My new truck comes with a range of connected services from Toyota. Of course it has its own mapping and data connection for streaming music, but it comes with a lot more than that. All of that stuff is free for the first year (or longer), but after that, I’ll need to decide if there’s any of it that I want to pay for beyond that.
That’s a problem for future Stephen, but I already find it all a bit annoying. I really just want to use CarPlay 99% of the time. Turns out, I am not alone, as Andrew Hawkins writes:
According to JD Power’s Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, overall satisfaction among car owners is 845 (on a 1,000-point scale), a decrease of two points from a year ago and three points lower than in 2021. That’s the first time in the 28-year history of the study that the consumer research firm registered a consecutive year-over-year decline in owner satisfaction.
Unsurprisingly, more people are choosing not to use their car’s native infotainment controls. Only 56 percent of owners prefer to use their vehicle’s built-in system to play audio, down from 70 percent in 2020, JD Power found. Less than half of owners said they like using their car’s native controls for navigation, voice recognition, or to make phone calls.
Sounds like good news for General Motors!