What's so special about Apple CarPlay and Android Auto?

Tuesday, 23 July 2019

Ferrari was first, but Apple/Android phone projection is taking over the car world. How does it work?

Driving these days seems to be as much about staying connected with your phone as it does about getting from A to B.

'Phone projection', also known as Apple CarPlay or Android Auto (depending on what kind of phone you have), is now a must-have technology for many people.

If you've got it in your car you probably witter on about how you could never go back. If you don't you probably wonder why people witter on about it all the time and whether you should get it. And then become one of those people.

The phone screen is blank because all the apps have jumped into the car. That's CarPlay for you.

Why is phone projection such a big thing when we've had Bluetooth mobile-phone connections in our cars for 15 years? It's just another big leap forward in technology towards a time when we don't ever to be off our phones. Ever.

**READ MORE:

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A Bluetooth connection lets you do certain things on your phone via the car's screen and other dashboard controls. But it's just a link. A conduit. Imagine having your phone tied on a piece of string. You have basic control of it, you can see what it's doing but you're not truly master of the mobile.

Phone projection is like putting the device back in your hand. When you see it on the car's screen it looks the same as the display on the mobile - and that's because you really are looking at your device, just through the car. Hence the term phone projection.

It requires a lot of data, which is why most phone projection systems require you to actually plug the device in. Seems like a step backwards from simple Bluetooth, but some brands now offer wireless CarPlay technology. So that'll catch on too.

If you have phone projection, whatever you're doing on the phone simply comes with you into the car. You can't use every app on your phone through projection - just the approved ones that are safe to operate on the move. That includes navigation of course, so if you've been searching for something on Google Maps on your way to the car, that information will come through to the car's phone-projection display when you connect.

Carmakers generally loathe phone projection as they have spent megabucks developing their own information and entertainment systems and it means giving control of those functions to phone companies.

They loathe it but have had to give in and provide it, such is the demand from consumers. Virtually every car brand in the world now offers Apple CarPlay or Android Auto (usually both) and those that don't soon will.