I’ve never used Apple Play or OnStar before. Do you have experience with them and how do you like them? Are they worth the cost?
If a vehicle's entertainment system says it supports
Apple Play Apple CarPlay, that means it can use your console screen as a limited extension of your phone's display in order to control the phone's music, maps, to answer calls, etc. It does NOT allow you to type, as the idea is to be as "hands-free" as possible in order to comply with many local laws about the use of phones while driving. The Android version of this is called "Android Auto." There are also other standards (MirrorLink, etc), but in the tradition of Coke/Pepsi, Democrat/Republican, and Green/Purple, CarPlay and AA are the two dominant ones. Auto manufacturers are free to pick and choose which tribe(s) they will/won't support in order to appeal to customers (or to save on licensing fees, I suppose). For instance, GM recently proclaimed they would
stop supporting CP and go exclusively AA ...for reasons. No matter which system(s) your vehicle supports, it should still be able to pair up for phone calls, music, etc.--it just won't get the other enhanced control-your-phone features. CarPlay/Android Auto aren't subscription things, they're just "Does your vehicle support it?" things.
OnStar is GM's name for their in-vehicle cellular Internet connectivity system. Ford calls it "SYNC Connect" and other mfrs have different names, but basically it means that your vehicle has a built-in cell phone connection that you can use to make phone calls for support/roadside assistance, get in-vehicle WiFi, or connect to a mobile app that lets you start your car remotely to pre-heat/-cool or lock/unlock it. It also allows the vehicle mfr to run updates/diagnostics or gather telemetry data directly to/from the vehicle, if you're into that. Unsurprisingly, since doing this requires a cellular connection with a telecom provider, this kind of functionality almost always DOES require a paid subscription, usually after some kind of free introductory period that's there to make sure new-car buyers get all the perks while used-car buyers get all the jerks.
BOTH of these are features that have turned out to eventually have unexpected deprecation-related hiccups, such as when cell carriers ended 2G/EDGE coverage in the USA,
causing entire generations of OnStar customers to be disconnected, or when software/hardware running a vehicle's
head unit reaches end-of-life and only has USB-A 2.0 ports or is too old to support iPhone 19/Galaxy S28 or whatever. They're nice while they're supported, but I wouldn't build my entire reason for getting/rejecting a car around either of them. Your phone likely already has cellular Internet connectivity built into it (duh!), and decent, smallish Bluetooth speakers are not that expensive, so you could even add over 80% of the functionality of these systems to a 1956 DeSoto without much trouble.
--Patrick
