considering that their software systems are unique and that they would want to make more money out of this, i think it's best for them if they require you to own their unit to use their software.
1) people need to stop having holy wars over what samart phone they use.
2) Jeep is signed on both with apple carplay and google's open automotive alliance.
3) This technology has NOTHING to do with the existing levels of bluetooth connection.
4) This is very much the car equivalent of a docking station for a laptop, except for your smart phone. The head unit will act as an additional display of sorts, as well as audio and probably video i/o for the device, and as some form of user input/access to the UI. Kind of like a smart watch linked to your phone, but the accessory is a car. Claims that it's going to get all proprietary because google/apple like giving their hardware the advantage are silly. From this perspective it's like a really expensive speaker dock on steroids. They want them to pay the licensing fee for compatibility, and prevent things like are happening where the NHTSA wants to regulate categories of software that might be used in a car.
So just like some cars support launching pandora on your phone now, this enables that in a standard way supported by the phone's OS. IT will likely also allow more advanced stuff like using it as an auxilliary display. IN a perfect world that would mean your phone based nav would jsut pipe the touch controls and display to your head unit over bluetooth, but who knows what the actual plan is and what version 1 will look like.
willy pretty much nails the problem with
" I know I would be more than a little bothered if my vehicle choice was dictated by what phone I own."
Both apple and google know that, and absolutely don't want a a car purchase preventing platform adoption by customers. With the average car age on the road being 11 years, if you are the flavor they are trapped with, it sounds awesome. Knowing you have a $20k+ extremely durable barrier preventing you form taking market share form your competitors in a market that has run through most of its rapid early growth? That's a nightmare for them.