while scrolling on head unit. I highly discourage distracted driving (just don't be an idiot).
We have a wireless Android Auto dongle. And it takes an age to auto connect. Not to mention the problems with it still wanting us to pull over and put the car in park to switch, something I thought would be circumvented when I bought it but somehow is not. Usually it's the person in the passenger seat trying to change something and not being able to. I'm not advocating for distracted driving. I'm pointing out that someone else in the vehicle who's not driving can't interact to change certain things even though it's perfectly safe for them to do so.
If your dongle has a configuration app, I'd look in there for options to sidestep the safety pause bullshit. I couldn't agree with you more! The head unit can't tell if its the driver or passenger tapping it, so why on Earth would it force the vehicle to be stopped or in PARK?!? Idiotic babysitting for no reason isn't safer.
I was worried enough about buying a used car in five years, thanks. Nov I have to worry about having the shit infotainment systems that were disappearing on top of having to pay a subscription to release my parking breaks??
I tried Android Auto back when it was first coming out and it was such a slow buggy piece of shit that I have always just looked at my phone for directions instead of connect to Android Auto even when the car supports it.
You should try it again. It's exponentially better than it was when it first launched almost 11 years ago.
Why buy a new car? It would be cheaper to build your own car at this point. You can also spend money on reliability and strength, instead of surveillance. There is absolutely no way in hell I'd ever buy a new car. The culture has deteriorated too much and the people making cars don't give a shit if the American economy implodes because no one has a car. America is about to become Cuba.
Why buy a new car? It would be cheaper to build your own car at this point.
Edison Motors (in British Columbia, Canada) can do a full EV conversion on any pre-1995 vehicle (few complex electronics that require futzing with) for $15k-$50k CAD depending on the type of vehicle and its power requirements.
Pick up a late-80s Type II VW Jetta and it’s likely to be at that lower end.
Pick up a late-70s dent side Ford F-350 dually, and it’s likely to be closer to that upper end.
Still, you’re looking at half to a quarter of what a new vehicle costs.
Not OP. But I'll give my feedback on why I stopped using android auto.
Let me preface this with most everything in the app is fine. Navigating around the interface is maybe a bit janky but not something that I couldn't get used to.
The main thing that pushed me away from it is the constant crashing (crash every 1-3 minutes). I understand it to be a somewhat rare issue. But through my research I have not found any way to consistently solve the issue despite finding threads that were posted years ago.
The closest I had come to a solution was to clear some app caches (like Google maps) and that would fix it for the next day or two. But it would always eventually go back to constant crashing. It just became too frustrating to deal with.
Yeah, I've never had it crash. Sorry your setup is broken somewhere.
It's so painful, because it could really be good. But they went out of their way to make it suck...
A big one for me is choice of apps. Only apps made for Android Auto are available, and that's not a lot. Especially pretty much nothing from F-Droid. Open source apps for Android Auto are very limited.
Sideloading is not a thing for Android Auto either. So I can't even choose to work around the limitations as I can on the phone itself.
The ancient Android Assistant sucks. It constantly doesn't understand what I ask it and so far I haven't figured out when exactly it can do a google search for me and when not. Especially considering how far LLMs have come in terms of answering simple questions (e.g. if a name comes up in a podcast and I want to know a little bit of background information to that person). And when they finally add LLM support it will be Gemini only with no choice past that.
Then there's stupid design decisions in apps, e.g. that Google Maps doesn't show GPS speed when in Android Auto mode. I also hate that Google Maps decided in an update a year or so ago that speed camera warnings (which are illegal in some of the countries I frequently drive in) can not only not be disabled but are so important that they need to take up half the screen and hide the navigation directions while they are up. This is especially crappy when I come up to a busy highway intersection where I have to get off and suddenly there's no navigation on my screen but a stupid warning I don't care about because I obey speedlimits anyway.
And lastly (that's likely down to the implementation in my car or my phone), there's constant connection issues.
Uh, why would I text inside of Android Auto? I'd just pick up my phone and copy/paste the address into Google Maps on the phone while it's plugged in, like I did last month, and then Google Maps would display it on Android Auto.
Also, please don't text and drive. Pull over to text.
That's good, now I can remain being happy with something I'm happy with. You're the best!
I really really dislike the UX. Sorry, but I just want my phone to Bluetooth for sound/calls and bonus if I can get a charge via wireless charging.
Android converting my elegant display into something that looks like it was built on Window 95? Nah, keep it.
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Rent seeking behavior. They want subscription revenue instead of wanting to deliver what consumers want.
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