Earlier this year, Apple announced deeper integration into the infotainment applications in automobiles via Apple CarPlay. The newest rendition of CarPlay will bring content to all of the screens inside the car, including deeper integration that will use vehicle data to control experiences like changing the climate system directly through CarPlay. Last year, in a CNBC article, Kif Leswing wrote that over 80% of new cars around the world support CarPlay. That translated to CarPlay being imbedded in about 600 cars.
The business reasons for Apple working to expand CarPlay are obvious. It increases the likelihood that customers will remain in the Apple eco-system, or enter it for the first time. Of course, there is a recurring revenue business model for Apple that Apple CarPlay supports as well.
How should automakers think about the possibility that Apple will enter the automotive space as a maker of electric vehicles? How much insight into a future automotive business is Apple gaining because of its CarPlay partnerships with automakers? Are automakers allowing Apple, the supplier-partner, to become Apple, the future competitor? Importantly, who actually owns the customer in the moment when the driver or other occupant is listening to Apple Music through Apple CarPlay? Is it the automaker? Or is it Apple?