For over a decade, drivers have enjoyed safer access to key smartphone features and their favourite mapping apps through Apple CarPlay and Android Auto on their car’s infotainment display. However, being distracted by the best phones while on the water isn’t particularly advisable either is it?
That’s why it’s good to see MasterCraft – makers of the popular Crest Marine and Balise pontoon boats – adopt both CarPlay and Android Auto right off the production line. That takes the smartphone-based platforms off-road and onto the wet stuff for the first time.
Read also: CarPlay is about to get a serious upgrade
As well as quick, distraction-free access to Spotify and Apple Music, and the calendar, phone and messages apps, there’s also water-specific navigation to savour here too. Namely the Savvy Navvy app.
A press release reveals the mobile app offers access to “nautical charts, smart routing, active GPS tracking, live weather forecasts and tidal data. Like automotive, navigation will display on the same screen as other CarPlay applications. Boaters can select from day, night, or satellite view.”
It’ll be just like using Google Maps or Apple Maps to drive with. Users will be able to plan their expedition from their couch, the night before setting sail, plug their phone in (the release doesn’t say whether wireless is supported) and have access to those routes along the bayous and rivers and springs throughout the US.
However, let’s face it though, the best reason to have access to CarPlay on a pontoon is to blast that “Pontoon” song by Little Big Town and belt out those classic stanzas:
“On the pontoon,
Making waves and catching rays up on the roof
Jumping out the back, don’t act like you don’t want to
Party in slow motion
I’m out here in the open
Motorboating”
Indeed. Add Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat” to that playlist too. And the Eric Cartman rendition of “Come Sail Away”.
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