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Most car software is rubbish. So far, everything that my car replaces with a touchscreen that used to be a physical switch is a complete downgrade. My car fea

Most car software is rubbish. So far, everything that my car replaces with a touchscreen that used to be a physical switch is a complete downgrade. My car features a D-pad on the wheel that also works if you swipe over it, resulting in bad inputs and causing all kinds of frustration. It's my first new car and I'm feeling like I want my old car back. I seriously hate touchscreen controls and my only physical input is faulty

the_snooze 5y ago
It's probably reasonable to assume that car touchscreens are designed more to "look cool" at the time of sale than to actually be usable over the life of a vehicle. Car salesmen get to show off all sorts of high-tech bells and whistles, and that's more immediately impressive to buyers than the long-term practicality of physical knobs and switches.
- Cxckers 5y ago
  Hopefully, those same customers will know better when coming to buy their next car after that, therefore reducing desire for touchscreen controls and hopefully, their extensive usage
  - the_snooze 5y ago
    I doubt that'll happen. It'll probably take the same trajectory as (smart) TVs: these crappy designs become the industry norm and it becomes very difficult to find alternatives.
    - Loughla 5y ago
      This is the answer. I would prefer to buy physical switches and dials, but the options just aren't there. So I'm stuck with laggy, buggy, bad software and a stupid touchscreen full of features that I will never use. Seriously, who needs to be able to play movies in their car's center front console?
      - the_snooze 5y ago
        At least as of two years ago, Honda pushed back against touchscreens dominating the center console: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32797/long-live-buttons-hondas-not-sold-on-touchscreens https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32797/long-live-buttons-hondas... But looking at the 2022 HR-V, it seems like they've given up on that design philosophy: >The automatic climate control system offers a high-tech touch-screen interface... https://automobiles.honda.com/hr-v#interior https://automobiles.honda.com/hr-v#interior I'm of the opinion that the only touchscreen that belongs in a car is a barebones non-networked Apple CarPlay / Android Auto pass-through for sound and navigation. All other controls are physical.
      - Schroedingersat 5y ago
        Also, why can't we just have a fucking shelf or a bracket. Ever since radios stopped being a standard rectangle, and the dashboard was filled with kevlar sacks and explosives there's nowhere to put anything down.
        JohnBooty 5y ago
        As of 5-6 years ago some (many? most?) cars still had a good old standard double-DIN slot for the infotainment unit, if you popped off the dashboard's plastic cover. No clue if that's still true; I think it has become less true over time for sure. There are benefits to automakers for retaining that standard form factor. Most factory-branded infotainment systems are made by a handful of OEM manufacturers like Bose. Bose makes systems for multiple automakers. So the double-DIN form factor has persisted, it's just hidden. Problem is, for most cars, the climate controls and shit are all bundled into that infotainment system. So you can slot a standard double-DIN stereo into most modern cars, but you need a replacement dashboard panel and fairly elaborate kit to replace the OEM climate controls and whatever else. Metra is a company that makes those kits, I think they were pretty much the only game in town last I looked into this. https://www.crutchfield.com/S-57MGZyBW0Mm/fg_112200_FFBrand%7CMetra/Metra-Dash-Kits.html https://www.crutchfield.com/S-57MGZyBW0Mm/fg_112200_FFBrand%...
    - dfxm12 5y ago
      On a somewhat related note, Mazda has said a few years ago that they will be staying away from touchscreens. I'm not sure if they've followed through. https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-touchscreens-from-its-vehicles https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      Can't wait until we get in-car ads!
- dfxm12 5y ago
  I think this is part of it, "iPhones are cool, and this is like a giant iPhone!", but I think a larger part of it is that it's easier to design/program for and actually possible to update after the fact if that's required. There's probably something here for using the same parts across a whole line of cars, too vs testing and fitting buttons.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Either that, or cost-savings. One off-the-shelf touchscreen... vs. lots of little custom-molded and printed analog parts that have to be assembled by costly robots or costlier humans. Big savings, I think. Whatever the case, it sure isn't because people like touch controls in their cars. Holy shit, what a universally reviled "feature."
  - koz1000 5y ago
    Touchscreen engineer here. There is no such thing as an 'off-the-shelf' capacitive touchscreen. There is always custom engineering to match the customer's housing and bezel, tune the analog characteristics to the electrical environment, and handle other requests like a safer/thicker cover glass, optical bonding to the LCD, and low friction or hydro/oleophobic coatings on the surface.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      No one is denigrating this work, but it's obviously easier to consistently get right than the fiddly processes GP describes. There is a rectangle of a particular size, and various substances are applied to it. You didn't mention UI design, which is the worst aspect of this technology.
    - JohnBooty 5y ago
      Thanks for this informative reply!
jliptzin 5y ago
I think touchscreen controls are fine as long as the car also has voice commands that work well so you don’t even have to look anywhere else while driving much less touch the console
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  I won't trust someone to get voice recognition right when they can't even get an on-screen UI right.
yojo 5y ago
When I bought my last car (Honda Fit), I was stuck with the base model because it was the only one without a touch a screen. I test drove the upgraded trim package. It was nicer in every way but the damn touch screen, which was a non-starter. I had to wait three months for a cheaper car to come in, instead of buying the upgraded package on the spot. At some point a manufacturer will get wise and start selling manual controls as an upgrade.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  That's the same reason I bought the base model of my last car. Besides the steering wheel, you end up interacting with the center console the most. It really should be one of the top considerations in buying a car vs fancy wheels, a cool spoiler or a turbocharger, etc. After all, a lot of body components & engine modifications can be added after market. You're going to have a much harder time "fixing" that center console...
  - yojo 5y ago
    It’s too bad the manufacturers don’t just make APIs with swappable standard sized hardware instead of integrated systems. An average car lasts 12 years. How many 12 year old tablets do people want to use? My first car was a 15 year old beater with a tape deck. It was trivial to rip it out and put in an (at the time current) CD player. I pity the poor kids who are going to be stuck with these cars down the road.
- delusional 5y ago
  Mazda already wised up and removed the touchscreen in their newer models, everything in the infotainment is operated by a little rotary/dpad-thing located near the gearshift. I think it's quite nice, input wise. Software wise it's a complete mess. The software itself is actually pretty OK, the navigation is just very verbose and it's strange that I can't just update it myself. The startup is also quite annoying. It's an embedded computer in a car, it should be instant. Android auto support is a trashfire. It occasionally (when i drive for more than an hour) crashes the entire infotainment system, forcing it to reboot (a 1 minute process). Thankfully it resumes from where it left off after the reboot.
ramesh31 5y ago
>Most car software is rubbish. Why is this? You'd think these massive corporations could afford the best SWE's in the world. And yet, the average infotainment system in a new car today is literally worse than an iPad from 2010.
- burnoutgal 5y ago
  Car companies do a lot of revenue, but margins are slim. When you actually have to build something out of metal and glass you have to be fixated on cost cutting.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Which is crazy, I've never chosen a car because it costs 1k more or less, but I have ruled out several manufacturers because their UI is awful, and I'm sure it doesn't costs $1k to put half a dozen real switches in
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      100%. There must be a hell of a lot of chumps out there who are impressed by a shitty touchscreen.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  It is not their core competency.
- sircastor 5y ago
  I worked in infotainment for an Automaker. The engineers are fine. The hardware is often limited (because of expense or contacts), and the development timeline is 2-3 years. Also, infotainment is not a make-or-break feature of the car. It might nudge people a little, but it’s not the thing, so it’s not as high a priority. I will say for my former employer that I could get a better salary at almost any software company than there. The work was interesting though.
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stadium 5y ago
It's also on a 5 year supply chain cycle. That brand new touch screen was spec'd and designed 5 years before the finished car was made.
JohnBooty 5y ago
My wife has a 2019 Subaru Crosstrek that gets this exactly right, IMO. There is a touchscreen. IMO, you want that for Apple CarPlay / Android Auto. Mostly for nav. But for everything else, there are big grippy analog controls. There are also analog volume and prev/next controls for the touchscreen. I believe the interior was designed with the concept of, "everything should be operable, even if the driver is wearing gloves."
- pcdoyle 5y ago
  Yeah this is how my Hyundai Kona (2020) works and I think it's a good bridge between both. Touchscreen for CarPlay navigation, knobs on the dashboard, and additional buttons on the steering wheel (volume up/down, skip, mute, answer call).
- munificent 5y ago
  > There is a touchscreen. IMO, you want that for Apple CarPlay / Android Auto. Mostly for nav. More importantly, federal law requires that new cars must have back-up cameras. Car manufacturers are doing the obvious analysis of, if we need to have a screen in there anyway, may as well make it a touchscreen. And if we're going to make it a touchscreen, may as well save some money by eliminating a bunch of physical controls. I don't like it—I plan to drive my 2002 Tacoma into the ground specifically to avoid getting a car with a huge touchscreen UI—but I kind of understand it.
NoSorryCannot 5y ago
Mazdas don't have touchscreens, incidentally. It's one of their design constraints.
- comrh 5y ago
  Mine from 2014 does, did they remove them? It also has the navigation nob in the center console that I love.
  - jordanthoms 5y ago
    Yes, it’s removed on newer models, though not across all the products yet
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    They switched to a jog-shuttle knob. I think BMW had a similar interface at one point.
duxup 5y ago
I wish I could just mirror my phone screen on my car screen. That's all I need, my phone apps and interface update just fine and are pretty good at doing the things I want.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  That is essentially what Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are. The phone generates a secondary screen with a simplified UI and projects that to the car. The car displays it as a video and returns touch events to the phone.
  - duxup 5y ago
    I had a rental with Apple CarPlay, it worked well but I still got the impression that the system in the car played a big part... it was an interface but I'm not sure it wad driven by my phone. That of course means it could be at the whim of some silly car infotainment type setup. At least that's the impression I got.
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      It's 100% driven by your phone, what you're seeing is just a video stream from the phone. The infotainment system essentially acts as a dumb terminal. The phone feeds it video, and it feeds the phone X,Y touch coordinates. It also feeds the phone some data about the car, but there is no way for the car to directly modify the interface since it's literally just a video stream.
      - duxup 5y ago
        TY, I didn't know that. Thank you.
      - aczerepinski 5y ago
        But some of the car companies are trying to charge a subscription for it anyway if I recall correctly?
vgeek 5y ago
The biggest disappointment was manufacturers moving away from the DIN standard. Companies like Pioneer and Alpine (even defunct companies like Eclipse) have had highly functional and usable touchscreen DVD/stereo/GPS units since at least ~2005. Things like GPS, bluetooth and voice control all seem to work without fail on the units I've had (my only issue has been a folder limit on USB drives). They also focus on sound quality, so you can get higher quality audio from the unit via RCA jacks to an amplifier. All of this for <$500 with GPS, <$200 without GPS. If the car companies want tight integrations (things like OBDII tying into display, climate controls) an OEM developed touchscreen makes sense, but as a consumer, using a 20 year old OEM touchscreen is painful. Modularity (the DIN standard) solved this, by allowing easy upgrades, but I guess that doesn't help move newer cars.
- rampant_ai 5y ago
  Infotainment systems are one of the biggest selling points if you've seen any car ad lately. Why let the customer upgrade the unit and keep that same car for a decade, when you can make that impossible and then entice them with the latest infotainment system so they buy a new car every few years.
  - criddell 5y ago
    It isn’t unheard of: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32254313/1960s-porsche-911-touchscreens-apple-carplay/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32254313/1960s-porsche-91...
  - vgeek 5y ago
    Right, and that is what I don't get. The "fancy tech" isn't really that great relative to alternatives available in the past, but everyone is somehow unaware. Aftermarket stereos were mainstream during the 80's-90's during the tape->CD transition, so more people knew that they could upgrade, but in the mid-late 00's, hardly anyone seemed to know that you could swap a stereo out relatively easily. For modern cars I've looked at, the dash kit for swaps makes it insanely expensive. Popular vehicles may have custom aftermarkets, but niche cars are out of luck. So many people just look for any reason to get a new car, I guess that is just a side effect of treating cars like replaceable appliances?
jyrkesh 5y ago
I drive a 2005 stick shift that sits on a Toyota Corolla block. It has a dumb radio with real buttons, and no power windows or power locks. It's amazing. Maintenance is cheap, stuff works. I have a Bluetooth FM radio dongle, and the audio quality is less than ideal, but my speakers are crap too, so who cares. I threw on a dash mount for my phone to do navigation and music, and it's wayyyy better than even decks with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto (particularly since most of that stuff, until very recently, required you to plug in a cable). I'm going to drive the thing into the ground. Really not looking forward to the idea of buying a car full of computers to replace it. That being said, fuel economy isn't _great_. If the odometer is to be trusted I get around 25 mpg, but I don't drive all that much, and I just don't think a hybrid or electric vehicle is worth the price, both upfront (particularly in this market) and maintenance (for the hybrids only, electrics seem to be maintenance-free).
- userbinator 5y ago
  25mpg definitely doesn't sound right for a Corolla. That's roughly what I can get in my fullsize car if I try not to "stretch its legs" too much ...and it's got a big V8.
  - rascul 5y ago
    Edmunds has the 2005 Corolla rated at 29 mpg. 25 mpg 17 years later seems plausible. https://www.edmunds.com/toyota/corolla/2005/features-specs/ https://www.edmunds.com/toyota/corolla/2005/features-specs/
  - thebruce87m 5y ago
    Remember US gallons are different
762236 5y ago
I keep wondering why the car reviews don't mention how bad the software can be (like having to wait ages for the system to boot).
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  Just like any reviewer, they're dependent on the car companies continuing to give them cars to review. If they shit on them too much then they risk getting banned.
partiallypro 5y ago
I imagine this is why Apple is wanting to get into the car game, it sees this opporunity.
- munk-a 5y ago
  To reduce all inputs to a single button that you tap in different patterns to trigger different functionality or to remove all physical ports (including the fuel tank inflow) with wireless equivalent that only work with approved hardware? The folks I want to get into the car game are mechanics from the 90s that believe a switch with a nice deep "click" for feedback is the best thing ever invented.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Siri, brake.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    "Now playing songs by Drake."

the_snooze 5y ago

It's probably reasonable to assume that car touchscreens are designed more to "look cool" at the time of sale than to actually be usable over the life of a vehicle. Car salesmen get to show off all sorts of high-tech bells and whistles, and that's more immediately impressive to buyers than the long-term practicality of physical knobs and switches.

Cxckers 5y ago
Hopefully, those same customers will know better when coming to buy their next car after that, therefore reducing desire for touchscreen controls and hopefully, their extensive usage
- the_snooze 5y ago
  I doubt that'll happen. It'll probably take the same trajectory as (smart) TVs: these crappy designs become the industry norm and it becomes very difficult to find alternatives.
  - Loughla 5y ago
    This is the answer. I would prefer to buy physical switches and dials, but the options just aren't there. So I'm stuck with laggy, buggy, bad software and a stupid touchscreen full of features that I will never use. Seriously, who needs to be able to play movies in their car's center front console?
    - the_snooze 5y ago
      At least as of two years ago, Honda pushed back against touchscreens dominating the center console: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32797/long-live-buttons-hondas-not-sold-on-touchscreens https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32797/long-live-buttons-hondas... But looking at the 2022 HR-V, it seems like they've given up on that design philosophy: >The automatic climate control system offers a high-tech touch-screen interface... https://automobiles.honda.com/hr-v#interior https://automobiles.honda.com/hr-v#interior I'm of the opinion that the only touchscreen that belongs in a car is a barebones non-networked Apple CarPlay / Android Auto pass-through for sound and navigation. All other controls are physical.
    - Schroedingersat 5y ago
      Also, why can't we just have a fucking shelf or a bracket. Ever since radios stopped being a standard rectangle, and the dashboard was filled with kevlar sacks and explosives there's nowhere to put anything down.
      - JohnBooty 5y ago
        As of 5-6 years ago some (many? most?) cars still had a good old standard double-DIN slot for the infotainment unit, if you popped off the dashboard's plastic cover. No clue if that's still true; I think it has become less true over time for sure. There are benefits to automakers for retaining that standard form factor. Most factory-branded infotainment systems are made by a handful of OEM manufacturers like Bose. Bose makes systems for multiple automakers. So the double-DIN form factor has persisted, it's just hidden. Problem is, for most cars, the climate controls and shit are all bundled into that infotainment system. So you can slot a standard double-DIN stereo into most modern cars, but you need a replacement dashboard panel and fairly elaborate kit to replace the OEM climate controls and whatever else. Metra is a company that makes those kits, I think they were pretty much the only game in town last I looked into this. https://www.crutchfield.com/S-57MGZyBW0Mm/fg_112200_FFBrand%7CMetra/Metra-Dash-Kits.html https://www.crutchfield.com/S-57MGZyBW0Mm/fg_112200_FFBrand%...
  - dfxm12 5y ago
    On a somewhat related note, Mazda has said a few years ago that they will be staying away from touchscreens. I'm not sure if they've followed through. https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-touchscreens-from-its-vehicles https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    Can't wait until we get in-car ads!
dfxm12 5y ago
I think this is part of it, "iPhones are cool, and this is like a giant iPhone!", but I think a larger part of it is that it's easier to design/program for and actually possible to update after the fact if that's required. There's probably something here for using the same parts across a whole line of cars, too vs testing and fitting buttons.
JohnBooty 5y ago
Either that, or cost-savings. One off-the-shelf touchscreen... vs. lots of little custom-molded and printed analog parts that have to be assembled by costly robots or costlier humans. Big savings, I think. Whatever the case, it sure isn't because people like touch controls in their cars. Holy shit, what a universally reviled "feature."
- koz1000 5y ago
  Touchscreen engineer here. There is no such thing as an 'off-the-shelf' capacitive touchscreen. There is always custom engineering to match the customer's housing and bezel, tune the analog characteristics to the electrical environment, and handle other requests like a safer/thicker cover glass, optical bonding to the LCD, and low friction or hydro/oleophobic coatings on the surface.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    No one is denigrating this work, but it's obviously easier to consistently get right than the fiddly processes GP describes. There is a rectangle of a particular size, and various substances are applied to it. You didn't mention UI design, which is the worst aspect of this technology.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    Thanks for this informative reply!

jliptzin 5y ago

I think touchscreen controls are fine as long as the car also has voice commands that work well so you don’t even have to look anywhere else while driving much less touch the console

Nextgrid 5y ago
I won't trust someone to get voice recognition right when they can't even get an on-screen UI right.

yojo 5y ago

When I bought my last car (Honda Fit), I was stuck with the base model because it was the only one without a touch a screen. I test drove the upgraded trim package. It was nicer in every way but the damn touch screen, which was a non-starter. I had to wait three months for a cheaper car to come in, instead of buying the upgraded package on the spot. At some point a manufacturer will get wise and start selling manual controls as an upgrade.

dfxm12 5y ago
That's the same reason I bought the base model of my last car. Besides the steering wheel, you end up interacting with the center console the most. It really should be one of the top considerations in buying a car vs fancy wheels, a cool spoiler or a turbocharger, etc. After all, a lot of body components & engine modifications can be added after market. You're going to have a much harder time "fixing" that center console...
- yojo 5y ago
  It’s too bad the manufacturers don’t just make APIs with swappable standard sized hardware instead of integrated systems. An average car lasts 12 years. How many 12 year old tablets do people want to use? My first car was a 15 year old beater with a tape deck. It was trivial to rip it out and put in an (at the time current) CD player. I pity the poor kids who are going to be stuck with these cars down the road.
delusional 5y ago
Mazda already wised up and removed the touchscreen in their newer models, everything in the infotainment is operated by a little rotary/dpad-thing located near the gearshift. I think it's quite nice, input wise. Software wise it's a complete mess. The software itself is actually pretty OK, the navigation is just very verbose and it's strange that I can't just update it myself. The startup is also quite annoying. It's an embedded computer in a car, it should be instant. Android auto support is a trashfire. It occasionally (when i drive for more than an hour) crashes the entire infotainment system, forcing it to reboot (a 1 minute process). Thankfully it resumes from where it left off after the reboot.

ramesh31 5y ago

>Most car software is rubbish. Why is this? You'd think these massive corporations could afford the best SWE's in the world. And yet, the average infotainment system in a new car today is literally worse than an iPad from 2010.

burnoutgal 5y ago
Car companies do a lot of revenue, but margins are slim. When you actually have to build something out of metal and glass you have to be fixated on cost cutting.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Which is crazy, I've never chosen a car because it costs 1k more or less, but I have ruled out several manufacturers because their UI is awful, and I'm sure it doesn't costs $1k to put half a dozen real switches in
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    100%. There must be a hell of a lot of chumps out there who are impressed by a shitty touchscreen.
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
It is not their core competency.
sircastor 5y ago
I worked in infotainment for an Automaker. The engineers are fine. The hardware is often limited (because of expense or contacts), and the development timeline is 2-3 years. Also, infotainment is not a make-or-break feature of the car. It might nudge people a little, but it’s not the thing, so it’s not as high a priority. I will say for my former employer that I could get a better salary at almost any software company than there. The work was interesting though.
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

stadium 5y ago

It's also on a 5 year supply chain cycle. That brand new touch screen was spec'd and designed 5 years before the finished car was made.

JohnBooty 5y ago

My wife has a 2019 Subaru Crosstrek that gets this exactly right, IMO. There is a touchscreen. IMO, you want that for Apple CarPlay / Android Auto. Mostly for nav. But for everything else, there are big grippy analog controls. There are also analog volume and prev/next controls for the touchscreen. I believe the interior was designed with the concept of, "everything should be operable, even if the driver is wearing gloves."

pcdoyle 5y ago
Yeah this is how my Hyundai Kona (2020) works and I think it's a good bridge between both. Touchscreen for CarPlay navigation, knobs on the dashboard, and additional buttons on the steering wheel (volume up/down, skip, mute, answer call).
munificent 5y ago
> There is a touchscreen. IMO, you want that for Apple CarPlay / Android Auto. Mostly for nav. More importantly, federal law requires that new cars must have back-up cameras. Car manufacturers are doing the obvious analysis of, if we need to have a screen in there anyway, may as well make it a touchscreen. And if we're going to make it a touchscreen, may as well save some money by eliminating a bunch of physical controls. I don't like it—I plan to drive my 2002 Tacoma into the ground specifically to avoid getting a car with a huge touchscreen UI—but I kind of understand it.

NoSorryCannot 5y ago

Mazdas don't have touchscreens, incidentally. It's one of their design constraints.

comrh 5y ago
Mine from 2014 does, did they remove them? It also has the navigation nob in the center console that I love.
- jordanthoms 5y ago
  Yes, it’s removed on newer models, though not across all the products yet
- Tagbert 5y ago
  They switched to a jog-shuttle knob. I think BMW had a similar interface at one point.

duxup 5y ago

I wish I could just mirror my phone screen on my car screen. That's all I need, my phone apps and interface update just fine and are pretty good at doing the things I want.

Tagbert 5y ago
That is essentially what Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are. The phone generates a secondary screen with a simplified UI and projects that to the car. The car displays it as a video and returns touch events to the phone.
- duxup 5y ago
  I had a rental with Apple CarPlay, it worked well but I still got the impression that the system in the car played a big part... it was an interface but I'm not sure it wad driven by my phone. That of course means it could be at the whim of some silly car infotainment type setup. At least that's the impression I got.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    It's 100% driven by your phone, what you're seeing is just a video stream from the phone. The infotainment system essentially acts as a dumb terminal. The phone feeds it video, and it feeds the phone X,Y touch coordinates. It also feeds the phone some data about the car, but there is no way for the car to directly modify the interface since it's literally just a video stream.
    - duxup 5y ago
      TY, I didn't know that. Thank you.
    - aczerepinski 5y ago
      But some of the car companies are trying to charge a subscription for it anyway if I recall correctly?

vgeek 5y ago

The biggest disappointment was manufacturers moving away from the DIN standard. Companies like Pioneer and Alpine (even defunct companies like Eclipse) have had highly functional and usable touchscreen DVD/stereo/GPS units since at least ~2005. Things like GPS, bluetooth and voice control all seem to work without fail on the units I've had (my only issue has been a folder limit on USB drives). They also focus on sound quality, so you can get higher quality audio from the unit via RCA jacks to an amplifier. All of this for <$500 with GPS, <$200 without GPS. If the car companies want tight integrations (things like OBDII tying into display, climate controls) an OEM developed touchscreen makes sense, but as a consumer, using a 20 year old OEM touchscreen is painful. Modularity (the DIN standard) solved this, by allowing easy upgrades, but I guess that doesn't help move newer cars.

rampant_ai 5y ago
Infotainment systems are one of the biggest selling points if you've seen any car ad lately. Why let the customer upgrade the unit and keep that same car for a decade, when you can make that impossible and then entice them with the latest infotainment system so they buy a new car every few years.
- criddell 5y ago
  It isn’t unheard of: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32254313/1960s-porsche-911-touchscreens-apple-carplay/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32254313/1960s-porsche-91...
- vgeek 5y ago
  Right, and that is what I don't get. The "fancy tech" isn't really that great relative to alternatives available in the past, but everyone is somehow unaware. Aftermarket stereos were mainstream during the 80's-90's during the tape->CD transition, so more people knew that they could upgrade, but in the mid-late 00's, hardly anyone seemed to know that you could swap a stereo out relatively easily. For modern cars I've looked at, the dash kit for swaps makes it insanely expensive. Popular vehicles may have custom aftermarkets, but niche cars are out of luck. So many people just look for any reason to get a new car, I guess that is just a side effect of treating cars like replaceable appliances?

jyrkesh 5y ago

I drive a 2005 stick shift that sits on a Toyota Corolla block. It has a dumb radio with real buttons, and no power windows or power locks. It's amazing. Maintenance is cheap, stuff works. I have a Bluetooth FM radio dongle, and the audio quality is less than ideal, but my speakers are crap too, so who cares. I threw on a dash mount for my phone to do navigation and music, and it's wayyyy better than even decks with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto (particularly since most of that stuff, until very recently, required you to plug in a cable). I'm going to drive the thing into the ground. Really not looking forward to the idea of buying a car full of computers to replace it. That being said, fuel economy isn't _great_. If the odometer is to be trusted I get around 25 mpg, but I don't drive all that much, and I just don't think a hybrid or electric vehicle is worth the price, both upfront (particularly in this market) and maintenance (for the hybrids only, electrics seem to be maintenance-free).

userbinator 5y ago
25mpg definitely doesn't sound right for a Corolla. That's roughly what I can get in my fullsize car if I try not to "stretch its legs" too much ...and it's got a big V8.
- rascul 5y ago
  Edmunds has the 2005 Corolla rated at 29 mpg. 25 mpg 17 years later seems plausible. https://www.edmunds.com/toyota/corolla/2005/features-specs/ https://www.edmunds.com/toyota/corolla/2005/features-specs/
- thebruce87m 5y ago
  Remember US gallons are different

762236 5y ago

I keep wondering why the car reviews don't mention how bad the software can be (like having to wait ages for the system to boot).

brokenmachine 5y ago
Just like any reviewer, they're dependent on the car companies continuing to give them cars to review. If they shit on them too much then they risk getting banned.

partiallypro 5y ago

I imagine this is why Apple is wanting to get into the car game, it sees this opporunity.

munk-a 5y ago
To reduce all inputs to a single button that you tap in different patterns to trigger different functionality or to remove all physical ports (including the fuel tank inflow) with wireless equivalent that only work with approved hardware? The folks I want to get into the car game are mechanics from the 90s that believe a switch with a nice deep "click" for feedback is the best thing ever invented.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
Siri, brake.
- munk-a 5y ago
  "Now playing songs by Drake."