Jaguar Land Rover vehicles are a technical achievement in their own right, but the company has been asleep at the wheel in one very important way: Supporting smartphone screen mirroring technology. Finally, the carmaker has come around and decided to include support for both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in its 2019 line of vehicles.
The ability to mirror your smartphone on your vehicle’s in-car dash will be available to you if you pay for the optional Smartphone Pack in the 2019 lineup of Jaguar Land Rover cars. The add-on will run you about $300, according to CNET. It will be available in all vehicles with an InControl Touch Pro or Touch Pro Duo infotainment system, which includes navigation tools, InControl apps, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Support for CarPlay and Android Auto features also comes standard in the 2019 I-Pace, the first all-electric car produced by Jaguar.
If you’re not ready to upgrade your car yet to buy into the 2019 models, there is some backward compatibility with Jaguar Land Rover vehicles produced in previous years — though it’s on the tricky side. Older cars with the previously mentioned InControl Touch Pro or Touch Pro Duo infotainment systems are technically eligible, but the vehicle must also have the right type of USB ports to work. To make sure you meet all of the requirements to run Android Auto and CarPlay in your car, Jaguar Land Rover recommends swinging by your local dealership and having them figure it out.
Actually getting support for these services in the older cars also requires going to the dealership. The cost of the upgrade is at their discretion, so be prepared to potentially pay a fee in order to get access to CarPlay and Android Auto in your previous model Jaguar or Land Rover.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay have made their way into a number of newer vehicles and are increasingly becoming a standard feature. The features are important tools for making sure drivers don’t get distracted by fiddling with their phones and can keep both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road without feeling too far from their device of choice.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.