Anyone who drives a Ford can breathe a sigh of relief
A little over a month ago, there was bad news for iPhone users. General Motors (GM) is planning to stop supporting CarPlay in the future. However, the direct competition from Ford is now giving the all-clear and will continue to stand by Apple’s side in the future.
The announcement by General Motors (GM) that it would no longer use CarPlay must have felt like a slap in the face. After all, the sophisticated iPhone integration is part of the standard program for quite a few users these days. GM sees this differently and wants to do without electric cars in the future.
Ford remains loyal to Apple and the iPhone
This raised a concern: would other manufacturers follow the example? There is now an all-clear for iPhone users from a not entirely unimportant competitor. In conversation with Joanna Stern from the Wall Street Journal reassures Ford CEO Jim Farley (Source: Wall Street Journal, Twitter).
There are two camps for the Auto Boss. Some like Tesla and recently GM rule out deeper smartphone integration, not least because they want to collect more data from customers themselves and want to sell their own subscription models. The other camp, on the other hand, opens up and allows interfaces such as CarPlay. Ford still sees itself in this camp.
With good reason, as Farley admits: “70 percent of our Ford customers in the US are Apple customers. Why should I go to an Apple customer and wish them luck?” Ergo: Ford will continue to support CarPlay and not, like GM, forego it.
Unlike Tesla and GM, Ford doesn’t believe there is any money to be made from the content that car owners consume in their vehicles. Instead, the automaker would much rather focus on safety, autonomy, and productivity features.
The Ford boss realistically admits: “In terms of content, we lost that battle 10 years ago.”
CarPlay can and can do even more at Ford and Co. in the future:
Even more iPhone integration, not less
Worth noting: Automakers like Ford will go even further. Apple announced the new CarPlay last year. This will integrate the iPhone even more into the vehicle and take on other tasks, it mutates into a kind of second operating system for the vehicle.
Apple and numerous car manufacturers want to introduce this extended CarPlay version before the end of this year. Ford, like Mercedes, Porsche and many other brands, is one of the supporters of the new CarPlay.
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