GM can’t ‘bring back’ Apple CarPlay because it never left

Everyone freaked out for a second time. Removing phone projection in EVs was one thing, but many truck and SUV owners were understandably incensed about the prospect of losing the capability in their beloved GM-branded vehicles. But a few days later, GM seemed to walk back that statement , clarifying to a number of outlets that Apple CarPlay and Android Auto would remain available in its gas-powered vehicles “for the foreseeable future.” Last week’s announcement of a new software experience in the Silverado and Sierra trucks would seem to be included in that “foreseeable future.”

Allow me to add some further reporting here. For the Silverado/Sierra announcement, I spoke to Colin McCormick, group product manager for Google built-in, projection, and profiles at GM. Here’s what he had to say about how GM’s position on phone projection has evolved over the years:

And so the way that I look at this is that we were one of the early adopters of CarPlay and Android Auto when it first came out. And we do have a small segment of EVs right now that don’t offer that, but there is a large majority of our vehicles that do offer that. And our big position on this is that it shouldn’t be two competing systems. So as we work together with Apple and Google to provide solutions that we think are best for the customer, this is what we’re representing in this new UI design. So I think we’re landing in a spot where … we don’t have a customer that has to decide, ‘Oh, I’m going to use projection,’ or, ‘Oh, I want to use the native system.’ That’s our sweet spot for us. And that’s where we want to live.

GM most likely realizes that its position on CarPlay and Android Auto isn’t popular. People really like mirroring their phones! It’s clean, it’s familiar, and it’s (mostly) dependable. The same can’t be said for most modern cars’ native software. Even the ones that are really well designed, like Rivian and Tesla, still struggle with some core functions like profile logins and messages. And you can find plenty of owners of both brands that would give their firstborn child for the ability to mirror their phone.

CarPlay and Android Auto aren’t perfect . They have dependability problems and connectivity problems aplenty. But they are worlds better than the majority of the native operating systems in cars today — most of which are just trash. Yes, they’re getting better. And GM is not wrong in thinking it can offer a better experience. But people get testy when you take away their choices.

So GM is finding ways to coexist with CarPlay and Android Auto. It doesn’t want to lose more customers over it, which is why we’re getting this most recent solution that includes picture-in-picture phone projection. GM thinks this solves the “two competing systems” problem, as mentioned by McCormick. But what it really does is get it out of the corner it backed itself into over phone mirroring.