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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
Yes of course GM only has its customers' data's best interests at heart i'm sure...
"Consumer habits." What does that even mean in the context of a car? If we are talking about CarPlay/AA and not a replacement of the underlying automotive OS, it's literally just a phone. Apple and Google can track what their users do with their phones. They can't see how a user interacts with the car, beyond maybe inferring driving habits from speed and location?
GM is full of shit, there's no need for them to be privy to how I use my phone, I already get enough of that shit from Apple.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
Mozilla investigated the type of stuff car manufacturers collect, including things like "genetic information" and "sexual activity." GM just wants greater access to these types of things. Since they can't seem to build cars that people want, they have to resort to dystopia means such as this in order to raise revenue.