First, let’s take a look at just what Apple has introduced for us here:
…and here’s Apple’s description: Before we get into my asking the Big Question, let’s look at the design of the gauge clusters themselves. These are especially interesting because they’re the clearest reminder that what Apple is making here is not just another center-stack infotainment system, but rather an entire operating system/user experience for your car, replacing whatever the original carmaker came up with. I actually think these instrument clusters are generally pretty good, no matter how much grousing comes from people online and even right here in The Autopian’s vast, filthy breakroom-furnace room. Here are some examples Apple showed:
Now, I’m not saying there are no problems here; the circular gauges without hashmark divisions don’t make a whole lot of sense, and the fake-analog-gauge, almost-skeuomorphic ones have foolishly tiny text on them. Also, I really don’t get the prominent inclusion of the compass on many of these, especially since all of these cars certainly have actual GPS, map-based nav. Is there anyone who is really craving knowing how many degrees NW they’re facing? In fact, the general tone and look of these reminds me a lot of some gauge cluster ideas I made back in 2016:
To be sure, I had some hashmark-less gauges myself, there. And, it’s not like OEMs have been generally doing anything that great with their instrument gauge digital design, anyway:
Presented with the terrifying freedom of the blank slate of a full-color LCD display for instruments, most carmakers have either tried to replicate physical gauges, or have seemingly just been baffled about what best to do, creating a mess like that Prius cluster there (bottom one) or making elegant, but largely useless clusters like the Tesla Model S one on the right, which uses a tiny amount of the screen real estate to show you useful stuff (speed, battery range, outdoor temp) and lots more space is used to show a portrait of the car and a techy-looking graph that really doesn’t help you drive any better. Some carmakers have been doing a good job on their dash displays, like Ford:
But, is even that so different than the CarPlay gauges? Not really. No, the bigger news here has to do with this:
Apple showed how CarPlay can take over pretty much any size and shape display in a car, and many new cars are coming out with long, full-dash display setups , like the Mercedes-Benz EQS, for example. In this case, all of that vast screen real estate can be populated with widgets from iOS, little panels that could potentially display, well, pretty much anything. This is where the Big Question comes in. Before I became an automotive journalist, celebrated and/or reviled depending on what sort of taillight bar I’m in, I was a user interface/user experience designer, working on interfaces for desktop and mobile and all sorts of applications. I can tell you that the sort of design shown in these widgets is pretty much the same as you’d find for most mobile devices, usually the sort that don’t have a motor or wheels and weigh about 3,998 pounds less than a car. [Editor’s Note: Glad you stated your qualifications for that truly shocking insight. -DT] These widgets are designed to be legible and able to capture your attention when needed. None of the widgets shown here are actually necessary to drive a car, and, in many cases, have the potential to take away the driver’s attention enough to become something of a hazard.
A lot of these widgets may be for things we’d expect to deal with in a car, anyway: music or podcast apps, perhaps HVAC controls (though, in the shot Apple provided the temperature controls are restricted to the edges of the bottom bar of the center screen) but several of the ones seen in this example shot are decidedly non-important to driving, and would require real focus to read/pay attention to, like the calendar widget there or the air quality widget or those two analog clocks or the weather in the center display. Based on what Apple demonstrated, it would be technically trivial to add a texting widget or a video-chat widget or Facebook widget or, hypothetically, any app could be in there, a web browser or a dating app or Wordle or whatever. Even if there are restrictions and safeguards to prevent non-driving apps from showing up in the instrument cluster area (those clocks and compasses shown are iffy), there are still plenty of dash real estate that can be used for these possible widgets, as Apple showed. The thing is, all of these non-driving-focused apps or features could be – and absolutely are, on a daily basis – accessed on a driver’s phone. Drivers routinely read texts or check websites or try to hook up with people or choose podcasts or whatever on their phones as they drive, and the act of that requires much more attention taken from that big window in the front of the car and the task of driving than glancing at a dash display does. So, The Big Question here is this: Is it actually worse to have non-driving-task-related displays on the dashboard, formatted and designed for dash display, than it is to have people actually looking down at their phones while driving? I know the ideal is that you shouldn’t be looking at your damn phone at all while you’re driving, but we all know people do it. So should our cars vainly try to cling to an ideal circumstance that doesn’t actually exist, or should a car’s UX accept the failings of human nature and do what it can to try to mitigate the consequences? I’m not a fan of putting non-driving-related displays on the instrument cluster, or, really, driver-facing dash at all. The passenger can have a separate one with whatever they’d like, why not? But, at the same time, I think I’d rather have a driver be able to glance at a display of an incoming text on the dashboard, which is placed at an optimal location for the line of sight and allows the hands to stay on the wheel, than for that same driver to hear their phone buzz and fish it out of their pocket to look. So, I admit, I’m a little conflicted. As much as I’d like to be a hard-ass and say this is all terrible, and these sorts of frivolous widgets have no place on a dashboard, I’m also a human being, with faults and flaws ingrained and mixed in me like peanuts and marshmallows in Rocky Road ice cream, so I know that we make bad decisions every day, all the time. As you probably expected, this idea got me a lot of blowback already, even before we published this. David fundamentally doesn’t seem to get my point, and Thomas thinks that adding any extra distractions is a bad idea. I don’t think either of them are wrong. However, I also wonder if maybe accepting people’s bad habits and taking some control of them could make sense. What if you could add almost any dash-app widget you want, but doing so locks out the app on your phone, and the widget could at least be designed to limit the amount of attention/interaction demanded? Is that a reasonable solution that takes into account the worst of our natures? This way, people who may be willing to do stupid things by interacting with a particular app could at least be mollified by getting whatever essential bit of interaction they need, but framed and designed in a way that is the most minimally invasive or distracting. Or, maybe that would just open up the possibility of incredibly distracting dashboard displays? But, maybe that’s still better if it gets people off their phones, which takes even more focus away from driving than glancing at the dashboard would? I genuinely don’t know if what I’m suggesting is right, but I think it’s a question worth asking, especially now since this new CarPlay has essentially made all of these possibilities far more accessible, even if we’re not seeing all the possibilities demoed right out of the gate. The other, safer option would be to just lock out all phone use while driving, but I feel like that would be a non-starter for many, many people. What I’m wondering is if perhaps there’s a way to meet people and their bad habits half-way, which may be better than pretending people won’t do stupid things behind the wheel. None of these solutions are perfect, but, then again, neither are we, which is why we’re here. I’m really curious to hear what you think about this! I do think there is also something to designing for harm minimization rather than refusing to acknowledge common undesired behavior. It doesn’t mean accepting that text-while-drivers are fine and we should have native tiktok on the cluster though I am not. Suggestions ————— All new cars should have a HUD standard with a very limited list of things that can be displayed: Possible examples : Speed (digital numerals), Compass (N, NE, E, SE and so on only), Outside temperature, Simple display of directions (Simple arrow showing left turn, straight etc, and a numeral display of distance), maybe song title/artist of what is being played. However, everything displayed has to be as simple as possible. No fancy colors and animations. Just easy to read information that assists with driving The Cluster ————— Gauges – the big 2m and smaller 6 or whatever is the current (past) normal gauges Light emitted is included in the maximum light that is allowed to be admitted at night. No fancy animations, just a colored display of car information. Car in park and not moving, show porn or kids movies for all I care. Have animated fireworks Be as distracting as you want and can. Suggestions ————— All new cars should have a HUD standard with a very limited list of things that can be displayed: Possible examples : Speed (digital numerals), Compass (N, NE, E, SE and so on only), Outside temperature, Simple display of directions (Simple arrow showing left turn, straight etc, and a numeral display of distance), maybe song title/artist of what is being played. Display size is to be limited to a small area and general location. However, everything displayed has to be as simple as possible. No fancy colors and animations. Just easy to read information that assists with driving The Cluster ————— Gauges – the big 2m and smaller 6 or whatever is the current (past) normal gauges Light emitted is included in the maximum light that is allowed to be admitted at night. No fancy animations, just a colored display of car information. Car in park and not moving, show porn or kids movies for all I care. Have animated fireworks Be as distracting as you want and can. There are aspects I love about modern car innovation, namely things that reward driving enthusiasts such as more hp per liter, more direct power delivery via dct’s, better chassis design, drive mode selection, etc. and, yes AUGMENTING the experience with good features that genuinely improve your ability to enjoy driving. However, stuff like this seems like forcing features for the sake of innovation and “newness” without actually thinking if it will make things BETTER. So many features on moder cars are innovation gimmicks: FSD? Gimmick Lane keep assist and auto braking? Gimmick (and annoying) Most 3rd row seats in SUVs? Gimmick (Most SUVs for that matter): Gimmick More and more, the features being introduced are features intended for the non-car enthusiast, and instead focus on flashy, popular boxes to check, like specs on a cell phone. Plus, if I prefer android phones to apple phones, will I have to avoid Mercedes cars now? I wish a major auto manufacturer would be bold and introduce lines of cars with option packages for the driving enthusiasts – with minimal gimmicks (and without having this be a “track focused package” I have to pay more for), while having other packages for those looking for all the wiz-bang features. Just give me a car that has a direct feel, I enjoy driving, and doesn’t beep and freak out at me as a feature…. And get off my lawn. And then I thought about the possibilities! Digi-dashes like a modern Starion Technica package… something that would be at home in Cyberpunk and Tron! Love it! And more importantly, I would pay for it. Anything that requires human control should keep the safety, real time metics, convenience and infotainment in separate displays and controllers. We should not have an expectation that lag, errors or hardware issues could negatively impact display and interaction. I don’t want to think about the quantity of life saving information that may me hidden because the phone cpu is overworked or if an app catches an unknown error. This may be nice for onboard productivity and entertainment screens when we go full autonomous, but as long as humans require information to make decisions this is s very bad idea. Is the information potentially distracting? Yes. Are humans going to get that information somehow while driving? Yes. Do we have to force them to take their hands and eyes away from the act of driving to access it? No. Is Apple going to convince people to buy a $800-$1200 iPhone for their car, like they have you buy an iPhone for each of their kids, or will you have to buy a faceless Car Play module every year that supports the latest features? (two year old iPad Pros just got that particular shaft with iPadOS.) Will there be a $2000 designer Hermes display that’s only available with a Hermes Car iPhone? (they already do that with the Apple Watch). Apple marketers live in a very peculiar bubble. SO, now that weve established the DEVICE… the idea of paying with it.. is mind boggling as is the idea of the passenger.. who is completely engrossed in the bullshit display… Probably wouldnt notice that the door was left open — as people do… and in many places.. the car gets JACKED.. and ya wind up with a massive problem… cause no one paid enough attention at the REAL shit, instead of staring at a device. If PC_(new car play) > PC_(old car play), then the new CarPlay is bad. If not, new CarPlay is good. The only difficulty here is finding the values for C and P. There no morality dilemma here. Seriously, when was the last time you had a Bluetooth connection—or wireless connection of any kind, really—that was perfectly reliable and nuisance-free? How often do you have to force-quit an app or reboot your phone to resolve some glitchy situation? For me, the answers are “never” and “all the time,” respectively. Are you OK with that in your gauge cluster? As to the widget thing, I’m in the camp that says they should be seriously restricted. Opening up the car’s dash to the kind of distracting bullshit that, yes, people already look at all the time while driving, creates a moral hazard. It normalizes the behavior of using one’s phone as a distraction from the often-boring-but-vitally-important task of driving the car, and makes it more acceptable. That’s not OK, and I’d venture to say that in an ideal world there would be (effective, well-designed) regulations preventing that kind of shit. There’s also the risk compensation aspect; if you make doing non-driving-related tasks easier and less distracting, people will feel free to do them more, and you’ll lose some or all of the benefit that you were hoping for. It’s a bad idea all around. If automakers want an Apple-designed UI for their cars, they should just contract with Apple to design it for them and build it into the vehicle. It might well be better than what we have now, Apple is overall pretty good at UI. I don’t want my phone just taking over, though. This doesn’t seem like it’s going to go well. As for the current “screens everywhere” trend, I’m hopeful that some smart developer can use the new widgets to develop a good “night driving” mode — red or amber gauge/digits for speedo/tach/fuel and idiot “lights” only in the binnacle, low backlight brightness, all other screens off. That guy/gal/giraffe/whatever will be a hero for people who drive outside the urban zones, especially in deer country where good night vision counts and there aren’t streetlights. Backlit screens with bright backgrounds are TERRIBLE for night vision. We can hem and haw over widgets all day but the bottom line is that without physical controls, the entire idea is garbage. SO… Im going to trade in a damn fine yet 18yr old vehicle.. for a laptop on wheels.. who’s only function is to make others rich by selling my info.. offering to customize my “screen”…. How bout ya customize my interior as I want! How bout ya change the interior colors as I want. How bout ya change the exterior colors as I want. How bout the damn vehicle.. do as I fucking want.. all the damn time. Showing me a massive screen.. with bullshit info on it… man, what a load of crap. Its not useful to me. If the damn battery dies.. or if the H.D crashes from too much shit.. then what? JUST another sign.. if YOU the driver being removed from driving the damn car. Also… ya turning a half decent vehicle into a entertainment object. I can entertain myself. SHIT, I can entertain everyone. I dont need stupidness like this to show me shit. Ive got rubber, vinyl and color and manuel shit everywhere. The fuck does anyone need this for? I feel bad just for skipping songs on my windshield-mounted phone or adjusting route details on google maps while driving. On the other hand, if you could arrange the vehicle info and controls where you want them, that might be nice. But I see no reason at all to have various apps and widgets cluttering up the dash. In the end, this another reason I’m holding on to older cars, I much prefer the gauges and knobs, things you can adjust by feel while watching the road.
