It seems bizarre that I can't choose to use the CarPlay user experience on my phone while I'm driving in my DumbCar. This seems like such obvious, low-hanging fruit.
It's still illegal to use your phone while driving in most countries. So by allowing you to use CarPlay on your phone while not connected to a car's media system, that could be interpreted as enticing phone usage while driving and thus open them up to potential lawsuits. The irony is that so many people disregard the law anyways that it would actually end up making roads safer. But Apple wont risk offending lawmakers for that.
> that could be interpreted as enticing phone usage while driving
This can't be true. Zooming the screen from the accessibility settings probably gets you half way there already. Every navigation app is enticing you to use it while driving. Touchscreens are enticing/forcing users to take the eyes off the road. The mere existence of the phone is enticing a driver to use it.
CarPlay "mode" would just be a slightly different GUI for what you can already do with the phone whether legally (by the passenger, or while stationary) or illegally (while driving). Every app in the phone is also accessible from the home screen.
At most Apple would have to issue a warning every time to use it correctly, like many cars already do.
>Zooming the screen from the accessibility settings probably gets you half way there already
It gets you there all the way. If some cop wants to screw you over, that's more than he needs. Taking your eyes of the road to look at some small smartphone is not just illegal, it's dangerous. People die because of it every day. Most cops just don't give a fuck because almost everyone does it. Doesn't make it legal though. That's also why all navigation apps tell you not to use them while driving. But while these apps have other legit uses, CarPlay literally only exists to be used while driving. So it makes no sense to offer it without integration into a car's systems that allow you (in theory) to use it without looking down. If someone screws this up it's the car maker's fault.
> If some cop wants to screw you over, that's more than he needs.
You are not making more sense than the first time and I already mentioned some reasons why.
"Phone icons too big" is not a thing a cop can "screw you over". Google had this feature for years. Whether this is "enticing" users to operate the phone while driving has to be legislated or judged before it can be policed. And Apple can get around it the same way everyone else: with a legal disclaimer.
In general it's absolutely legal to have a phone operating in the car as long as the driver isn't actively interacting with it while driving, and it isn't displaying videos to the driver. The size or shape of the icons is irrelevant. Anything that can be legally displayed on a car's display is also legal on a phone screen. Tl;dr: don't play with either or watch videos while driving.
It doesn't take much thought to realize that if cars come plastered with giant screens and apps like Netflix, then a 5" screen with slightly larger icons is a non-issue.
You are intentionally missing the point, despite all the obvious evidence against your argument. You can deny or rationalise it like most people do, but using mobile phones while driving is bad and the lawmakers have every right to male it illegal. Companies like apple are not getting dragged into that. Neither is google btw if you look at their version.
Most places that have distracted driving laws ban use of hand-held devices. Some places bam all use based on age. I am not familiar with many places that ban all use for everyone.
Given that other large companies offer equivalent functionality, I really doubt that fear of lawsuits has determined when CarPlay is available.
I tried one (maybe a terrible one? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09TP8RZRT/), but the connectivity was flaky and I couldn't find a good place to mount it in my Odyssey. (Ideas and product suggestions welcome! It's not bugging me enough to replace the head unit.)
Labor and parts for installation could easily bring the total cost of adding a CarPlay/Android Auto compatible head unit to $1,000. At least it did for me, and that was 3 years ago.
I bought one which cost under 200, ran full Android (a slightly older one, to be fair), and I was able to self-install with no real issues. Just unplug old stereo, and plug in all the same things into the new one. I have a 2013 Golf.
Mind you - it's a little janky after 5 years, but an awesome value for what it cost. I know what you're thinking: Yes it has Netflix and Retroarch. No, I don't ever use those.
Totally different. Android Auto is a passthru. Sort of like a docking station. Not having a separate OS/set of apps/data is the point. It's your device, not the horrible old thing in the car you grudgingly live with.
If you read that article, or even the subtitle, you’ll see that it’s talking about Android Auto, which is importantly different from the Google Assistant Driving Mode I mentioned.
Amusingly apropos the main complaint that people seem to have with Driving Mode is that it isn’t designed to be screen-based, which would be quite dangerous, but rather voice-based which is comparatively safer.
Thank you, I didn't know they were different. Further Googling shows Google killed Google Assistant Driving Mode Dashboard on November 21, 2022, and is also killing Google Maps' Driving Mode in February. https://9to5google.com/2023/12/27/google-maps-driving-mode-g...
That’s correct, now that the full Driving Mode is ready and being rolled out they’re killing all the dangerous stopgap measures they previously created.
Edit: I think their strategy here confused people because most people seem to think that the goal is a zoomed touchscreen, whereas the actual goal was voice only with a nav screen if you’re navigating.
Apologies for yet another follow-up, but I'm trying to understand: If Google Maps' Driving Mode goes away in February as the article above suggests, and Driving Mode Dashboard went away in November, what's left?
Google Assistant Driving Mode will be left. Driving Mode Dashboard was a terribly named stopgap with large buttons. It’s almost entirely unrelated to Driving Mode.
Totally agree with the point that, as usual, the branding is awful. They need to have these names reviewed by people who don’t live and breathe the product, the small nuances here are lost on GenPop.
That’s working correctly. Stop looking at your phone while driving.
Buttons on a screen are a bad idea and should be highly discouraged for drivers. Big buttons almost make that worse because of licensing, i.e. people see a thing labeled car mode and assume that means it’s safe to use in a car.
Voice interfaces are generally safer, partly because of eye line but also because they significantly constrain the space of things your phone can do and thus use less attention.
My phone is in a mount in my field of view - it requires less looking away than the built in touch screens new cars have in the center console. Car mode is safer:
* It reads out texts to me, and asks me if I want to reply by voice.
* car mode UIs means it takes less attention to skip songs or whatever.
* It turns off some distracting notifications etc.
They let you have these features when navigating, why not when you don't need navigation?
That’s simply not the case. Read some studies, all of your assumptions here are incorrect.
Eyeline is slightly correlated with safety when compared with a device you need to locate, however with a constant position device the effect disappears. The actual problem is cognitive load.
Having your phone visible increases cognitive load even if you don’t use it. Composing text message by voice is equivalently distracting to typing one. Yes really, this has been rigorously studied. Texting by voice is only better than holding a phone and talking on it if you’re careful about using it in safer situations. And even then, the gains are pretty small.
Using a touchscreen with large buttons has higher cognitive load than an equivalent voice interface, even accounting for misunderstandings. The key intuition here is that you have to decrease amount you think about or interact with your device. Stop looking at your phone, it’ll be there when you get there.
I'm sure you're right that using a phone (in any way) is more dangerous than not using it at all. If I am optimizing 100% for safety I should turn it off, sure. But some messages are important. I don't want to complete a hour long drive, just to find out that the message I ignored means I needed to return to my start point. Pulling off the highway every buzz isn't a solution either.
Reducing cognitive load is why I want car mode to activate!
