personal anecdotes, but the vast majority of me being a passenger to someone else's driving, they all used their mobile device for GPS. even the couple of cars i owned that had a nav system, the GPS came from the mobile device. it required their app to be installed to input the destination, making the internal unit just a second screen for your mobile.
From my experience with two cars with factory nav, it's nice because it will show the next instructions in the the dash area, so when you're looking down to check speed you also get that. And, one of my cars has an option to show the next several instructions (Ford Sync2, which everybody hates because the UI is really slow, and kind of ugly). On the other hand, pay to play for data updates sucks. And most importantly, safety requirements mean you either have to yell at the car and deal with dated voice recognition or stop to adjust things; even if you have a responsible passenger who could use the touch screen.
Mostly, I just use my phone. It's simpler and faster. My cars are too old for carplay/android auto, and my experience with android auto was that it was worse than the phone in a clip or a cupholder, but carplay seems nice. For longer drives to unfamiliar places, I'll put the address in the car too, sometimes the phone gets tired of listening to GPS.
I was recently driving to visit a friend near Mt Baker, WA. and about 10 miles out, in a not particularly wooded area, the phone said 'lost GPS signal' and just assumed I had stopped moving, and wasn't able to pick up GPS again for the rest of the drive. Not a huge deal, because I was just following the road and only had one last turn to make, and I had directions from the car's nav anyway.
GPS seemed to work ok on the return trip. And I was getting an LTE signal for most of the drive too (gets pretty spotty at my friend's house, but I was streaming music when the GPS stopped, and that kept working)
Sorry, I don't have a debugging tale here; almost all of my excursions into figuring out why an Android device is doing something wrong leave me wondering if the device is doing anything right, and usually without any more insight into the original problem. Not going to try to do it, unless it's important, and probably not on a vacation.
so you're one of those that likes to make cute and endearing backstories to give sympathy to an inanimate object rather than getting irate at a mechanical something that you pay a monthly service not working correctly because the thing to get mad at is out of your realm of control and that anger serve no purpose.
I use CarPlay if I'm actually navigating, not the built-in Garmin. But it's an improvement over looking at the phone awkwardly clamped to an air vent.
I suspect most people don't use most of the native manufacturer apps even if they sort of need to provide them. Aside from rarely changing some settings, my touchscreen is mostly just a screen.
That's because in car GPS tech has historically been absolutely atrocious. An example: 2008-2012ish Toyota Camrys had a GPS system that used a DVD for map data. Not only was it out of date immediately (and cost $150 per new DVD from the dealer), it was insanely slow.
Nowadays, there's a few companies that actually seem to do a decent job of GPS in the car itself: Mercedes has a good tech in their new EVs that seems smooth. Android automotive (not auto) cars have built in Google maps such as Polestar, the new Cadillac EVs, and some other Chevy products do well. Although it's not much different than just having an android phone with android auto. And, of course, Teslas own system which is all inhouse.
There's little reason to use a phone in the traditional phone holders if you own one of those cars.
My dad, who's a fairly recently retired techy, is the only exception I know. I'm assuming it's based on perceived safety and less need to take his eyes off the road.
Granted, he took a long time getting a smart phone because they weren't allowed in his secured office, while dumb phones with no camera where allowed longer. On the other hand, he's also automated his home (a few times with updates), so it's really the one weird outlier.
personal anecdotes, but the vast majority of me being a passenger to someone else's driving, they all used their mobile device for GPS. even the couple of cars i owned that had a nav system, the GPS came from the mobile device. it required their app to be installed to input the destination, making the internal unit just a second screen for your mobile.