MacRumors:
Mercedes-Benz has confirmed that its new MBUX infotainment system will feature support for wireless CarPlay in future vehicles.
And:
The all-new 2019 A-Class will be Mercedes-Benz’s first vehicle equipped with the MBUX system when it goes on sale later this year, according to a spokesperson for the automaker’s parent company Daimler in Germany. Wireless CarPlay will expand to other new Mercedes-Benz vehicles in 2019, the spokesperson told MacRumors.
And:
Barring announcements from other automakers, Mercedes-Benz will likely become the second to offer vehicles with wireless CarPlay functionality, after BMW rolled out the feature starting with its 2017 5 Series a few years ago. Apple first introduced wireless CarPlay in 2015 alongside iOS 9.
I find it remarkable that it has taken so long for automakers to adopt this technology. Wired CarPlay is rolling right along, but requires you (as the name implies) to plug your iOS device in using a Lightning to USB cable.
Wireless CarPlay kicks in with no cable. That’s a huge drop in friction. It has been years since I last plugged my iPhone into my car, other than to charge. I get in my car, my iPhone connects via Bluetooth. I don’t have to think about it. Why is it taking so long to adopt wireless CarPlay? Is there a cost component? A technical obstacle of some kind? Supply chain issues?
For comparison, take a minute to scroll through the list of cars that feature wired CarPlay. Might take you a while.
UPDATE: OK, the issue seems to be the WiFi requirement. From this post:
At its core, Apple CarPlay just mirrors your iPhone display onto your car’s in-dash screen. For this to work it needs to display video for the user interface as well as features like maps for navigation. While Bluetooth works for audio, it cannot handle the bandwidth that video requires. As such a Wi-Fi access point is needed to transfer the data needed for video.
That’d do it. Interesting.
I have Wireless CarPlay on my BMW. I often experience gaps in the audio, 0.5 to 3 seconds in length. They sound like a drop in the wireless connection, and I think they might be caused by EM interferences.
Sadly wireless CarPlay doesn’t include standard CarPlay, at least on my car, so if I want to connect with a wire I’m forced to use BMW’s iDrive system and lose all CarPlay functionality.
Maybe that’s one the reasons some manufacturers are slow adopting it?
I think it’s probably a combination of factors:
Android Auto just now got wireless support, and most manufacturers support both. It’s easier and cheaper to just support the lowest common denominator.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Wireless CarPlay requires a higher standard of Bluetooth and/or wifi, meaning specialized hardware beyond just audio streaming.
And finally (and what I suspect is the biggest reason) car electronics are on a long development timeframe. The same models for several years in a single generation will usually share the same electronics with only cosmetic changes. So, with Wireless only being an option since late 2016, it makes sense that it’s taken a couple of years for model lines to turn over significantly enough for it to start showing up in cars.
I read a comment from someone who’d been using wireless CarPlay and they reported that the charging speed couldn’t keep up with the power demands. So battery life would be lost even while it was charging, while CarPlay was in use. That sounds like a big reason wireless CarPlay isn’t taking off…
Question then becomes were they using a 5W charger, or a “real” modern one?
If the built-in USB port in the car is only providing 5W, or you’re using an old low-power 12V charger, that calls for a different upgrade.
If it can’t keep up with a 10W charger, that’s a serious power issue, but WiFi streaming display mirroring shouldn’t use 5 watts all by itself.
Mazda have been promising me a software update for (wired) carplay support for two years now and it still isn’t there. They’ve been listed as a supporting brand ever since carplay started and they still don’t have a single compatible car. No longer holding my breath.
I don’t think the wired CarPlay rollout is significantly less glacial than wireless. That list of wired CarPlay models might be long but if you look at the intersection between it and the most popular models of cars sold (at least in the U.S.) I think it starts to look less impressive. Let’s see how many Toyotas there are. Oh, none yet. Just three 2019 Toyotas. I see a lot more Toyotas on the road than Ha/Mas, Škoda’s, Vauxhalls, or Borgwards. Or, for that matter, Buicks, Fiats, Ferraris, or Lamborghinis. At least it’s in Subaru Outbacks starting this year. So my wife will probably have it in her next car.
“It has been years since I last plugged my iPhone into my car, other than to charge.”
Which is surely the point. If you’re going to plug your iPhone in to charge anyway, who the hell cares if it uses that same wire to communicate instead of communicating wirelessly? Unless, of course, the wired connection is broader/more reliable. Then you WANT that wire to be used.
Yeah, but WiFi is … cheap and easy, in principle.
I looked at Apple’s WWDC slides for Wireless CarPlay, and it shouldn’t be that … difficult.
More that it would add like $10-15 in hardware costs for a small market, relatively speaking, and there’s all the additional QA and dev time and testing for high-speed WiFi in the car.
(Because unlike normal boring “share a cellular connection” WiFi in a car, this has to handle fairly serious bandwidth for realtime display mirroring.
IIRC Apple recommended 5ghz WiFi in implementations, thus either n or ac.)
(See here.
I’m surprised Apple doesn’t seem to have a non-video whitepaper on the specifics; maybe it’s not public.)
The car companies don’t want to give control of the in car entertainment/navigation system to Apple or google because they want their own system that they can eventually charge for (think OnStar).
It’s a trainwreck in my 5-series and the dealership says all new 5-series are having issues.
The difference is, wireless carplay enabled cars (mine is BMW X1 2018) have wireless charging pads. So I literally never connected my iPhone to car and it works perfectly, sound quality over Wi-Fi is high fidelity and if you are using services like Tidal, it is very important. So for now, BMW is the only car that could satisfy that criteria like quality wireless music.
It’s been almost a year, so I see this point now. But i am curious: Does your car charging pad grip the phone somehow to hold it in place?