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GM Says It's Ditching Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for Your Safety
(www.motortrend.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
GM says Apple and Android have access to a ton of data on consumer habits in their vehicles that those systems don't share with the auto manufacturer, so they're ditching those systems in favour of their own that gives them direct access to all that user data under the guise of a safety change.
And don't forget that GM is now in full control of which features become available in different models of car. No more pesky Apple or Google giving users new features for free; GM gets to plan the obsolescence now, and charge subscription fees for features and updates.
And they get to rake it in on both ends, charging their "partners" for access to the app ecosystem and prominent UI placement, the same way TV makers do (I have a dedicated IHeartRadio button on my TV remote, and I guarantee you it's not because any TV users ever asked for that). They might not be doing it yet, but it is the natural direction.
Of course they will still face competition from dashboard phone mounts, which I suspect a lot of users will prefer in the end.
Yup. Back to charging users for the "nav package" and subscriptions for updates. No more pesky Google Maps with their constant-updated content