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Early Apple CarPlay Reviews Cite Ease of Use, Excellent Siri Voice Integration

Friday October 3, 2014 8:26 am PDT by Kelly Hodgkins
Apple and several of its partners showed off CarPlay at its official unveiling earlier this year, mainstream users are finally getting their hands on the system with Pioneer's release of its promised CarPlay update for for several of its aftermarket car audio receiver yesterday.

Early reviews of CarPlay from Consumer Reports and Australian technology and car blog EFTM suggest the system is indeed easy to use and effective at reducing driver distraction, thanks to excellent Siri integration.

pionerr-carplay-review
Consumer Reports points out the many benefits offered by Siri, which allows you to send text messages, get directions, set reminders, and more without touching your iPhone.
As handy as Siri’s natural speech recognition is when you’re just walking around with your phone, it really comes into its own in the car. Siri makes it easy to choose music, get directions, and read or send text messages—all by using your voice with natural speech, rather than menu-driven, formulaic commands.
Consumer Reports also notes that updating the AVIC-5000NEX unit was easy, requiring the owner to download the firmware to a USB stick, plug the stick into the receiver, and wait for unit to update itself.

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For his part, Trevor Long of EFTM provides a detailed walkthrough with screenshots of CarPlay's major features. Demoing Pioneer's AVH-X8650BT stereo installed in a 2010 Mazda 2, Long shows how easy it is to make phone calls, interact with visual voicemail, listen to music, and more.
CarPlay is a revolution in in-car entertainment. While many of the features have been available for some time on other cars, the genuine integration with your smartphone and capabilities that have been added make it well worth considering if you’re an Apple iPhone user who spends a great deal of time in your car.

If you’re shopping for a new car – ask the dealer – is CarPlay available? and if no – will it be available via a firmware upgrade in the future?
Pioneer this week released its CarPlay firmware update, making it the first aftermarket receiver manufacturer to offer CarPlay to consumers. Among Pioneer's U.S. models, CarPlay is available for the $1400 AVIC-8000NEX, the $1200 AVIC-7000NEX, the $900 AVIC-6000NEX, the $750 AVIC-5000NEX and the $700 AVH-4000NEX. CarPlay is also compatible with Pioneer's new $600 smartphone receiver, AppRadio 4. Consumers can generally find Pioneer's units at significant discounts from list price from a variety of retailers.

Related Roundup: CarPlay
[ 159 comments ]


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dugbug
56 months ago

Too bad it uses Apple Maps...


I prefer it over google maps
Rating: 19 Votes
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super tomtendo
56 months ago
Too bad it uses Apple Maps...
Rating: 19 Votes
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Keane16
56 months ago

Too bad it uses Apple Maps...


In my car is one place I don't want Google Maps tracking my every move.

So glad this uses Apple Maps.

This may be useful for you: http://www.android.com/auto/
Rating: 14 Votes
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redmac
56 months ago

Too bad it uses Apple Maps...


Too bad you're too stubborn to give Apple Maps a second try. If you used it lately you would think different.
Rating: 13 Votes
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poe diddley
56 months ago
When it can use Waze I'll consider buying one.
Rating: 9 Votes
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macintologist
56 months ago
I would much rather use a mounted iPhone than Carplay.

1. Non-retina displays look disgusting
2. The Carplay interface looks laggy as hell compared to a snappy iPhone. It feels like you're using Android.
3. You're limited to Carplay enabled navigation apps, whereas the iPhone can use any app you want, like Waze.
4. Even if you're okay with using Apple Maps via Carplay, the non-retina display and laggy interface would make it awful to use.
5. Can you call w/ Facetime Audio on Carplay? It seems like the calls are all normal audio, which sounds awful compared to FT audio.
Rating: 6 Votes
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Shaun, UK
56 months ago
Wish they would all get a move on with this as I want this in my car asap.
Rating: 5 Votes
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aajeevlin
56 months ago

Too bad you're too stubborn to give Apple Maps a second try. If you used it lately you would think different.


Gave it several tries, still don't like it. The fact that you can't simply drag the map around while in-route is a huge no go for me, apple map also limit how much you can zoom-out while in-route. Actually you can't really zoom out at all. I don't get their logic behind this.
Rating: 5 Votes
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l00pback
56 months ago

This is all great but as far as I can tell it requires data from your cellphone, what if I'm on EDGE and want to have Siri play me a song stored on my phone, do I need to wait until Apple's server gets the request at 74kbs before it plays my song? What if I get lost and need navigation but have no cell service? That's why I'm concerned with upgrading from my Ford Sync that does voice commands without a network connection.


CarPlay is simply an extension of iOS, of course it requires data from your iPhone (not just any cell phone). If using Siri and Apple Maps doesn't currently meet your needs, CarPlay won't improve that. It's meant to make it safer for people who DO use these features while driving. What do you do now when you get lost and you need navigation where there is no cell service?
Rating: 5 Votes
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budselectjr
56 months ago

It will be interesting to see how long till distracted driving accidents start.


Because there aren't already millions of cars on the road with in-dash screens. :rolleyes:
Rating: 4 Votes

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