As the momentum grows for the adoption of Apple CarPlay in vehicles around the world, a recent analytical survey study has shown that owners of CarPlay systems are becoming more increasingly reliant on Apple’s in-car infotainment system for services such as media playback and navigation.
Strategy Analytics surveyed new vehicle owners using Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto, asking them wether they remain satisfied about their in-car mirroring system and how much they rely on them for delivery key in-car tasks, such as playing media and using GPS navigation.
The study found that 34% of CarPlay users were using the system for all of their media playback in the car, whilst 32% were using CarPlay for all of their navigation tasks. To compare against Android Auto, the study showed less were using Android Auto for all their media with 27% of users, but 1% more of Android users were using it for their navigation with 33%. I am sure Google Maps on Apple CarPlay would have won that fight for CarPlay if it was available on Apple’s in-car platform.
Derek Viita, Senior Analyst and report author commented, “These consumers are showing lofty levels of satisfaction and are highly likely to recommend these systems to others. The most impressive finding is how many respondents would now be somewhat or very unlikely to consider a future vehicle without CarPlay or Android Auto. Typically we find that infotainment is far down the list of vehicle purchase priorities, but it appears that mirroring solutions could be changing this.”
Other key findings in the report states that mirrored systems, like Apple CarPlay, are far more preferable to embedded infotainment systems. This is due to their strong visual appeal and better usability for key in-car tasks. However, issues were noted about poor integration of the mirroring feature, making it difficult for users to navigate between functions or access features like speech recognition.
Although this news is positive for Apple CarPlay, there still remains plenty of do for the platform, both for automakers and aftermarket systems. Integration and interaction needs to be improved, whilst Apple needs to bring new life to its iOS software with increased usability improvements and application support such as Waze and Google Maps for navigation. Hopefully a peak of new iOS 12 features in June will bring new light to where Apple would like to go with its CarPlay in-car platform.
[Source: 9to5Mac]
