Unauthoritative Pronouncements

General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson were on The Verge’s Decoder podcast with Nilay Patel. Nilay has talked to every automotive CEO that’s been on Decoder about CarPlay, and it’s no surprise he discussed it with Mary and Sterling.

If you want to skip to the start of the transcript that’s about CarPlay it begins with a kind of rambling question about Google Assistant here.

The big decision there, and I know you know this question is coming, is that you bet against putting smartphone projection in your EVs: there’s no Apple CarPlay or Android Autos in the EVs, but the gas cars still have it. How did you make that decision?

MB: It’s really a question of timing as we look at that, because — and I want to make sure that we get Sterling’s input on this as well — as we looked at it and as we made that decision, we were getting a lot of feedback from customers that it was very clunky moving back. It wasn’t seamless, and frankly, in some cases, it could be distracting to move back and forth if you were doing something that you could do on a phone projection type of system versus if you needed to do something in the vehicle.

We also know that’s only going to increase when you look at some of the things we’re going to talk about that can make your life better and assist you as we move forward. We’re at the very, very early stages of services we can have on a vehicle to improve the overall customer experience and make the journey smoother.

We looked at that and we decided that we needed to have a great system in the vehicle that allowed people to have one system, and we’re going to continue to make that better and add new features.

Allow me to summarize this: Mary really wants to sell services, or have recurring revenue from partnerships and deals with companies in services to earn money over the lifespan of the vehicle. She cites how disorienting it is to jump in and out of CarPlay, but that’s hardly a hurdle that justifies the development work they’re putting into not supporting CarPlay and Android Auto projection systems.

SA: What we’re talking about is the inevitable performance degradation when jumping between S-curves. The first of those S-curves was, for some time, that you and others got attached to phone projection applications largely because the in-vehicle HMI was pretty bad. Your opportunity for doing some of the things was better when you were using that. You’re driving a Vistiq, I understand; you’ve got Dolby surround audio, you’ve got giant screens, you’ve got giant displays. The analog I would use here is we’re on this new S-curve, where there is inevitably a jump that has to happen for you to get over to it. That’s uncomfortable for many.

But frankly, it’s a very Jobsian approach to things. The removal of the disk drive, nobody liked that, everybody on the forums and Facebook was complaining about it, but to that he said, “Look, guys, flash storage really is the future. Get on board, you’ll see that.” That’s kind of what we’re saying here, in fact that’s exactly what we’re saying.

Unbelievable. Sterling continues but I want to stop here for a moment and point out that it is probably one of the worst comparisons anyone’s ever made to something Steve Jobs has done to justify some silly thing that they are currently doing. Also the analogy of the disk drives doesn’t work, because that was the iMac, which did not move to flash storage, it moved to USB where people who needed drives bought them, and eventually included disc burners.

This isn’t about time marching on and replacing projection systems with a superior alternative, but I’ll continue that point in a bit. Let’s go back to Sterling:

Say you’re talking to me about CarPlay. You’ve certainly got an iPhone, you’ve probably got a MacBook, and you have the opportunity to use phone projection on your MacBook, a phone mirroring application. How many of you are accessing online services like email, social media, and otherwise through the phone projection app in your laptop? Almost none of them do. Why? Because you’ve got a much larger screen on your laptop, you’ve got a much more convenient HMI via the keyboard, you’ve got better speakers.

Now, take that same analog to the car and ask the same question. Is it in a car that has not only just laptop speakers, not only a laptop screen, but something better that can move you, and that can integrate with charging infrastructure, with Super Cruise availability on your maps, all of these other things? You are in a much more immersive environment that can do so many more things; why would you use the equivalent of a phone mirroring application on a laptop in your car? So we said, “We’re taking out the disk drive, guys; get on board with flash storage, that’s where the future is.”

Again, it wasn’t flash storage, but that’s not important. The only salient point he raises is that there are features of the car that do not currently integrate with CarPlay, or CarPlay Ultra. It can’t do anything with Super Cruise. Apple, as far as I know, has no real plans for integrating Maps on a phone with any kind of assisted driving, or autonomous technology. I hope that they are working on something for that.

I’m unconvinced that assisted driving and autonomous driving are used more often then the other features of a navigation stack. Like having a device that has your calendar appointment locations, your contacts’ addresses, your recent location searches, etc. Something that is secure on your person and portable with you.

Nilay does push back on this projection analogy and points out that people can switch between computer and phone easily, but they can’t do that while they are driving.

He also mentions that a concern his readers have is being able to use their collection of very niche media apps while they are driving, apps that might not ever be supported by GM’s system. Then he mentions his own, not-so-niche app, Apple Music.

For example, yes, my car has Dolby Atmos in it, the number one provider of Atmos tracks in this industry is Apple Music, and Apple Music will not have an app on your phone, because I’m confident that Apple wants you to have CarPlay, and that is a business dealing that the consumer demand cannot affect. That’s kind of the shape of the puzzle, right?

MB: I would say we have a good relationship with Apple. I mean at the most senior level with Apple, with Google, with all of the tech companies. We’re bringing Apple Wallet. We’ll be announcing that shortly, that we’ll have that and have the ability to do some of the vehicle functions through that. So we’re having continual conversations with Apple, and I would say we’re talking about the opportunity and looking for win-wins. We also have a very good relationship with Google and we don’t enable Android Auto either. So I would say you’re talking about a moment in time versus where the industry is heading from Dolby Atmos and the relationship that we have with Apple. I wouldn’t make some of the broad-based assumptions you’re making.

What iPhone owners loves their iPhone so much they’ll use it to unlock their car but hates to use their iPhone for navigation and audio?

I do think Mary Barra would love to cut a deal with Apple to have Apple Music as an app on their own platform. Apple currently offers Apple Music apps for Tesla and Rivian and neither has ever supported CarPlay, because it is far more important to Apple to get the recurring services revenue than it is for them to use Apple Music as some kind of wedge issue for car shoppers.

Do you think I’m going to get the Apple Music app in my Cadillac?

SA: We don’t have anything to share on that right now, but your first comment really struck at the HMI, the ease of use, and [whether] you have to log into each of these different services and applications in your car. Because if you do, you get some breakage. Some people just will never do that, it’s a pain. We’re looking at that as well. What can we do about federated IDs? What can we do to eliminate that friction of you engaging with your car? I’m not sure I quite follow the whole “it’s illegal to use your phone when you’re driving and not when you’re on your laptop.” I think that cuts against your argument a little bit because–

Emphasis mine. What can we do about federated IDs, Sterling? If the problem is friction then the solution is allowing people to connect to the device that has all of their platform credentials securely and portably saved, which is their phone.

Let me return to the point I was making earlier and that the most secure and portable form of your credentials, media, and information is the device that has all of those things. Building a separate login infrastructure that goes through GM isn’t a simple on-device proposition of just connecting your phone.

I wish Nilay had mentioned this, but I understand that in the moment it can be hard, and it’s probably something he wished he pushed back on after the call rather than having to dwell on projection app experience analogies with Sterling.

After that exchange, Nilay asks Mary again about combustion vehicles being immune to all these shenanigans and she, unfortunately, says that we should all expect major model refreshes for internal combustion vehicles to also ditch CarPlay going forward.

Obviously, I disagree with Mary and Sterling. I don’t think that this improves their products. Much of the interview is spent on rising costs, tariffs, subsidies, consumer demand for inexpensive vehicles, etc. Their solution of owning the platform for services more closely aligns with the direction that TV manufacturers have gone in to try and make money off of buyers after the hardware is sold, rather than just from the sale of the hardware itself. Look no further than their partner, Google, their partner for Android Automotive and for their voice assistant and AI efforts with Gemini.

Naturally, while I wish CarPlay was better, and I am pretty sure CarPlay Ultra has been a colossal waste of everyone’s time and effort, I would want any car I purchase or rent to have CarPlay support.

I have no plan to purchase a GM vehicle, but I do rent cars. GM makes up a sizable portion of rental car fleets. At some point in the future those cars will no longer support CarPlay. I’m not going to sign up for a GM federated ID that stores my login credentials in their cloud. I’m not going to individually sign into apps in the car like Google Maps with my Google ID that I use for way more than just navigation. There’s no chain of trust with me and this random car from GM. No convenience that is achieved in exchange for increased exposure risk for storing my sensitive data in a car I don’t own.

Do enough consumers care that this alters individual sales or rental car fleet composition? I’d say probably not, because the TV market is an excellent example of consumer behavior gravitating towards what’s inexpensive at the expense of personal privacy.