Apple was watching the technology world at the WWDC this week during the upcoming iPhone software update, iOS 16 unveiling and display. And it survived from radically enhanced lock screen customization to pre-event hype with a raft of nice new features for long-awaited editing and unsending functions in messages.
With the exception of the kind of delay we saw with Universal Control last year, all of this will come in the autumn when the universal version of iOS 16 will be available on compatible iPhones around the world. (It should be present alongside the iPhone 14, for a week or more.)
Undoubtedly the most exciting iOS development has been announced at WWDC 2022, but we will have to wait a little longer. And maybe a lot longer.
CarPlay, the platform designed to integrate your iPhone and several of its core apps with your car’s interface, has undergone some major changes in the store. Not limited to a single screen, the next-generation version of CarPlay will occupy the entire front panel, including speed, RPM and fuel dial, and control your car’s functions like climate control and radio. Even in this year’s spirit of customization, you’ll be able to change the interface in a way that’s not currently possible, changing colors and adding widgets to your heart’s content.
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The new version of CarPlay will combine more elements of the driving experience than ever before You’ll be able to get weather and music information at a glance and use apps for toll, towing and refueling. It’s not just a projection from your iPhone — the CarPlay demo was a fantastic and somewhat out-of-character concept that is nowhere near shipping, sandwiched between iOS 16 and watchOS 9.
Like you, my first reaction to the announcement and teaser images was excitement, mainly because Apple is always the best when it comes to product control. When it makes both the phone and the phone’s operating system, we get the iPhone. We get iTunes for Windows or ROKR phones when it comes to building software alongside someone else. The specialty of Apple’s design is the invisible glue In It can only add value if given control over a wide range of functions, and user experiences.
Apple doesn’t seem to be making car hardware in the near future. Even if the Apple car becomes a reality next year, an automobile partner will make the real car stuff চ wheels, engines, and so on. But the full 360-degree control of the software inside the car is a much more attractive possibility than the current horse-designed-committee that you get when iOS has to uncomfortably coexist with the manufacturer’s own software. I find it frustrating, for example, to try to remember the separate and conflicting naming rules used by Skoda (most of my car interface) and Apple (while I’m at CarPlay) and the various ways companies can now navigate depending on it. . I would rather have Apple handle the whole thing and be able to develop the right software muscle memory to visualize any visual or written elements associated with a function.
Working as a digital touchscreen and switching from the BlackBerry hardware keyboard to the iPhone’s soft keyboard, we got to see the entire front panel of a car offering the same kind of transformative versatility. Depending on the context, that panel can be used for almost anything. (The feature of my own personal dream will be to connect it to the car’s exterior camera so you can see the world outside the panel. But that’s why I’m writing this article and not designing the car.)
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Caution and yield signs
Anyway. Anyway. You will notice that I call it the greatest and most exciting iOS announcement instead of the best or the most realistic because there are some concerns left. Most obviously, turning the front panel of a car into a dynamic touchscreen is a much bigger step than a phone, because you don’t look at a phone when you’re doing Interstate 70.
Apple needs to think seriously about the dangers of confusion and the cost of controls that can be found without looking, because they are always in the same place or because they are made of plastic and you can feel with them. Finger haptics can help here, to some extent the focus modes we’ve seen in recent versions of iOS: if you exceed 10mph, some visual features may be automatically locked, others kick-in (or drop out) when it rains Or low light is detected. It may work, but it requires careful thinking.
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Still, Apple has time to make it work, because it’s a work in progress. CarPlay 2.0 (if we call it that) won’t come with iOS 16 this fall. In fact, while Apple is proud to be working with Audi, Porsche, Ford and other car manufacturers to implement the new technology, it will be at the end of next year before we even know in which car it will be integrated. And then maybe one or two more years ago we saw it on the street.
But those of us who follow Apple’s story are used to waiting. At least we have a clear idea of what is in the pipeline এমনকি even some more workshopping may be needed before the details can be made on the road.