Garp

I can think of a number of reasons. I could remember to turn on my phone's hotspot every time I get in the car and let the family use that, but this would give them seamless ability to stream to their hearts content without me having to do anything and without every device having it's own data plan. Potentially I could even throw my old android phone in the car without a sim and just have it use the WiFi for Android Auto without having to plug in my phone each time. If you already have unlimited data on some or all of your devices then this probably is redundant, but if you don't it's a fairly cheap way to get lots of data right where I suspect a lot of people use most of their data when out and about. I have access to WiFi almost everywhere, if I also had it in my car to stream music, I could cut my data use significantly. It's not for everyone, but it seems cheap for what it is.

Another random data point that may point towards how this will be priced, Chevy is now offering unlimited data for $20/month: https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/02/chevy-unlimited-lte-data/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29 I'm sure there's fine print and restrictions etc, and that doesn't cover the additional fees for OnStar, but if Ford can keep their monthly fees in the same ballpark I'd be a taker.

It's software, it's almost always going to be out of date. A cavalier attitude would be to roll out the new version without proper testing and without having the infrastructure in place to support it. If you are comfortable with living on the bleeding edge and the small possibility of things being broken, you can download the software and install it yourself. If you want the factory to stand behind it 100% then don't complain that it isn't available until they determine they are ready to do that. It's the same with Windows, I can download the latest "Insider Preview" from Microsoft and get new features, and understand that things may break, or I can wait for the regular update cycle. There are beta testers and there are regular users, the risk/reward choice is yours.

I've had the new side bar since installing Beta 1 about a week ago and it definitely makes navigating within Carplay easier. Other than that the beta has been pretty uneventful. I was glad to see the changes though, at least Carplay is still on the radar at Apple and getting some attention. I think I read recently that Carplay is now available on over 200 different models, so hopefully app developers will pay it more attention too.

I'm hoping it's not that expensive. Verizon already has their "Hum" which it sounds like this is based off, and that's in the $30 range: https://www.verizonwireless.com/connected-devices/hum-by-verizon/ I can see it being a bit more with the hotspot and remote start etc, but I suspect the upfront cost will be maybe around $150? They'll make it up on the monthly subscription for the data

Not huge, but I did notice that the outside Temp display (and clock?) that are displayed in the header of the sync screen are now mirrored in the footer of the screen to the right of the Speedo. This is handy as the sync header can't be seen when using Android Auto, and presumably CarPlay as well. Seems well thought out on Ford's part. I also noticed that there is a menu option to re-index a media device, which I'm pretty sure is new and is better than having to do a master reset