The Sorry State of Automaker's Smartphone Apps

Modern day automobiles are massively complex, highly technical machines. By comparison, a smartphone app seems like child's play. Unfortunately, if there is one thing that automakers can't seem to get right it is the user experience associated with the increasingly important in-car infotainment systems. Automaker's mobile apps play a large role in this dissatisfaction.

Consumer Reports Brand-by-Brand Guide to Car Infotainment Systems illustrates the problem. Only a single solution, the FIAT implementation of the Chrysler UConnect system, receives above a 63% user satisfaction rating.

This pervasive dissatisfaction has given Google and Apple an opening into the car's dashboard. Both companies are masters at creating a great user experience. Most automakers, except Toyota, have reluctantly given Google and Apple a place in the car dashboard. Toyota is one of the few automakers going it alone and having nothing to do with Google's Android Auto or Apple's CarPlay. Toyota instead, will place it's bets behind an implementation of Ford's AppLink technology. Interestingly, Ford itself has decided to augment their AppLink offering in their own cars with both CarPlay and Android Auto in their Sync 3 system.

Just how bad is the current situation?  Car Tech Blog has created this round-up of the current state of automaker's Android apps. This roundup represents the current average consumer rating of each app as of August 15, 2016, as reported by Google in the Play Store.

Think about the scores you expect from most apps that you download and use on a regular basis.  What do you look for? Perhaps a 4.0 score or above? There are only two apps out of 49 apps scoring better than 4.0.  Half of the apps score below a 3.0, usually a score bad enough to earn an uninstall by most users.

This data illustrates why Google and Apple are pushing hard for a place in-dash. With so much dissatisfaction, how can Google and Apple go wrong?