It's been just over a month since General Motors announced it would drop Apple CarPlay compatibility in its new electric vehicles as part of a larger strategy aimed at taking control of the infotainment system, and the future profits GM believes lurk there just waiting to be mined.
To be sure, aiming squarely at technology behemoth Apple is a bold strategy, though not a novel one. GM follows EV leader Tesla and upstart competitor Rivian Automotive in locking Apple out of the center stack and all the valuable information residing there.
Whether GM's strategy is as smart as it is brash will take some time to play out. CarPlay will remain on GM's internal combusion engine vehicles for now, the automaker said. GM will also stop supporting the Google-owned Android Auto phone mirroring software as is, but it is designing its new interface for EVs with Android Automotive, also owned by Google.
Historically, angering Apple customers, ignoring them or purposely locking them out has not been the most successful of business strategies. Apple has the most loyal consumers on the planet, and accounts for an estimated 57 percent of the smartphones in the U.S., according to technology research firm Counterpoint.
GM might take a look at how former Canadian tech giant Research in Motion fared when it ignored the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, thinking its BlackBerry devices were untouchable. They weren't, and Apple ultimately clobbered the BlackBerry out of existence.
The simple motivation behind GM's complex decision making in the matter is money. Like other global automakers, GM has sold investors on the idea that a veritable gold mine lies behind the infotainment screens, just waiting to be delivered. Less than two years ago, GM told investors it expects as much as $25 billion in annual revenue from software and subscription services by 2030. It has time to deliver, but as many of its legacy competitors have painfully learned, while building cars from scratch may be hard, delivering a profit-rich software ecosystem from the ground up is likely even harder.
Can GM successfully kick Apple out of its EV infotainment sandbox? Perhaps, but the decision to try to do so while other automakers continue to support CarPlay could leave GM with a seriously bloodied nose if this turns into a protracted fight. And the bell to kick off Round 1 is just about to ring.
