It's crazy that radar wouldn't be allowed to work with Apple Car Play just because it is visual.
I don't think that's the only counterargument, although the Apple UI guidelines, as Randy provided a link to, do emphasize minimal interactions, minimal visual display information, and guide developers toward more of a voice-based UI using Siri. Radar apps really aren't well suited to work that way. You could argue that navigation (using voice guidance) is; even though in practice, we know that the strictly voice-based interaction isn't all that perfect. Automakers do get their say as well, and many (including my former employer) have their own in-house driver distraction mitigation requirements that go beyond government regulations and AAM guidelines, having spent considerable time and money researching and developing them with the goal of avoiding lawsuits. Google the VIRTTEX driving simulator to see the one my team used. (VIRTTEX, not VORTTEX. I know... I know...). As an app developer, you would need to develop
one CarPlay-enabled app, not one for each OEM, so you would have to design your UI to the
lowest most restrictive common denominator. Anyway, I do recall the excitement to get a standardized in-vehicle app platform was tempered when the Pandora's box of rules and regulations that comes with in-vehicle UI got opened and attached to the mix.
Maybe it's something that will ultimately be allowed because it could actually *add* value as to safety (i.e., a driver could instantly visualize whether a severe storm or even just heavy rain is impacting the highway in the direction they are headed). Could just be that adding radar apps hasn't been a priority.
It could be some existing mapping app has, or will be, using radar overlays in the future and contracts may prevent competing apps. No doubt it would be the low resolution, often not updated, worthless consumer radar that some mapping apps already feature.
...and this is the other part. Automakers are going to look at what makes them money, and make decisions based on that. I know that many of us would like a good radar app that shows up on the infotainment screen, myself included. Heck, I can get stopped (as a primary offense) and issued a ticket in my state just for looking at a phone, tablet, or (presumably) laptop while driving, even if my driving is perfect while doing so. [EDIT: I think the law says I need to be holding it in my hands to get stopped. Not adventurous enough to find out.] If that exact same info is on an infotainment screen, then as long as my driving is fine, everything is A-OK. But at the end of the day, how much of the car-buying market do all of us together actually represent? The marketing managers are going to insert themselves (and their $$) into accelerating development of what
they think the car-buying market wants, and I don't think the stuff we're talking about is, well, on their radar. Sorry for the bad pun. Knowing what I know from my time in automotive, *if* we see any vehicle-enabled weather app, I would venture a guess to say it would be from someone like AccuWeather or TWC (and very consumer grade), but I'd love to be wrong on that.
Warren brings up another point. SiriusXM already has some very basic weather information (including consumer radar) in in their Travel Link product (paid subscription required). This is an auxiliary revenue stream for automakers. If another app comes along that provides the same information for free, it could eat into that revenue stream, and I don't see the OEMs getting behind that. As Warren alluded to, it may very well be part of the contractual agreement that SXM is to be the only source for in-vehicle weather info through some date, though I clearly wouldn't know the ins and outs of those contracts.
FWIW, here's what the SXM radar product looks like. This is from my 2010 vehicle. It hasn't changed much since.
