If Bentley’s first-ever SUV, the Bentayga, seemed slightly tardy to the luxury-SUV moneymaking bonanza, then the company’s timing appears to be improving as it releases a new Apple Watch app for the Bentayga. Sure, the Apple Watch is so 2015, but given how the first Cadillac Escalade appeared in the late 1990s—not to mention the Land Rover Range Rover having existed for decades—this counts as timely. That last word, by the way, counts as a watch pun.
We’re watching you, Bentley Bentayga.
The Bentayga’s Apple Watch app effectively pairs the watch via Bluetooth to the SUV’s infotainment system, meaning an onboard user can choose to manipulate a variety of vehicle settings through their Apple wristwear. It can’t, as do some other automotive Apple Watch apps, remote-start the car, or control anything if the user’s paired iPhone isn’t connected to the Bentley’s infotainment system. Yet, as Bentley puts it, the app affords “the luxury of control on your wrist.” (Other wrist-based control mechanisms include handcuffs, but the luxuriousness of them depends on whether they’re fur-lined or not.)
A Bentayga Apple Watch app user can change climate-control, seat-position, massage, and audio settings via their wrist device. This would seem cool if it weren’t for the large touchscreen already fitted to the Bentley’s dashboard—why reach across your body to the opposite wrist to tap out commands on a tiny screen—while driving—when you could do the same on a larger screen? An Apple Watch wearer also can glean real-time vehicle information such as its speed, distance traveled, and the outside temperature. Again, useful, but then what about that gauge cluster the driver faces? We’re thinking the Bentayga app better serves, say, a rear-seat passenger who can’t be bothered to control those things user their own console. The app also serves only folks who own a Bentayga, although it’s free to download now via the iTunes app store. Which means it costs $231,825 less than the price of a new Bentayga—and nearly $170,000 less than the Bentayga’s other timepiece-based option, a Breitling dash clock.
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