Opel's goal with this new system is to offer the highest and best possible connectivity between smartphones and cars. In addition to the Astra, Opel promises to renew the entire range of infotainment systems equipment in its cars throughout 2016, so that this connectivity will be available from the Moka to the Insignia.
Opel will offer the new IntelliLink system compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto across its range before the end of 2016.
The two solutions from Google and Apple are quite similar: they make heavy use of the mobile phone as a "brain", and display their apps on the vehicle's main screen, so that you can run apps and other services that work from the phone, using its data connection, while viewing them in the car. This should allow the successive evolutions of the applications and the renewal of phones to allow us to continue having the latest car, even if we keep it for six years, for example. And the fact is that the pace of technological renewal, where product cycles are in the range of 12 to 18 months, is not comparable to the four-wheel industry, where product cycles take up to eight years.
CarPlay and Android Auto promise to allow us to use voice commands, make calls, look up addresses and... well, many of the things you can already do with the more expensive infotainment systems in some cars, but concentrating everything with the phone, and adding aspects such as streaming online radio or reading messages or e-mails.
And I think... if all I want to do is drive...
