Apple puts iOS into your dashboard with CarPlay

It sounds so simple — having your dashboard screen show and act as a larger version of your smartphone — and yet the complexities of technology and business have meant it's been well nigh impossible to pull off reliably across the auto industry. Today, Apple announced it would finally launch a system known as CarPlay that would make iOS apps and Siri at home on the road.

Blame a lack of common standards, the long lead time to develop new models and the industry's own intransigence toward ceding control of technology. While several suppliers, including Google, Microsoft and Blackberry, all offer competing systems with similar goals, none has proven essential enough to stand as a selling point for the car itself. (The exception: Tesla's 17-inch touchscreen, powered by open-source Linux, and a feature other automakers may soon mimic.)

Coming later this year from six automakers — Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo — Apple says more than a dozen other brands have signed on to eventually offer the software, including Toyota, Chevrolet and Ford. Designed to work with iOS 7 in iPhones 5, 5C and 5S, the system ties Siri to a designated push-to-talk button on a steering wheel, where the virtual assistant can read and respond to messages. Apple's Maps app can serve as a navigator, and of course iTunes links in as well; Apple said some other third-party programs like Spotify and iHeartRadio can take advantage of the controls as well.

Entertainment and software controls remain a major headache for many new-car buyers. Complaints about those systems top surveys of owners by J.D. Power and Consumer Reports, and the difficulties of Ford's Sync/MyFordTouch system have hurt its reliability rankings across its models. Other automakers haven't fared well either, and efforts by some companies to develop their own in-dash apps have been slow to take off. If Apple's system proves adept enough, it could take the role of a industry standard that no one else has so far.