Luminary Blur

Ben Hinc

Reading Between the Lines — March 31, 2023

Reading Between the Lines

Reuters:

General Motors (GM.N) plans to phase out widely-used Apple CarPlay and Android Auto technologies that allow drivers to bypass a vehicle’s infotainment systems, shifting instead to built-in infotainment systems developed with Google for future electric vehicles.

And:

GM’s decision to stop offering those systems in future electric vehicles, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, could help the automaker capture more data on how consumers drive and charge EVs.

And:

The automaker is accelerating a strategy for its EVs to be platforms for digital subscription services.

A surface-level reading of this article instantly riles up any frequent user of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. For many, the first thing they do when getting in their vehicle is plugging their phone in. For those fortunate enough to have wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, it just happens, as is the case for some GM vehicles. Perhaps it takes someone who doesn’t use either smartphone projection technology to dig a little deeper.

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Chromium’s Gain Is the Web’s Loss — December 10, 2018

Chromium’s Gain Is the Web’s Loss

John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball:

This difference in priorities is why Google forked Chrome’s rendering engine from WebKit in 2013. Which, in turn, makes me wonder what the endgame will look like with Microsoft adopting Chrome. Is Microsoft really going to stick with Chrome, under Google’s ultimate control, or will they fork it, the way Google forked WebKit?

Gruber’s question is the wrong one. The concern isn’t that Microsoft might fork Blink — the rendering engine that underlies not just Chrome but the Chromium open-source base upon which Chrome is built — but that its choice of Google’s project over another puts more control of the internet under Google’s purview.

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