* Today I was listening to Audible. Wanted to pause it. Only way to do so was to look down at the phone on the wireless charging pad....way too low to be safe while driving.
* Yesterday I sent a text that said "Text <my wife's name>" to the neighbor I had texted with before I got in the car. Why? Because Tesla doesn't give any indication whatsoever where one is in the text composition process. The driver just has to know the sequence.
With Android Auto I'd be able to:
* Start/Stop Audible with virtually no visual distraction from driving. Yes - it was on a crappy, low res screen with terrible touch response. But way better than trying to manipulate the phone screen when it's on the charging pad.
* AA would walk me through the texting process, including reading the composed-but-unsent text to me to get my confirmation it was right. It really is as if there is an assistant sitting in the passenger seat.
AA was not, by any means, the bees knees. It was, however, orders of magnitude better than what is in the Tesla today.
For me, an additional baffling part of not having these technologies is Musk has said he's willing to open source car technology. Obviously he needs to have areas where Tesla can differentiate to keep their hardware competitive. But with the jump Tesla has, at the very least, on batteries and charging infrastructure, I would think he wouldn't have a care in the world of Apple catching up in the EV space. I don't understand the economics of CarPlay and AndroidAuto, but I would think he could get it for free.....that Apple would LOVE to be in the Tesla platform.