I have an Equinox EV which, as I understand it, just runs Android and has no CarPlay or AAuto support. I thought that I would miss CarPlay but I don’t at all from a UX point of view.

What I do miss is the carefree feeling that I can drive somewhere without my car telling GM and Google about it. It is extraordinarily creepy that they know when I’ve had a bad morning and need a McMuffin or whatever. I use a burner Google account but given that the GM account must be associated with my actual identity I don’t think it does much.

In my case Android Auto got rid of my car. I bought a second hand car in 2020 and Android Auto had upgraded to a new version a few months before. However my car did not upgrade its software and it probably has no way to do it. So the sw in my car and the software on my phone are not compatible. Even the original Android Auto on my phone is too new for my car.

Is it a big deal? Not at all because I hang my phone close to my wheel and it's much better than the screen of my car.

A friend of mine connected his iPhone to my car and it worked but the result is underwhelming: the screen of the phone is still much better. There is no reason for me to go through my car to do stuff on my phone.

By the way, phone calls and media work on the Bluetooth of the car and that's all I need from it.

I'm a little surprised that car manufacturers pay Apple for CarPlay licensing, and not the other way around. For me at least, Apple benefits from me using CarPlay for music, Siri, maps etc. Would I have still purchased my car if it didn't have CarPlay? Yes. I'd just be using a phone mount. Maybe the car manufacturers are ready to redress this balance.