With Apple getting into the navigation business with iPhones and iPads, odds favor a smartphone or tablet with conversational voice recognition being your next car navigation system. It would cost a lot less than car navigation does now. Some automakers are forging alliances with Apple to embed a Siri button on the steering wheel to retain some control over their future. So the arrival of $600-$800 integrated navigation from Nissan, Ford and GM may be too little, too late.

At Apple’s WWDC on Monday, everyone oohed and ahhed at the three-quarter-inch thick MacBook Pro and news that Siri, as of iOS 6, is coming to the iPad. The auto announcements may be more far-reaching. Apple said it will move from a mostly-maps offering (it shows your destination and a highlighted route currently but has no spoken directions) to a full navigation system with spoken, turn-by-turn directions. TomTom stock jumped because TomTom is partnering with Apple while shares of other PND makers and Harman, one of the makers of pricy in-dash navigation, fell.

Later this year, you’ll be able to use your iPhone or, if you can find a sturdy mount, iPad as a navigation system. Actually, you can now if you add third-party software such as Telenav, MotionX, or VZ Navigator. Apple handicapped them, however, by not allowing Siri to interact with them. Apple calls it “eyes free” technology because much of the interaction will be voice-based and you won’t need to look at the display that much. There’ll also be crowd-sourced real-time traffic information (RTTI). Rather than build from the ground up, Apple apparently is partnering with Waze, as it’s partnering with TomTom (and dumping Google) on maps. Even the best commercial RTTI isn’t all that accurate, so if you’re not perfect, at least be free.

How are automakers responding to the Apple announcement? For sure, they’ll remind you of the same old same old: built-in navigation means a bigger display, better display location, no cords and wires clutter the cockpit, convenient steering wheel controls, and increasingly secondary navigation displays in the instrument panel or head-up display. This may play better in the luxury segment, where $2,000 extra on a $60,000 car may be palatable. Of course, that’s also the segment most likely to own both an iPhone and iPad and know how good Siri is.

Some automakers are going to make their peace with Apple and play along. General Motors, Honda and Toyota have said they will employ Siri technology. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz say they’re considering it. By pressing the Siri button, you talk to your Apple device via Bluetooth, and it would set up a navigation route, recall calendar appointments, or dictate texts. (The missing automakers are those aligned with Microsoft, including Ford, Hyundai, and Kia; along with Nissan and VW. Some may be considering but haven’t come out of the closet yet.)

GM is hedging its bets. It’s working with Siri, but GM earlier this year announced GoGo Link, a $50 smartphone app from EnGIS Technology of South Korea, that would link any smartphone to the car’s dashboard LCD display. It’s especially for entry cars such as the Chevrolet Sonic and Chevrolet Spark. Chevrolet rolled out the Sonic last fall without a navigation option and with a USB jack included only on the costliest model. GM is adding a touchscreen LCD called MyLink to 2013 Sonics and Sparks that will be required to use GoGo Link.

What’s wrong with in-dash navigation? Everything, other than the fact that it’s built-in and displays on a big screen. Most automakers charge $1,500-$2,000. There’s no way to swap out the hardware when it’s out of date. Map updates cost $150-$300. The POIs (on the disc) get dated quickly. Even the best car-navigation voice control requires some knowledge of syntax, while with an Apple or Android phone you just say “Take me to Miami Beach.” Most automakers lock out the address-input controls when you’re under way, so if you have to change or correct an address when you’re driving a busy road with no place to pull off, you’d better hope you’ve memorized that part of the manual. It may be too little too late, but navigation is standard on the $30,000 Hyundai Azera, it’s $595 in the 2013 Nissan Altima, and an increasing number of Fords such as the Ford Escape and GM cars such as the GMC Terrain offer SD Card navigation for $795.

The automakers have been caught in a mindset where new cars come out every 5-7 years and they may not put in a new navigation system if the model has “only” three years left. They have also believed every aspect of their vehicle has to be different from the competition even if proprietary designs and low volume help jack up the cost of things like navigation. The $200 dashtop navigation system and smartphone navigation had a sobering effect. The quality of Apple Siri embarrasses automakers, most of whom use the same underlying software (from Nuance) as Apple does.

The question of whether Ford Sync or Cadillac CUE is a better interface is irrelevant compared to how much better they’d both be using the Apple or Android voice recognizers. No small part of the Apple-Android quality comes from doing voice recognition off-board, at a server in the cloud. Every automaker with a telematics module (built-in data modem) such as OnStar could do that, too. It takes a couple seconds to get a result back and automakers felt that would annoy customers. Instead, they’ve chosen to annoy users with imperfect voice recognition.

Ironically, all this is happening just as automakers have the ability to sell navigation for less than $500. Nissan is almost there with a premium offering (Bosch hardware, Navteq maps) at $595. The problem will be that even if everything else is better with a built-in, non-Apple/Android voice recognition may seem inferior.

Next page: Lawsuits will fly if automakers lock out Android