Now that we have gotten a good look at the final release of Apple’s CarPlay, discussion on automotive customer-facing computer systems has become a little more serious than it was previously. Sure, Google announced a consortium of sorts with companies for Android in the car in January, and Microsoft has had Microsoft Auto going for a number of years. Whether you love or hate Apple, they do have a tendency to attract attention to industries they enter, or are just rumoured to be entering — a look at the interest from Samsung and its brethren in smart watches is just one example.
CarPlay is kind of interesting but not all that different from iOS 7 to be honest; it has the same icons in little organized rows and the apps have a dark-coloured take on the current iOS 7 app interface that one would assume is designed to fit the aesthetics of most car dashboards. At first, it appeared that not much thought was put into keeping eyes on the road, but further investigation shows that there has been some discussion at Apple on how to avoid having people playing with their dashboards when they should be driving. Messages in particular are only read back through Siri, so people do not spend time reading them when they should not be, but the driver has the ability to skim the list for the right message. Music, Maps, Phone, and radio applications obviously display their contents, as there is not too much reading to be done.
With companies releasing their own implementations of mobile-vehicle interactions, interoperability is a growing concern as each comes with their own ecosystem. How the companies choose to approach integrating their systems appears to differ. Google’s approach appears to be getting automotive companies to implement Android in their vehicles, similar to how Microsoft has done this—particularly with Ford. BlackBerry has a very large stake in this approach to developing in-car entertainment systems through QNX, which runs the backbone of many systems in cars already. Apple’s approach originally appeared to be similar, but has turned out to be implemented through an optionally activated overlay of sorts. CarPlay only appears if a driver plugs in their iPhone, and at other times appears to use QNX as a default when no phone is inserted, displaying the typical in-car entertainment display many people have grown accustomed to.
A solution more like Apple’s, where the phone loads up its interface when appropriate, would likely be best for future compatibility and for keeping cars out of the ever-growing ecosystem people find themselves entering as new connected devices come out. Details on every exact part of the implementations are still unclear as CarPlay and Android in-car have yet to be rolled out. Regardless of how they truly work, it would be ideal for a consumer to be able to load up the system by activating it with a phone, instead of having it require that phone run the application. As an example, if a system normally plays QNX, and an iPhone can be plugged in to use CarPlay, it would be neat if a Nexus could be plugged in to use an Android-specific overlay. Cars are not cheap to “upgrade,” and having the alternative where an Android entertainment system requires an Android phone to truly use — or any combination for that matter — would lock customers into the aforementioned ecosystems that already include laptops, tablets, phones, and services.
CarPlay and the various mobile-vehicle interfaces that have preceded it have also prompted some discussion on how much is appropriate to display on a console to balance productivity, entertainment, and minimal distractions. Before entertainment systems, the most one would usually see is the radio station or the tape or CD track, and everything else was gauged with knobs and buttons. If something else was momentarily displayed like volume, it was usually one or two lines of text at a time and replaced whatever else was on the screen. In-car entertainment systems already have a fair level of information on them through their screens, which can be legitimately useful. A GPS or system that can show a map is indispensable for many drivers who need to check where they are going again, and is certainly better than looking down at a phone for a second to figure out where to go. CarPlay’s integration of Siri for most of the commands is better as it keeps eyes on the road, but it could be argued that the driver is still being distracted by having to think about what to say to Siri to get the car to call someone or read a text.
Some interfaces conceived online suggest a blank or sparse touchscreen with minimal controls, but the ones I have seen thus far appear to be pretty confusing to use in any case. One example by Matthaeus Krenn, titled A New Car UI: How touch screen controls in cars should work suggests that a user would use various finger combinations on the dashboard to control various settings, and at first glance appears quite simple. Move one finger up and down for this, two fingers for that, and so on. The idea is being shared around the Internet as a great UX (user experience) solution, but as with many “great UX solutions,” there is a severe lack of foresight or realization in how complicated the system actually becomes in the attempt to be so simple. Krenn begins suggesting two fingers together rotating for one thing, and far apart for another, and three fingers really far apart, and so on, until it becomes an exercise just to memorize all these combinations to operate something as simple as your volume control. Something touch screens have yet been able to resolve is eyes-free control, where you can just know how to change the volume without having to look. Kreen’s idea is on the right path, as when you learn all the combinations it would become easier to do, but unfortunately the learning curve would be quite steep.
It will be very interesting to see how these in-car systems work out, and see if they gain significant traction in the market. If people keep their cars for a while, one would imagine that there would be incentive to keep the same phone for a longer period of time, or upgrade to a model still compatible with the system in the car. The true point where this system will be tested will not be upon release, but three years later when people upgrade their phones.
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