I’ll use a 3rd party auxiliary screen for Android Auto if this ends up proliferating to other brands as a grab for subscriptions.
Removing smartphone integration from its vehicles opens the door for GM to grow its in-vehicle subscription revenue. Yep 💩
I’ll happily celebrate whatever loss hits Google.
but this is so shitty I prefer Google
Money.
There I wrote the whole article in one word.
We need a Linux OS and DE for cars
i use carch btw
KDE Plasma Car: can use Customize Panel to move around physical parts of the car (HELP the steering wheel is inside the engine somehow HOWDOIFIXTHIS)
Help I used grub to switch engines but forgot to switch fuel type now it only boots into emergency mode
Could it be money?
It’s money, isn’t it?!
So, by utilizing built-in systems, the car manufacturers would indeed be able to collect more data about how you use the systems in place, while also possibly getting more money out of you through subscriptions.
It’s not money. The executives of these companies revealed the reason they are doing this is because they believe they can provide a better end user experience. They wouldn’t lie would they?
Nooooooo that’s totally unlikely. It’s probably just for our best!
oh look another problem I’m too poor to have
Yes, blame automotive business that you arent able to aquire a new car free, that falls in line with todays snowflake mentality.
- nowhere in their comment are they saying they blame automakers by specifically
- nowhere in their comment are they saying they should get cars for free
Stop getting so offended, snowflake.
Removed by mod
day old outrage account
We found the biggest moron on the internet.
Bait used to be believable
What a piece of human detritus you are. Have a great day!
Are you a billionaire or are you lazy?
Offended by a simple comment but calls that person a snowflake. Prime loser mentality 👍 good work, snowflake.
Got off mah lawn you damn kids!
Rock and roll is too loud and oatmeal is too spicy!
The cars (in EU) used to be under 20.000€ ~6 years ago. Yes, I understand inflation exists.
So manufacturers can bill you monthly for the same features…
How long until they start putting some kind of DRM in cars that prevents you from just installing an aftermarket android auto head unit?
They’ve been trying that for a while. They do it by routing critical cat functions through the radio that don’t need to go through there.
Daaaamn. The closest thing I could think of was my friend’s 96 (98? Whenever the EK body started) Honda civic that had the factory alarm and remote locks in the radio. He ended up splicing some wires and shoving the factory radio into his glove box or something to get around it.
This. Of course, you could just mount a cheap tablet in front of the head unit and be done with it.
Or an aftermarket floor mat or air filter?
Most cars are basically bricks without the main unit, for example the air conditioning is set using proprietary commands on the can bus from the fancy touchscreen. Or setting all the options of the adas, sensors and so on
I can’t wait to get a rental car that doesn’t allow me to use my own maps.
You want the Rental+ package for an extra $39.99, which enables the car’s built-in Garmin.
2015 cars came with bluetooth support for hands free calling using your phone. This was great.
After that, it was replaced with carplay or android auto as the only means to get hands free calling. Stupid…stupid.
Plus, last 2 new cars i bought, i had to take the interior roof apart so i could access the built in cellular antennae wire and remove that spyware P.O.S. And by the way, car works fine without it.
They didn’t really replace it though. Pretty much every modern car sold today has Bluetooth. You don’t have to use android auto.
Yeah, I finally got a car with Android Auto earlier this year and was excited to get it. I thought it would basically let me mirror my phone on the car touchscreen, but instead, it only uses specific apps for things. I hate it. I just use Bluetooth for phone or with Revanced for audio and I park my phone in the cupholder for nav. Works better.
I still use that Bluetooth everyday in my Mitsubishi Outlander I don’t need more than this… I also installed some magnet mount for the phone case.
The only problem is that since December 2024 android release on Pixels it stopped connecting “media audio” automatically due to some timing issue or something. So I have to manually toggle that button on my phone since that day… (Google Pixel) And now Samsung seems to have the same issue since they started updating to newer android versions.
Google is not focusing on fixing this and just focusing on Android auto instead. But it only impacts some Japanese makes. I think some Mazda also have the issue.
I have a Samsung and I’ve had two of them this year actually three of them this year one fold three, one fold six, one s24 ultra and one pixel 9 and none of them have had this issue that you mentioned.
Right. And which Mitsubishi model and year do you have?
I don’t have a mitsubishi, you didn’t mention Mitsubishi in your comments. You mentioned some Japanese cars. I had a quest which I recently traded in and I still own a 2014 tacoma. Both of which are Japanese vehicles
Fair enough. But that’s why I mentioned “some” and not “all”. I’ve never heard about a Toyota impacted by this issue.
Mitsubishi are definitely impacted. Some Mazda too according to some people posting. But I’ve read less posts about Mazda. They must be using some similar Bluetooth receivers in the infotainment system.
This is possibly the first post when this issue originated but then in January 2025 they improved it with a workaround that works till today, but before connection was always automatic without any workaround.
Anyway. Every single time you start the engine you need to go to Bluetooth settings on the phone toggle “media audio” (that failed to connect automatically) one or two times and then it connects and you can enjoy BT normally. A pain in the ass especially for 10 minute trips.
On most cars, it’s probably easier to unplug it on the head unit side. They’re generally designed to be accessed for repair
I would be shocked if there wasn’t a single fuse just for that antenna.
I think it’s common for the antennas to contain both GPS and LTE. I think the fuse would power the whole fin?
On the head unit side, they’re generally separate cables
Correct the head mefia unit has the cellular plug. But to get to it, id have to remove the whole dashboard. The roof was easier
Toyota didn’t have Android Auto for many years after 2015
2017 Toyota. Android auto was optional. We opted not to pay for it
Toyota also had Bluetooth before then as well in fact many cars had Bluetooth before then. I had two 2014 vehicles including one Tacoma which I still have that is Bluetooth but not Android auto. I will say having Android auto is nice but it is limited as well. My new 2024 RAV4 has Android auto wireless and it’s fantastic.
My 2018 Camry doesn’t interestingly enough
The big question is why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with. But the answer is still the same as ClydapusGotwald states…money. I’m starting to think the answer to most of the worlds woes is…money. Maybe money has been the problem all of this time. Fuck money. We can utilize our resources and feed and house everyone without that shit but then there wouldn’t be any space billionaires and we need them to save us all. /s
The big question is why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with.
Originally, automakers tried to shoehorn proprietary subscription services into their vehicles for GPS and roadside assistance and satellite radio. But the opt-in for these services was scant, because they were obnoxious to set up and overpriced relative to - say - a TomTom or a cell phone’s core features. And you could get after-market integration added to your vehicle through its entertainment system, so why bother with the clunky manufacturer options.
CarPlay and AndroidAuto were concessions that automakers began to adopt because they sold more vehicles that way. Reversing this out will likely have the same effect it did the first time - by driving people to foreign car companies like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Kia.
I already see Kia cars on the road fucking everywhere. And moves like this will only accelerate the trend, I’m sure.
why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with.
Because fuel injection operates better than even the most high tech carburetors across a wider range of environments. And if you have more sensors and active feedback you can better control everything from emissions to warm up time. Everything trickles down from racing / luxury vehicles. Once you have processors involved, might as well do fancy things with them inside the cabin too.
A lot of the dash / center console nonsense is consumer cost cutting, but frankly it should’ve been separate from the start. Any budget phone is a better GPS / media platform than a half-baked system by a vehicle manufacturer. At this point it should just be a USB-C or bluetooth connection so the device without the bargain basement processor can do the heavy lifting for a user interface.
At this point it should just be a USB-C or bluetooth connection so the device without the bargain basement processor can do the heavy lifting for a user interface.
But that’s what car play and android auto are
No those are links between two separate systems. I just want to use my phone screen and the car’s speakers / power.
Oh gotcha, a simple head unit
It’s not about money, its about power. Don’t be so naive. You don’t have to whitewash these horrible people. They want to help out the baby killers to spy on you. That’s all it is.
Nope, it’s money. Only some of them care about power. They all care about money.
They don’t care about money. Only poor people care about money. Once you get a certain level of wealth it snowballs forever (fiat currency).
If Ford cared about money or GM or whatever. They would make a decent car, and try to build their brand. Yet there hasn’t been a single positive development in cars in at least 20 years. Maybe more airbags but only because it’s legally required. Everything else has been pure degeneration. Even the slightly better fuel economy has come at the much greater cost of reliability as new vehicles will rarely even last half as long as older cars because of stuff like the start stop technology filling the oil with water and the terrible paper thin designs needed to meet fuel economy requirements.
The idea that you think these people care about money is laughable. Money can’t even buy anything anymore. Not to mention that the gold standard was removed nearly a century ago. An average home is like 450k and the taxes on it are honestly worse. You will never own a single piece of property in the world. The rich have so much power that they can get 2% interest loans while you can only get maybe 5-6% if you are lucky. So you see even the money is set up for power. To make sure you and everyone else never has any or can ever own anything, but you must work daylight to dark to survive, while their accounts increase while they sleep, having never produced a single valuable thing in their life.
You are just applying your poor person mentality to a world where that doesn’t exist. You want money because to you, money is a way to escape a life of servitude to corporations, but even that is an illusion.
Why do you think Elon musk spent billions to acquire Twitter? Why buy a company that has nothing of actual value outside of some IP and data, when the U.S economy has not grown in 50 years? Money? Fuck no. Power, influence, protecting his billionaire pedo friends from citizen justice. These sorts of things.
Money itself is about power. Every aspect of it from the ground up is designed to facilitate the mass stealing of value from the working class, and putting it into the hands of a small class of managers. Money is a treadmill to keep you desperate and silent. You think America has private healthcare because of money? Fuck no, it’s because it’s just another screw to turn to manipulate you. Another thing you will be without if you are out of work for a month or two from an injury. We have been in a post scarcity world for nearly 100 years. 90% of the people on the planet wouldn’t have to work rn and we could have an even better standard of living, but that won’t happen because they are afraid of what people will do when they aren’t desperate, trying to make it from one week to the next as their wages drop year after year, and also because people in countries without women’s autonomy and rights will have billions of little parasitic humans that they have no way to take care of. At this point humans are mostly becoming a liability. The more you have, the more they destroy the environment and compete for the same limited amount of resources allocated to the poor and working classes. Most jobs today simply exist so that they have leverage on you, nothing more. You know what leverage is about? Power! You guessed it.
Wake up sheep.
You sound like like you’re a desperate anime antagonist.
Some of them care about power, they all care about money. In this case it’s money.
How can there be power without wealth (money)? Power and wealth go hand in hand, but you try to separate them. Maybe that’s why you seem so angry with the name calling and sheep categorizations, the dissonance. The misanthropy in you is strong. You are the change the world needs, not your words. Help someone in need and you’ll find way more sunshine in your life.
Knobs are better
They think they’ll get more money, but they don’t realize that people won’t even consider their cars due to lack of integration. I recently bought a used car for my kid. One of the nicer ones I looked at didn’t work with his phone, so we eliminated it from consideration.
Every day I get more thankful for my hand-me-down car. It has no heated seats or anything fancy, but that also means no subscriptions, no wifi tracking/stalking, no digital touch screen over physical buttons, etc. All I’ve ever done is use a clip holder on my AC vent for my phone, so I’m used to it. It’s given me time to see how others feel about Android Auto and features in newer cars, and I can make an informed decision whenever my baby decides to kick the bucket. Hopefully I can get something not too stalkerish nor with subscriptions.
I’m super pleased to have gotten a vehicle right in the breakpoint between dumb and dumber vehicles, 2018, center console without touchscreen, mouse/dpad instead, no connected services except offline gps with option to update maps via tethered network, no sos lojack. Got lane assist, adaptive spees etc but nothing actually ‘smart’
Next year model got it all, touchscreens, lojack, annoying android…
I bought a cheap chinabox for android auto instead of upgrading software via dealer for higher price, and now I can connect whatever I want to the system below android, enter ui for dashcams, kill it entirely or just use the good ol radio.
Not looking forward to ‘upgrading’ in the future at all, I’d rather let this one turn to rolling rust.
People also seriously over estimate the effort required to install an android auto/car play stereo and backup camera. One adapter later and green wire connects to green, red to red, etc. most of the work goes to watching videos on how to do it to get a clearer picture. Not to mention that even for something on the fancier side you pay perhaps one car payment and you are done vs signing up for another 5 years of monthly misery.
Mine was basically plug and play, most difficult part was being willing dismantle a brand new car, besides that it just took 30 minutes to plug the box into the main unit
Yeah I agree with you. I was talked into upgrading one generation for android auto. I miss not having a screen in the car. They’re just ugly and unnecessary on 90% od trips
The sonata before 2018 is great, but you need to play the engine lottery.
Guess I can remove Chevy/GM from my future vehicle short list.
