Meet the man behind CarPlay and Android Auto at GM

[Poke]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/31/9647204/gm-phil-abram-infotainment-carplay-android-auto-interview


If you've bought a car in the last decade, you probably think of "infotainment" as a four-letter word.

The touchscreens in the centers of our dashboards have been, to put it bluntly, bad. In some ways, they're finally starting to catching up: the user interfaces are crawling, slowly, out of the stone age. They're getting bigger, which makes them easier to see and to use. Touch response times are getting better. And with the advent of CarPlay and Android Auto, there's a decent way to use our smartphones on the road without endangering the lives of everyone around us. Still, there's a lot of work to do.

 

[Ronnie-]

I much prefer the 2016 version of mylink to the apple carplay option that's built in. I haven't updated to the android version yet, but will be able to do by years end.

 

[Drucifer]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/31/9647204/gm-phil-abram-infotainment-carplay-android-auto-interview


If you've bought a car in the last decade, you probably think of "infotainment" as a four-letter word.

The touchscreens in the centers of our dashboards have been, to put it bluntly, bad. In some ways, they're finally starting to catching up: the user interfaces are crawling, slowly, out of the stone age. They're getting bigger, which makes them easier to see and to use. Touch response times are getting better. And with the advent of CarPlay and Android Auto, there's a decent way to use our smartphones on the road without endangering the lives of everyone around us. Still, there's a lot of work to do.

I would like the 1930ish vehicle visor totally gone and replace with a smart windshield.

As I hate taking my eyes off the road to look at screen in the middle of the dashboard. I rather have that data either low or high on the windshield in front of the driver with a HD screen in the dashboard in front of the driver screen for data that more useful on HD screen.

 

[EarDemon]

I have exactly one complaint with Microsoft/Ford Sync. Entering a specific address whether by manual entry or by voice, but more so manually entry can be a huge PITA. It's the same style of entry as on a traditional TomTom/Garmin standalone GPS. Choose the state, start typing the towns name until it starts to populate, do the same with the street, and the house number. Because of certain formatting differences it can take forever to find certain roads. There are a handful of streets in my general area called Green Meadow and Greenmeadow. There's a more major road called South Park Ave in the city. Most GPS' think that it's the South end of Park Ave and it's entered in as S. Park Ave. I'm so used to Google Nav on my phone where I just have to type in or say a house number and street name followed maybe by a zip code, and it doesn't even have to be 100% correct or just say a business name and it guides me to my destination, or worst case scenario makes me chose from multiple destinations.

I love the voice guided navigation, I love that I can set it to avoid certain streets or even entire neighborhoods and towns, I love the layout of the display, I love the audio controls I love being able to dictate everything, I just don't like the GPS destination entry.