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Feature Request: How Apple Stores could demo CarPlay to customers

CarPlay-Hyundai-Elantra-2017

One of the best parts about Apple Stores is the ability to try out Apple products out of the box in an environment superior to big box retail stores. While that’s mostly true of almost all Apple products including Apple Watches, there’s one really compelling Apple product that I haven’t seen on demo at any Apple Stores: CarPlay.

If you want to try out CarPlay for yourself right now before spending some serious money, the easiest way is to find a car dealer with a CarPlay model available and go for a test drive. But there are a few ways Apple could bring most of the experience to customers in its retail stores …

CarPlay is a feature hidden inside iPhones that requires special infotainment systems in new cars or aftermarket displays to be unlocked. Connect your iPhone to a Lightning cable in the car (or wireless eventually) and see important apps like Phone, Messages, Maps, and Music appear on the car’s display. CarPlay relies on Siri for almost all text input and relaying messages, and the iPhone ignores alerts from all other apps to create a distraction-free experience.

The most obvious way Apple could demo CarPlay is to do exactly what Best Buy already does: set up demo units of car displays that work with CarPlay. If you walk into the back of a Best Buy store to the auto department, you’ll likely find working aftermarket car displays from Pioneer and others on the wall where you can actually connect your iPhone and see CarPlay in action … sort of.

Pioneer AppRadio4 CarPlay

The problem with this solution is it’s only a little better than reading about CarPlay online or watching a video of it in action. A screen fixed to a wall at eye level running CarPlay isn’t a very compelling demo. And Apple doesn’t sell aftermarket displays directly either (although maybe it should!), probably because the best CarPlay experiences are in new cars with tighter hardware integration.

The more complex but less compromised solution is to actually have a car with a working CarPlay system in stores. We saw an Apple Store design with glass doors wide enough to drive a car through in Apple’s 60 Minutes spot in December, and the Apple Store in Dubai already features this design. If Apple’s work on an electric vehicle ever turns into an actual shipping product, Apple Stores could use the practice of working around a floor model car and the logistics of putting it on display.

Apple has plenty of CarPlay partners with real cars at this point, too, so finding a good candidate wouldn’t be too difficult. Apple Stores could even opt for a battery-powered vehicle like the Chevy Volt hybrid Seth and I tested at CES this year. Its 8-inch capacitive touch display offered a much better CarPlay demo than a screen fixed to a wall, and there’s the benefit of being battery-powered. Easy to maintain in a store setting.

Chevy Volt CarPlay

But you don’t even need an entire car to properly demonstrate CarPlay to an iPhone user … just the driver’s seat and part of the dashboard. Apple could present an arcade-style driving simulator where you can actually get behind the wheel and see CarPlay in action … and make Apple Stores a little more fun in the process! Remember how exciting cars at WWDC 2014 were?

Modern Apple Stores are plenty large inside and could probably sacrifice an extra iPad table to draw more attention to the iPhone using CarPlay as a strategy, but even smaller Apple Stores in malls could potentially use real cars to demonstrate the iPhone feature.

Local auto dealers typically have floor models on display in malls for advertising. It’d be a complex, logistical hurdle to work through, but while we’re spit balling here, considering the possibility of Apple working with a CarPlay partner to park a car in view of the Apple Store where customers can see CarPlay in action in a real car you can buy today.

Obviously demoing CarPlay isn’t a top priority for Apple, but the feature is getting better with every iOS update, especially iOS 9.3 which adds full Apple Music support and much better Maps features, and the iPhone could use all the help it can get if Apple wants to maintain growth in the category. Parking a car in an Apple Store would certainly draw some new eyeballs, be good practice for the eventual Apple Car, and let customers try CarPlay in action just like iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

For more on CarPlay, check out my initial review plus my look at what changed with iOS 9 and roundup of CarPlay apps.

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Comments

  1. el3v3nty - 8 years ago

    This! and put a 2016 honda civic or volvo unit just to display how easy/clean it can be.

  2. Santiago Medina-Saenz - 8 years ago

    FEATURE REQUEST: Avoid Toll Roads… How is this not embedded in Apple Maps yet? I know Apple gives you optional routes on the map to pick from when selecting a destination, but when you live in a Metropolitan City surrounded by Toll Roads, and all you have are selected routes with tolls, it is not always an option to pick from.

    I will switch to Car Play or Apple Maps in fact when that becomes an option. Avoiding Tolls has been a basic Maps feature since the early GPS units came out to market. Unbelievable this hasn’t been addressed by Apple yet.

    • alanaudio - 8 years ago

      A related feature request is to specify routes that avoid motorways ( interstate highways ). In the UK, learner drivers are not allowed to drive on motorways, so it is necessary to devise routes avoiding them. Even with a fully qualified driver, it’s often a more pleasant option to drive along minor roads rather than the big roads.

    • dcj001 - 8 years ago

      I use TomTom USA on my cellular iPad Air 2 or iPhone 6s. There are many features/options including avoiding tolls, choosing multiple stops between point A and point B, eliminating specific roads on the route, and more. I have used this app for years, and I consider it my most useful iOS app.

  3. Jake Becker - 8 years ago

    100000% agree, and I second the no toll idea. I can usually find a route without, but it would be nice if there were just a switch in Settings, “avoid tolls”.

  4. yojimbo007 - 8 years ago

    Great :)

  5. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    I would rather them focus on getting morre vehicles available to purchase. I’m June it will be 3 years since iOS in the Car was shown at WWDC. 32 months later they are not near as many vehicles with CarPlay as they should be. Both CarPlay and Android Auto are bases off 2010’s iPod Out. At this point most Autos should have CarPlay as an option.

    Plenty of US Apple stores are still in malls and not that large. With foot traffic and Geiois Bars a half a car would not make shopping in those Stores a good experience.

    They could have a few Pioneer and Kenwood head units on a wall and sell the head units so people know what the experience is like.

  6. lkernan - 8 years ago

    If they put a dashboard / steering whell setup in store you’d never get near it for the kids playing around.

  7. Japheth (@Japheth) - 8 years ago

    Carplay is a great example of the “new” Apple. I personally find it very frustrating to operate Carplay on my new Pioneer 4100NEX mainly because the resistive touch screen acts nothing like the iPhone counterpart. I actually now prefer to dock my iPhone 6s Plus on my dash and bluetooth the audio. The old Apple would never put software on another companies hardware because of this..! All developer apps are either useless or no where to be found just like my Apple Watch. #FAIL

Author

Avatar for Zac Hall Zac Hall

Zac covers Apple news, hosts the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, and created SpaceExplored.com.