CarPlay Is All That's Left of the Apple Car

pcmag.com:

The idea of an Apple car has been around as long as that of an Apple TV, and it looks doomed to the same fate. Much as the Apple television became a little set-top box of software that attaches to a commercial TV, Apple's car dreams look like they're shrinking to the latest version of CarPlay, a replacement for existing cars' dull and disconnected instrument panels.

There's a long Wikipedia article(Opens in a new window) about the now eight-year history of the Apple car, capping with leading analyst Ming-Chi Kuo saying that if a vehicle exists, it might not be launched until "2028 or later." MacRumors agrees(Opens in a new window) in an in-depth rundown. Apple's problem with building a physical car is that it only appears to want a build a truly, fully autonomous vehicle, and that's turned out to be far harder than either Apple or Tesla thought it would be in 2015. The car division keeps losing executives, most recently just a few weeks ago(Opens in a new window).

So what's left? Although Apple isn't using the word, call it not CarPlay but "CarOS"—a fully Apple-fied navigation, instrumentation, and entertainment software experience that gets laid over other manufacturers' cars (none of which drive themselves). Coming from Audi, Acura, Honda, and others starting in late 2023, the new CarPlay requires deep integration with a vehicle, as it takes over your instrument panel, climate control, and other features.

The new system can put navigation right into the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel and control your smart home from a distance, according to Apple's brief demo at WWDC.

In that way, Apple helps existing carmakers catch up with Tesla and its curiously iPad-like interface. Some drivers love that and many hate