Comment by semiquaver
19 hours ago
Apple considers siri essential for CarPlay and I don’t really disagree. Don’t forget that a big part of the design of CarPlay tries to explicitly discourage tactile use while driving, with siri as the alternative input/output method.
I start my music and navigation route before leaving my garage, and any other interactions (volume up/down, skip song) are buttons on my steering wheel. What do I need voice input for?
(I use Android Auto, but it's basically the same thing for these purposes)
Do people really use navigation apps often enough for this to be an issue?
Yes, it's one of the most common usages of a phone in the car. And most people I know have exactly that workflow: find and set a navigation destination while parked, then drive there without interacting with the phone.
Are you asking if people use apps to get directions? I don’t have data to back this up, but I’d guess that nav integration is one of the most popular features of CarPlay and Android Auto.
I depend on it for road trips, navigating to unfamiliar destinations, or even just sharing ETAs with people
I'm not sure I've seen anyone drive further than about 10 minutes away without Google Maps in the last 5 years.
Or maybe everyone's misunderstanding your question?
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Yes, of course. In my case Waze to get there efficiently, OSMand App for topographic maps, and occasionally Apple Maps (works well with addresses in Calendar) and Sygic. I use them in the car, and on my bike: ruggedised CarPlay / Android Auto screens are rapidly displacing ruggedised satnavs on bikes. Playing audiobooks and podcasts is handy, as is getting text messages read out with dictation for reply, but it's navigation which is the killer app for ACP/AA.
I use navigation apps on any trip where there's a possibility of traffic, because they'll route me around it.
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I use navigation via Google Maps/Android Auto almost every time I drive anywhere, easily north of 95% of the time.
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Every day. Not for knowing how to get to a destination necessarily, but to get routed better.
I’m perplexed too, but I used to study the Hudson’s map book for my metro area for fun before I could drive and have been driving for 25 years, and I didn’t have a phone with GPS until 2015 or so.
I don’t use active navigation, if I don’t know hot go get where I am going I just memorize the portion of the route I don’t know and then drive there. I will occasionally see what route is recommended due to road construction, but I generally know all of the proposed routes so I don’t need GPS once I pick one.
I avoid using active GPS navigation so my mental map of the road network stays in my brain, I think orientation/navigation is an important skill to maintain and using active turn-by-turn GPS destroys it.
Hard disagree. Checking the accelerometer to disable tactile functionality when moving would have been a more intelligent way to go about discouraging this behavior over mandating use of a historically unpopular technology (Siri) in order to use a popular one (Maps, Bluetooth music streaming).
This reeks of the metrics-gaming desperation that we've seen in Google, Amazon, and Microsoft as well.
Shoehorn unpopular technology to gatekeep popular technology. Either way the consumer's quality of life goes down.
Interestingly, I have Google Assistant more or less disabled on my Android phone, but it still works when I have Android Auto enabled (which is fine by me since that's the one time that I ever want to use it).
I got the email that they're burying Assistant in September...
I use it on the phone to set alarms, add tasks or calendar events, I swipe up on the home screen to launch the app, and talk. For calendar, speech ("add calendar event dentist appointment on September 22 at 4pm") is even much more convenient than scrolling to the right month/date, using the UI to pick the time.
I'm currently vibe-coding a replacement app to use on-device speech recognition and setting alarms or adding calendar events. Sadly third party apps can't add stuff to Google Tasks without further interaction (or without OAuth) like Assistant/Gemini can.
Moreover, you cannot turn off Auto, as it will forcefully turn on WiFi even if you explicitly disable it.
And Google considers necessary to report (using tactile use while driving) if there are blockages in the road, construction, lane closures, an accident, etc.
The discrepancy of using both with an iphone is disconcerting.
Would be interesting to see anti competition law applied here, too. Essentially bundling the two together, leveraging the market for car play to gain adoption for Siri.
Is every utilization of CarPlay inside a car performed "while driving"?