Ford CEO Jim Farley said on a podcast that Ford is not convinced of CarPlay Ultra and is waiting for the next generation of the tech before it considers adopting it.
While talking to Joanna Stern from the Wall Street Journal on The Verge‘s Decoder Podcast, Farley mentioned a lot of various excuses as to why Ford hasn’t made any moves on CarPlay Ultra, but ultimately, Stern seems to hit the nail on the head, suggesting that when companies choose CarPlay Ultra right now, it limits them from also offering Google’s Android Auto phone projections system. Since Ford works at such a large scale, it can’t alienate Android users from its cars.
Farley also discusses the need for control over the car for its fleet management software and other car-related software. For instance, he mentions things like Apple controlling the car’s speed, which seems unlikely to me. He also seems to be missing the point that CarPlay Ultra is still a phone projection, so there will need to be some kind of Ford OS beneath it.
That said, it does seem like there needs to be more collaboration and data sharing between an automaker like Ford and Apple if they want to use CarPlay Ultra. That seems like the bigger hold up to me, if I had to guess.
On the BMW side of things, the company’s SVP of UI/UX Development, Stephan Durach, has said that most BMW drivers use the in-car navigation systems instead of CarPlay. That said, the average age of someone who buys a new BMW is 56, so I think that should let you know that it’s not exactly tech enthusiasts who are buying these expensive cars. I’ll also note that in my time with a BMW, it was frustrating to use CarPlay or Android Auto for navigation because the BMW navigation system would still pop up alerts, making it pretty easy to accidentally open BMW’s nav.
All in all, it seems like automakers are still not sold on in-car phone projection tech. Anyone waiting to see which cars get CarPlay Ultra next should probably stop looking at Ford or BMW. Apple’s press release from earlier this year claims that Kia and Hyundai are working to integrate the software into their tech stacks, so it seems likely that one of those will be the first non-luxury car to offer it.
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