Spotify recently released a dedicated screen for your car that essentially mirrors your phone, but with the added bonus of a volume/navigation knob. Best as I can tell, it’s for people who have a phone (and a car), but who don’t have CarPlay or Android Auto. The name?
I’m not sure if the device will stick around for long — and I sense that it won’t — but I do appreciate the self-aware silliness of the name.
I’m sure that folks at Apple, Amazon, and Google spent untold hours thinking of names for the HomePod, Alexa, and Google Home/Nest Mini. But with Car Thing, it seems obvious that Spotify’s marketing team just accepted from the outset that no one would really stick with a clever name, and just embraced what people would end up calling it.
Plus, the literature says it does one thing well, and that’s something I can get behind.
Silicon Spatula 