After officially announcing its new CarPlay feature for connecting iOS devices to select in-car entertainment systems, Apple followed up with confirmation that we’d also see aftermarket products with support for the feature. Pioneer was one of the first to announce that the feature would arrive on a number of the in-car systems it sells, and today we’re getting our first look at the feature in action on the hardware.
Pioneer gave a few demos of CarPlay this week running on its aftermarket in-car systems, including the video above from MacWorld, and another from DigitalTrends. While both short reviews are fairly positive, there are reportedly a few issues that will hopefully be tweaked by the time CarPlay lands in vehicles later this year:
CarPlay isn’t a final product yet. Both in the prototype I saw at Mercedes-Benz a few weeks ago and in the Pioneer demo this week, ambient noise distracted Siri. Pioneer’s Cardenas said that as the CarPlay technology continues to undergo tweaks, Siri will acclimate to your car’s sounds—the whoosh of the air conditioner, the hum of the engine (the sound of your kids bickering in back?)—and learn to distinguish your voice from everything else.
Volvo, Ferrari, and Mercedes-Benz have already announced vehicles arriving later this year with support for CarPlay and BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Jaguar, Kia, Land Rover, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel, Psa Peugeot Citroen, Subaru, Suzuki, and Toyota are all confirmed as partners.
