8 ms·

What I really dislike about the "you don't own this, the cloud does" is apps changing without me having a say in it. Spotify is great, but if they decide they w

What I really dislike about the "you don't own this, the cloud does" is apps changing without me having a say in it. Spotify is great, but if they decide they want a videoclip-playing-background then my phone at some random moment starts doing that. I feel like it takes some time / attention from me each time something like that happens because now I need to figure out how to turn it off or live with it. And I can't control when it happens, so I'm probably doing something else. This wasn't a thing let's say 15 years ago with the original iPod. Now imagine this happening to your car. I would sell the car as soon as possible. Cars, like ipods, are tools that should not require extra attention at random moments.

ryanmarsh 5y ago
Updates are opt in. I wish I’d researched the v11 changes before upgrading though.
- bayindirh 5y ago
  Regardless of the platform and device, updates are opt-in until a critical feature requires the latest version to even work (effectively deprecating the older versions).
- simondotau 5y ago
  Unless you can also downgrade, “opt-in” is a misnomer IMHO.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    How? You’re not forced to, are you?[a] If you can research the changes and decide to hold off, it’s still opt-in. [a]: Genuinely asking. I don’t own a Tesla
    - jedberg 5y ago
      Because a lot of times you want to actually use the new thing for a while to see if it works for you. But with no way to go back, it's a one way door, so you better have access to someone else's Tesla if you want to just try it.
      - colejohnson66 5y ago
        A one way door is still opt in. Is it scummy? Sure. But is it not opt in? No. We can argue points without hyperbole.
        tlavoie 5y ago
        See P.T. Barnum's, "This Way to the Egress" http://www.ptbarnum.org/egress.html http://www.ptbarnum.org/egress.html
        Mordisquitos 5y ago
        When the only way to fully understand the result of going through the door is irreversibly going through the door and hoping for the best, it is not opt-in. You do not have an opt, you have a guess.
        simondotau 5y ago
        Perfectly put.
    - actinium226 5y ago
      I do own a Tesla. You're not forced to. The car will alert you when there's new software available and even download it when you're connected to wifi (which I never am because I live in an apt and park far from my actual apt), but you still need to decide when to schedule the install, because it can take 30-90 minutes to complete. The UX has not yet degraded to the point where Tesla decides 'eh, you don't need your car at 3am to go to the airport/hospital today.' I do believe there are cases with critical bugs where Tesla can force the update. I have the v11 update sitting on my car and I'm not installing it until I hear some of this stuff is fixed.
    - watt 5y ago
      It nags you incredibly. Everytime you sit in the car, the pop-up is there, nagging to install now, or to schedule install overnight. The way out of the pop-up is a small [x] to close it. And the dialog is right back the next time, waiting until you (or somebody) will accidentally press the other button. I have it sitting on that screen, nagging me, and, honestly, it's depressing.
    - kwhitefoot 5y ago
      The problem is that it is all or nothing. You can't accept each new feature separately only all of them at once.
  - hamlsandwich 5y ago
    Absolutely. This is the "ratchet effect" which is everywhere in software these days. The best you can do is defer clicking the ratchet forward for a while. You can't avoid it forever, and you can't ever turn it backwards.
  - _flux 5y ago
    Many major operating system updates to computers of mobile phones are also "opt in" while not providing a way of downgrading—granted in the case of computers you can often "just" reinstall from scratch, possibly factory reset in many mobile phones has achieve the same? Granted Tesla is pretty naggy about the updates should you choose to hold off. But as far as I know, it's not limiting any functionality should you choose to do that. For example the Polar watch app simply says you need to update the app firmware to keep using the app: that's not opt-in.
- m463 5y ago
  That's just untrue. Telsa will eventually push an update through to your car over cellular. (or during service, when your car will automatically connect to the tesla service center wifi)
apsurd 5y ago
love the way you crystalized this. It's strange to me how bad UX can devolve at the hands of people whose profession is UX. I trust they aren't intentionally doing it. And other factors like ads, "need to monetize", "short-sighted KPIs", all makes sense. What mechanisms are at play that allow professional UX design teams to fuck up a car display? like literally i dont want to think when i need to defrost my window going 70mph and yet here we are
- aceazzameen 5y ago
  Sometimes a UX team is forced to follow orders from someone above their pay grade. It could be an MBA leading a new feature that wants their button in a specific spot to increase their own metrics. Or someone higher up who "has an idea." Who knows what happened with Tesla though.
  - sizzle 5y ago
    They should be held accountable along with the decision makers if people die or are injured. The lack of consequences allows these decisions to be made without user testing and can harm people needlessly.
    - LadyCailin 5y ago
      This is exactly why I think there should be an engineering license for software developers in life critical things like this. We don’t allow civil engineers to build bridges that kill people, neither should we allow software developers. If you’re writing angry birds or whatever, you can do whatever. But if your software is in a car, and it kills someone, you should lose your license to practice.
    - aceazzameen 5y ago
      I hope you include the CEO for signing off on it too.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      So many things are monitored on a Tesla, it would be interesting to see if there would be any consequences from a black box style recording where you could see that someone crashed 1s after pressing the screen struggling to find the demister.
jfoster 5y ago
Something I've noticed is that whilst big, glamorous releases tend to be more popular within many companies, evolutionary releases tend to be friendlier toward users. Products evolving more gradually doesn't entirely solve the issue you're concerned by, but users don't have to take on the full brunt of massive product changes all at once.
- Scarblac 5y ago
  But, it's a car. Not a "product". I want exactly the UI I bought, with perhaps some changes I chose myself. If the UI update is bad and the car is now worth less, you've damaged my property. Edit: apparently the updates are opt-in so it's not quite as bad, but still.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Yeah, but do they offer only security updates i.e. LTS? If they don't, you're still screwed.
- neuronic 5y ago
  There is a difference between releasing the next Instagram UI update and doing the same to a car. A big part of safe driving is the familiarization of yourself with the vehicle. Who wants to relearn their car interface every 3 months? Who needs Netflix or games on the center console of their daily driver? But yea, I supposes Tesla is betting hard on FSD making attention unnecessary and preemptively deals with driver boredom. Except FSD is no where near trustworthy especially with consideration to other drivers or - Go forbid - if you have family onboard. Just put an 12" iPad Pro into the passenger compartment it doesn't matter at Tesla pricing range anyway, at least you get one high quality machine with your purchase then.
- ljm 5y ago
  This seems to be common with B2C products/services. Does your massive redesign piss off some percentage of your consumer-users? Meh, who cares, there are plenty more where that came from. B2B? Not so much, if you care about those 6+ figure renewals afterwards.
HeavyStorm 5y ago
Don't you think there's also a discussion on the "change for the sake of change"? Was there anything wrong with the v10 design, and was it actually improved with v11? My Samsung S21 just updated to Android 12 yesterday, and with it a new One UI is on my phone. There's no striking difference here, but the size of items in the curtain have been made smaller, and the brightness slider is different. I have no clue why those things changed. The curtain seem to change every two generations at most, usually just changing spacing and size of the items. It's annoying at best, and the only positive thing is that feeling of "something new", which wanes fast. Why would companies spend budget on this kind of pseudo improvement is beyond me.
null_object 5y ago
> What I really dislike about the "you don't own this, the cloud does" is apps changing without me having a say in it. Spotify is great, but... I agree with everything you said apart from the "Spotify is great" part.

ryanmarsh 5y ago

Updates are opt in. I wish I’d researched the v11 changes before upgrading though.

bayindirh 5y ago
Regardless of the platform and device, updates are opt-in until a critical feature requires the latest version to even work (effectively deprecating the older versions).
simondotau 5y ago
Unless you can also downgrade, “opt-in” is a misnomer IMHO.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  How? You’re not forced to, are you?[a] If you can research the changes and decide to hold off, it’s still opt-in. [a]: Genuinely asking. I don’t own a Tesla
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Because a lot of times you want to actually use the new thing for a while to see if it works for you. But with no way to go back, it's a one way door, so you better have access to someone else's Tesla if you want to just try it.
    - colejohnson66 5y ago
      A one way door is still opt in. Is it scummy? Sure. But is it not opt in? No. We can argue points without hyperbole.
      - tlavoie 5y ago
        See P.T. Barnum's, "This Way to the Egress" http://www.ptbarnum.org/egress.html http://www.ptbarnum.org/egress.html
      - Mordisquitos 5y ago
        When the only way to fully understand the result of going through the door is irreversibly going through the door and hoping for the best, it is not opt-in. You do not have an opt, you have a guess.
        simondotau 5y ago
        Perfectly put.
  - actinium226 5y ago
    I do own a Tesla. You're not forced to. The car will alert you when there's new software available and even download it when you're connected to wifi (which I never am because I live in an apt and park far from my actual apt), but you still need to decide when to schedule the install, because it can take 30-90 minutes to complete. The UX has not yet degraded to the point where Tesla decides 'eh, you don't need your car at 3am to go to the airport/hospital today.' I do believe there are cases with critical bugs where Tesla can force the update. I have the v11 update sitting on my car and I'm not installing it until I hear some of this stuff is fixed.
  - watt 5y ago
    It nags you incredibly. Everytime you sit in the car, the pop-up is there, nagging to install now, or to schedule install overnight. The way out of the pop-up is a small [x] to close it. And the dialog is right back the next time, waiting until you (or somebody) will accidentally press the other button. I have it sitting on that screen, nagging me, and, honestly, it's depressing.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    The problem is that it is all or nothing. You can't accept each new feature separately only all of them at once.
- hamlsandwich 5y ago
  Absolutely. This is the "ratchet effect" which is everywhere in software these days. The best you can do is defer clicking the ratchet forward for a while. You can't avoid it forever, and you can't ever turn it backwards.
- _flux 5y ago
  Many major operating system updates to computers of mobile phones are also "opt in" while not providing a way of downgrading—granted in the case of computers you can often "just" reinstall from scratch, possibly factory reset in many mobile phones has achieve the same? Granted Tesla is pretty naggy about the updates should you choose to hold off. But as far as I know, it's not limiting any functionality should you choose to do that. For example the Polar watch app simply says you need to update the app firmware to keep using the app: that's not opt-in.
m463 5y ago
That's just untrue. Telsa will eventually push an update through to your car over cellular. (or during service, when your car will automatically connect to the tesla service center wifi)

apsurd 5y ago

love the way you crystalized this. It's strange to me how bad UX can devolve at the hands of people whose profession is UX. I trust they aren't intentionally doing it. And other factors like ads, "need to monetize", "short-sighted KPIs", all makes sense. What mechanisms are at play that allow professional UX design teams to fuck up a car display? like literally i dont want to think when i need to defrost my window going 70mph and yet here we are

aceazzameen 5y ago
Sometimes a UX team is forced to follow orders from someone above their pay grade. It could be an MBA leading a new feature that wants their button in a specific spot to increase their own metrics. Or someone higher up who "has an idea." Who knows what happened with Tesla though.
- sizzle 5y ago
  They should be held accountable along with the decision makers if people die or are injured. The lack of consequences allows these decisions to be made without user testing and can harm people needlessly.
  - LadyCailin 5y ago
    This is exactly why I think there should be an engineering license for software developers in life critical things like this. We don’t allow civil engineers to build bridges that kill people, neither should we allow software developers. If you’re writing angry birds or whatever, you can do whatever. But if your software is in a car, and it kills someone, you should lose your license to practice.
  - aceazzameen 5y ago
    I hope you include the CEO for signing off on it too.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    So many things are monitored on a Tesla, it would be interesting to see if there would be any consequences from a black box style recording where you could see that someone crashed 1s after pressing the screen struggling to find the demister.

jfoster 5y ago

Something I've noticed is that whilst big, glamorous releases tend to be more popular within many companies, evolutionary releases tend to be friendlier toward users. Products evolving more gradually doesn't entirely solve the issue you're concerned by, but users don't have to take on the full brunt of massive product changes all at once.

Scarblac 5y ago
But, it's a car. Not a "product". I want exactly the UI I bought, with perhaps some changes I chose myself. If the UI update is bad and the car is now worth less, you've damaged my property. Edit: apparently the updates are opt-in so it's not quite as bad, but still.
- oblio 5y ago
  Yeah, but do they offer only security updates i.e. LTS? If they don't, you're still screwed.
neuronic 5y ago
There is a difference between releasing the next Instagram UI update and doing the same to a car. A big part of safe driving is the familiarization of yourself with the vehicle. Who wants to relearn their car interface every 3 months? Who needs Netflix or games on the center console of their daily driver? But yea, I supposes Tesla is betting hard on FSD making attention unnecessary and preemptively deals with driver boredom. Except FSD is no where near trustworthy especially with consideration to other drivers or - Go forbid - if you have family onboard. Just put an 12" iPad Pro into the passenger compartment it doesn't matter at Tesla pricing range anyway, at least you get one high quality machine with your purchase then.
ljm 5y ago
This seems to be common with B2C products/services. Does your massive redesign piss off some percentage of your consumer-users? Meh, who cares, there are plenty more where that came from. B2B? Not so much, if you care about those 6+ figure renewals afterwards.

HeavyStorm 5y ago

Don't you think there's also a discussion on the "change for the sake of change"? Was there anything wrong with the v10 design, and was it actually improved with v11? My Samsung S21 just updated to Android 12 yesterday, and with it a new One UI is on my phone. There's no striking difference here, but the size of items in the curtain have been made smaller, and the brightness slider is different. I have no clue why those things changed. The curtain seem to change every two generations at most, usually just changing spacing and size of the items. It's annoying at best, and the only positive thing is that feeling of "something new", which wanes fast. Why would companies spend budget on this kind of pseudo improvement is beyond me.

null_object 5y ago

> What I really dislike about the "you don't own this, the cloud does" is apps changing without me having a say in it. Spotify is great, but... I agree with everything you said apart from the "Spotify is great" part.