Something that most commenters are missing is that TomTom's most revenue comes from B2B deals, which are mostly deals with automotive companies for car screens experience and also providing maps data for products like Bing Maps.
This week I've been trying Android Auto out in a rental car. I'm not impressed so far. Google Maps has worked okay, but Spotify has not. I don't know where the line is between Android Auto and the Jeep Cherokee interface, but the turn by turn directions are super quiet compared to the music with seemingly no way to adjust. Squarely on the Jeep UI side, I've been using the car for 4 days and still haven't figured out how to turn the radio off but keep the screen and turn by turn directions running.
While I haven't tried it, Osmand recently added support for Open Street Maps on Android Auto. I'm hopeful the experience is decent, but not willing to pay for it at the moment.
Is that true? Not saying you are wrong but is it just an anecdote? I anecdotally know lots of people that just use their car GPS and don’t bother with CarPlay/AA
As far as I know, most cars that support CarPlay also support Android auto. I can’t imagine car manufacturers wanting to pay licensing fees to TomTom unnecessarily.
False. People greatly prefer CarPlay if they are iPhone users, and already people are refusing to buy any car that doesn't support it.
Phone holders are over.
Even as early as 2017, the majority of car buyers already wanted CarPlay in a new vehicle and one-quarter of buyers said it was a "must have". That was five years ago. I'm sure the numbers are much higher now.
As a data point: I'm european and my next car will have Carplay, no doubt.
On the other hand I currently use a phone holder because my car doesn't support Carplay and nobody in their right mind would get a new car just because of this missing feature. That's why the phone holder is such a popular solution. It's a slow process, but I have no doubt that most people will insist on Carplay / Android Auto whenever it's time to get a new car.
Could be more of a US thing, sure. I don't have data at hand right now about CarPlay adoption in Europe. From this list, though, it certainly looks like European carmakers have very robust CarPlay support:
I like BMW’s nav idrive better than the CarPlay integration and use it instead of google/apple/wake.
First because it uses the whole screen and heads up display and CarPlay doesn’t. But this is probably something that could be done with better integration.
Second because CarPlay takes over the phone and I want nav to keep running while I use the phone for other things. I know that I shouldn’t, but at stop lights I’ll read texts, HN, etc. with an active nav, I have to switch away from it while I use the phone. With the car running the nav, I can use my phone for whatever I like.
All I use Apple Maps for is to send directions to my car.
It’s kind of nice to just have a dedicated nav in my car.
