You Don’t Need CarPlay in Your New Car. You Need $11

General Motors is making a mistake ditching Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A September 2023 McKinsey study found that almost half of new car buyers surveyed wouldn’t buy a vehicle that lacked Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. GM’s attempt to wrestle back control of its screens—and the data they collect—is futile, because nothing stops people from bypassing OEM systems and using their phones the old-fashioned way, with Bluetooth-enabled FM transmitters.

I experienced CarPlay for the first time in April, when I borrowed a new Accord for a week. I was thrilled. CarPlay performed as advertised and the Accord’s larger dash screen made navigating into Ohio much easier than when using my phone. It’s neat to have CarPlay built into the central screen, but far from necessary. 

I’ve been using many of Carplay’s features for months, hands-free, in my 2010 Mercury Grand Marquis. I got the car last November and quickly bought an $11 Bluetooth FM transmitter and a phone mount. The cost-effective pair has allowed me to access many of the same features CarPlay offers—I can make phone calls, send texts, navigate places, and listen to music and podcasts with just my voice.

It’s not perfect. It doesn’t read incoming texts aloud, and there are no steering-wheel-mounted buttons to end a phone call or select the next track. Still, it encompasses most of the CarPlay experience, and automakers like GM that fail to integrate the technology will have to compete with the screens already in everyone’s pockets.

Other automakers have already distanced themselves from GM’s decisions, vocally reaffirming their commitment to the two systems, and for good reasons.

Eighty-five percent of car owners with CarPlay preferred it to the manufacturer’s built-in system, according to the McKinsey study.

Down the street from GM’s HQ in Detroit, Ford is taking a different approach. I asked Ford product manager Allen Sun earlier this year at the 2025 Explorer launch about how the automaker planned to keep people from just using their phones over the automaker’s new, in-car digital experience.

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He said it was all about integrating the digital services customers want, including Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Ford is taking that integration further in its new system by displaying maps from the two systems directly in the instrument cluster.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto were responses to consumers’ less-than-ideal experiences with automakers’ proprietary infotainment systems. They’re in nearly every car on sale today in America and are something consumers have come to love and expect in new vehicles. GM’s elimination of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto won’t guarantee that users will revert to using its own in-car system, especially when most of CarPlay’s functions are still accessible for just $11, or you can get the full touch experience for under $100.