14 DAY TRIAL // While Windows Phone has long been my favorite mobile platform, I never tried to hide the fact that iPhones are excellent devices and despite the high price, they certainly bring a lot of value for the money.
This obviously turned me into a long-time Apple customer, having used pretty much all iPhone models released so far. Since the iPhone 6, I’ve owned every single new generation that Apple released.
But despite using an iPhone as my daily driver, I couldn’t help but admit that sometimes Apple not necessarily exaggerates, but it is too strict on the restrictions that it embraced for its platforms. That’s true, all these policies help make the iPhone more secure than other devices, but at the same time, they also contribute to usability limitations that some customers might not agree with.
I for one didn’t mind living in Apple’s walled garden as long as my data was secure and the iPhone remained an innovative and reliable device that I could safely use without being concerned about crashes or things like that during my daily routine.
Things have changed though, and not only that Apple has lost the innovation factor, but its devices have also become very buggy, making some people think that the company is always in a rush to ship new products without spending too much time for testing. Coupled with the company’s strategy of keeping everything secret, this left users all alone in their struggle to resolve problems on their iPhones. Including me, that is.
And the more the company went further with the strategy, the more obvious it became for me that giving up on my iPhone might be the only way to go. And eventually, it did become the only way to go. For me, and I am only talking about my case, it’s all happening because of Apple’s stubbornness to block things that others have happily embraced.
Trying to use Apple CarPlay was the thing that made me say “enough is enough.” While I must admit that setting up CarPlay is a super-flawless experience because everything is performed all automatically with no user interaction, not the same thing can be said when it comes to actually using it.
“Apple wants us to give up on everything just to use an iPhone.”
First of all, the app support for CarPlay isn’t as rich as many are tempted to believe. That’s true, there are so many apps that can be used inside a car, but truth is that only a few of them are really helpful. And despite so many choices in the App Store, you’ll end up installing just a handful of them.
But the bigger problem is the ban on navigation app. Without a doubt, navigation solutions are what most drivers are looking for when setting up CarPlay, but Apple has somehow decided that forcing them to use Apple Maps is the perfect strategy to increase the user base of its mapping service. Well, it’s not.
While not having Waze inside my car is a deal breaker for me, I decided to give Apple Maps a try, only because I wasn’t yet ready to replace my iPhone with an Android device. Because you know, Android devices come with Android Auto, which, in its turn, comes with just as many apps as CarPlay, including navigation apps.
The bigger problem is that Apple Maps is such a terrible service that my home address doesn’t even show up on the map. I remember I sent Apple feedback on this more than a year ago and still no change since then.
Replacing an app like Waze with Apple Maps is something that I’m not willing to do, and just because of this, I can’t use the iPhone inside the car. Therefore, I can’t use one of the key features of my car, and it’s all happening because of Apple’s stubbornness.
If you can’t imagine how frustrating it is to buy a new car and discover that CarPlay comes with so many restrictions, here’s a message posted by someone on Apple’s Discussion forums and who experienced the very same problem:
“Just bought a Mercedes GLA with AppleCarplay. I was so excited to at last plug my Iphone to run my favorite apps on my dashboard. My enthousiasm melt like a bucket of icecream trowed in a supernova when carplay forced me to use Apple Maps for navigation (and didn't let me look at my agenda but this is another story).
I took a deep breath and tought to myself "Surely, Apple Maps can't be as bad". But after two weeks of giving Apple Maps a chance : I'm sorry, it really really is far away from Waze or google maps. I had to get back to my stupid Iphone holder suck to my window (wich was the reason I moved to carplay and changed my car)
It is so important to me that I must say goodbye to 10+years with Iphone and switch to Android.”
These are exactly my thoughts as well. By the looks of things, Apple expects everyone to make all kinds of compromises and leave everything else behind just to be able to use an iPhone. Want to send ringtones to your iPhone? Use iTunes. Want to use your iPhone with CarPlay? Use Apple Maps. Want to change icons on an iPhone? You can’t.
There are so many disgruntled CarPlay users out there that some turned to the most extreme workarounds, such as using only Google Maps voice navigation because that’s the only thing that Apple allows.
So yes, after so many years with an iPhone, it becomes pretty clear for me that Apple’s stubbornness leads to restrictions that I’m not willing to deal with. If Apple expects me to change my whole life just to be able to use an iPhone, that’s not going to happen.
There you go. Buh-bye Apple, hello Android. End of rage.