Because the smartphone software is being continuously iterated and is critically evaluated by a billion people on a daily basis. The car software was customize

Because the smartphone software is being continuously iterated and is critically evaluated by a billion people on a daily basis. The car software was customized for that particular vehicle's combination of knobs and buttons, will be a check-box on the feature list, doesn't have any alternatives (except the phone) once you've bought the car, is lacking real-time traffic and constant map updates, was designed five years ago, was sold from a tier-two supplier to a committee at a tier-one, who sold the whole instrumentation package to an OEM, is burdened by safety and legal requirements (the vehicle must be in park, because you can't know whether it's the driver or the passenger doing the programming) ... The problems are numerous. Two things seem like a possible fix: 1. Let it hook up to your home wifi or tether to your phone. We're close to having phone data plans that can handle that in the US. 2. Provide two things: A standard set of controls (wheel, buttons, touchscreen) and an open app store. Android or iOS compatibility would be nice for developers. Together, these would mean that even if their own developers didn't get a good solution in place, the market could fix it later.