Drivers With Apple CarPlay-Equipped Vehicles Listen to Twice As Much Streaming Content as Those Without, Says Survey

If you’re perplexed about your vehicle’s audio and infotainment systems, you’re not alone:
Car owners have been perplexed about such systems since the sole source of entertainment in a vehicle ceased being a simple AM radio.
All that began to change  when Apple entered the auto infotainment field with its CarPlay in-vehicle infotainment system.
Apple first introduced CarPlay nine years ago at the 2014 Geneva Auto Show. If you’re not familiar with Apple CarPlay, it is an in-vehicle touch-based display interface that functions as an extension of a driver’s iPhone and six years later, it became available in almost every new vehicle sold.  Android Auto is a similar system intended for use with Android-powered smartphones.
Apple CarPlay in a Jaguar F-Type SVC
With the plethora of options available to CarPlay users, what would one surmise that drivers listen to?  Perhaps some opera via the Apple Music Classical app or the latest Broadway hits via Apple Music.  Or perhaps you are a purist and prefer to enjoy the quality of FLAC, an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, from Tidal, or you want to tune in to your favorite radio stations in Germany and Austria such as O3 or Energy München or Bayern Klassik via the Tune-In app, which gives users over access to over 100,000 radio stations across the globe.
According to a recently published study by market research firm Edison Research entitled In-Car Listening and Infotainment Systems, drivers with automobiles that have Apple CarPlay (and possibly Android Auto) listen to… terrestrial AM/FM radio more than anything else.
These drivers, Edison said, spend 46% of their in-vehicle time listening to terrestrial radio and 18% listening to services supported by CarPlay such as Apple Music and TuneIn. They also spend 19% of their time listening to satellite radio.
However, drivers of automobiles without Apple CarPlay and Android Auto spend half the amount of time listening to streaming services such as Apple Music – some 9% – and 67% of the time listening to terrestrial radio.  They also spend 12% of their in-vehicle time listening to satellite radio.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)