15 ms·

Car showed pop-up while driving

250 points by cpach 3y ago

nocoiner 3y ago
SiriusXM periodically demands that I assent to their new terms and conditions (despite the fact that I’m frequently on a trial or pre-paid subscription). I think I can ignore/dismiss it indefinitely without it cutting service to the radio but eventually I get so tired of seeing it each time I start my car, I just agree to it. So, exactly what they want to happen. Well played, SiriusXM. I sort of can’t believe that there haven’t been more court cases on clickwrap licenses. They seem pretty obviously to be procedurally unconscionable, but I guess there’s generally no money in challenging them. I wish at least Congress would make arbitration provisions illegal in consumer contracts (or at a minimum require a meaningful opportunity to opt out).
- thedaly 3y ago
  There needs to be clear regulation, with defined penalties or precedent, forbidding the practice for these to go to court.
zwieback 3y ago
I wonder if this could theoretically happen for the main display in front of the steering wheel. Are there safety standards carmakers have to certify to when it comes to speedometer, etc.?
- bri3d 3y ago
  Yes. Extremely strict ones having to do with the visibility, reliability, and availability of certain UI elements as well as warning lights. In the US, this is all governed by the FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards). This is part of the reason why you'll still see separate warning lights or really weird/ugly overlays for some warnings on modern digital dashboards - in many situations, the safety critical / regulated information is actually being blitted to the screen by a _separate safety processor!_ running an RTOS, while the whiz-bang main display is powered by some commodity SoC running Linux or QNX.
  - KMag 3y ago
    I really wish smart phone display chipsets had this blit overlay functionality for TOTP (including a per-device symmetric encryption key for importing/exporting TOTP secrets such that the main processor can deny itself future access to the secret, but the phone can still generate TOTP codes, without the TOTP processor needing to store all of the secrets itself). We've seen multiple secure enclave exploits. It's too bad some of this security functionality isn't baked into the display chipset. Yes, it's probably ugly (even if the chipset allows some forms of theming the TOTP code display), but it's better than having your brokerage account, your work login, etc. all exploited due to some 0day. It's also better than carrying around a handful of RSA physical tokens on your keychain (modulo phone breaking/being stolen/running out of battery).
datalus 3y ago
This is why I refuse to buy anything after a certain date when it comes to cars. Luckily I have the ability and resources to maintain and fix my own vehicle.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  I'll continue driving my loud gas guzzling 19mpg car for as long as I can keep it going because these ultra connected new cars are abominations
  - version_five 3y ago
    The real impetus behind electric cars is vendor lock in and monitoring. It brings a clean slate to the currently robust repair market.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
      It truly sucks that they require a pound of flesh here, you can't have this nice thing without selling your soul. There is nothing that prevents them from respecting the user and allowing repair.
      - version_five 3y ago
        Greed? It's a pretty textbook case for regulation.
        2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        Greed is fine but ideally we would also have competition where one can vote with their wallet for a less connected old-school car.
        version_five 3y ago
        Ideally I agree. The issue seems to be that barriers to entry are too high. There is so much regulatory capture in the automotive industry, everything is arrayed in favor of incumbents.
josefresco 3y ago
Reminds my of when I tried to resurrect and old DJI drone with an out of date iPad mini for a controller. I turn on drone, launch the app and try several times to take off and fail. Try one last time assuming failure and it starts to take off! But then... Just as the drone starts to drift towards me, several notifications pop up within the app/iOS preventing control and sending me into a panic. Drone hits the house shredding a few blades, starts to careen and then before it hits me, a brave family member grabs the landing strut and keeps it in a death grip until I can dismiss the warnings and "land".
- phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
  At this point I’ll just try to build anything I need from the ground up myself.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    Ardupilot and MavProxy are a great starting point.
    - phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
      Thanks, I haven’t heard about mavproxy.
- samtho 3y ago
  Instead of legislating pop over messages to happen (looking at cookie messages), we just need to legislate these trash interruptions away. I didn’t begin using the device I purchased to be interrupted by something that had literally no bearing on my life, I cannot effectively use the device if I decline, and the existence of such can cause harm if I am working with something sensitive.
  - boatsie 3y ago
    on that note, is anyone ever voluntarily, knowingly clicking the “accept all” other than to dismiss these? Like why not just legislate that you can’t do the kind of tracking they are asking because I’m pretty sure literally nobody wants it…
seansh 3y ago
Reminds me of the old "If cars were like computers" post. https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/crash.htm https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/crash.htm
- callalex 3y ago
  This list is hilarious, by my calculations about 5 of the 10 sarcastic scenarios they presented have become 100% true of the cars they themselves sell today.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Indeed, number 10 is a dead ringer and many others are too close to true for comfort. I had to pull over on the side of the road and completely stop and restart (reboot) my F-350 a number of times to get the radio to work again. Luckily that model had redundant physical controls for the environmental controls...
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  > Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car. > $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon. Disregarding the massive waste of resources for building so many new cars, that actually sounds like a great deal compared to today.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  25$ and 1000 miles to gallon. Probably correct, but it would also be size of tiny toy car...
- barryrandall 3y ago
  Car makers are speedrunning that list.
physicsguy 3y ago
I have a 2021 Skoda Scala that does this, it’s incredibly annoying. It tells me there is a software update, but in the same message says that it can’t do it while driving…
- version_five 3y ago
  I rented a skoda this year and I own a VW. They share the same "infotainment" system and it's shit. I otherwise like volkswagen but I can't recommend them based on their awful computer. I joke that it must have been designed by someone who had never been in a car and didn't know what it was for, and by that standard I guess it's decent.
  - physicsguy 3y ago
    We had a good one recently; it told us to go to the dealership for immediate service, the horn, cruise control and SatNav stopped working. The dealership said that it was a software update needed?!
- wredue 3y ago
  My 2017 silverado pops up a message telling me to keep my eyes on the road while driving cause it’s dangerous to take your eyes off the road for a long time while the truck is moving.
  - teekert 3y ago
    :D My parents owned a Renault that would tell you at every single start to obey the traffic regulations. I wish I could slap that car and it would feel it.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      That would be a good use of AI. I'm just affraid that this would directly need to Skynet or something if we slapnoir smart devices too often.
exabrial 3y ago
It's fine to figure out how to pull the damn sim card on vehicles. There is 0 reason my car needs a cloud connection. It's job is to convey person from A -> B. That is it.
- gambiting 3y ago
  Nah I like having an app for my car. The ability to preheat/precool the car from anywhere as well as see detailed stats for every journey is worth it(for me).
  - rurp 3y ago
    It's fine to leave it in if you like those features but many people couldn't care less about them and hate the distracting popups, spying, and auto-updates that change functionality.
    - Gud 3y ago
      Yes, but these things are not a requirement for a connected car. I suspect these user hostile behaviours will go away eventually, either through legislation or through more aware customers.
    - gambiting 3y ago
      I have that in an EV that doesn't even really have a screen to show you any popups on(Volkswagen e-Up). The car has remote connectivity that I can use to set climate control to selected temperature and see detailed energy consumption stats but inside the car it's very analogue, there is a basic screen for the radio(operated with buttons, not a touchscreen) but that's literally it, even the driver cluster still uses analogue gauges.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
RajT88 3y ago
Just FYI - you can replace your head unit even on newer cars. There's a bustling aftermarket industry for this kind of stuff: https://www.belsee.com/android-car-radio/hyundai-radio.html https://www.belsee.com/android-car-radio/hyundai-radio.html This way - your data gets abused by the Chinese government instead of Hyundai! (I kid, sort of, but these head units let you exert more control over your car, as they often ship rooted, or can be rooted) If you DIY install the head unit, you can often completely pay for the head unit and have cash left over by selling your old head unit to someone who needs one. (Lots of people need a stock head unit, because theirs got stolen, or they bought a salvage title without a head unit, or whatever).
- tomxor 3y ago
  I'd pay to just not have one, but I'm not even sure that's possible any more. I'm really not looking forward to when I'm forced to buy a new car - few things make me more mad than smartphone tech with universally slow and terrible UX, duck-taped onto machines, let alone dangerous machines.
  - LAC-Tech 3y ago
    Seriously. I have zero use for a touch screen in a car. Maps? When I drive I look at... the road. If I need directions, google maps can tell me to turn left etc by voice commands.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      I don't think I could live without it anymore, but I have a really tight parking situation at home and the parking sensors that are exposed through the head unit are really useful. Not to mention navigation and all that stuff. These features are really considered standard now by most (but definitely not all) people.
      - LAC-Tech 3y ago
        I had that in a car from 2008 or so. Camera feed switched on when you were reversing, but no touch screen.
gwbas1c 3y ago
What country do they drive in MPH with the steering wheel on the right side of the car? I've heard a lot of references to "miles" in British culture, but I assumed that was habits of older people. I thought the UK was all metric by now?
- guntherhermann 3y ago
  Yeah, this'll be the UK. We use a mix of imperial and metric, so you'll see "300m to next service station" and also "30 mph" speed limits :). People typically weigh themselves in stone and lbs, yet the food we buy is weighed in grams
  - folli 3y ago
    The UK. Europe's last stronghold against the French Revolution's dictate of the metric system.
  - gerdesj 3y ago
    I often convert these new fangled units back into old money. Chains per fluid ounce (Ch/FlOz) is so much easier to comprehend. I jest but that isn't as mad as our pre-decimalization currency. We were still spending coins that called themselves a shilling and calling them five pence (and 2s as 10p) for quite a few years afterwards.
    - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
      Fun fact: chains and furlongs are the archaic intermediary unit that get you from our smallest unit (inches) to our largest unit (miles) in a way that isn't completely insane (i.e. "simply 5280 feet to the mile"). It's really: - 12 inches to the foot - 3 feet to the yard - 22 yards to the chain - 10 chains to the furlong - 8 furlongs to the mile Using even more archaic units we can simplify further: - 8 inches to the link - 100 links to the chain - 10 chains to the furlong - 8 furlongs to the mile And 1 acre is 1 chain by 1 furlong, or 10 square chains.
      - 3y ago
callalex 3y ago
The page struggled to load but I eventually succeeded. Here is a summary: This poster owns a recent model Hyundai car that popped up a notice about changes to their terms and conditions in the privacy policy. The car presents this pop up while the car is in drive and moving at speed, not when it is stopped/parked.
- altairprime 3y ago
  If that affects a driver in the United States, that behavior — if reported properly to NHTSA — would likely result in Hyundai being forced to recall and update all vehicles to revise whatever code permitted that popup to be issued while the vehicle was in gear and in motion. If anyone does see this and wants to report their own vehicle’s safety issue, I expect they’d listen and be interested, even if non-US: https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
eviks 3y ago
At least it wasn't an ad!
iamnotsure 3y ago
Ads in disguise.
- cpach 3y ago
  I’m afraid I don’t follow. Do you mean the pop-up is equivalent to an ad for Hyundai?
  - iamnotsure 3y ago
    Kind of. Same for companies that send "we've updated this or that" emails. Spam that pretends it is not spam, attention thieves.
capableweb 3y ago
Is there any car company or car accessory company that could get things like this correct? Not even Apple can get it correct it seems, as in CarPlay, if there is a incoming call, it covers the entire screen with the person/info who is calling, so if you're using navigation, until you either reject the call or pick up, it hides the maps behind the notification...
- Yaggo 3y ago
  Tesla does excellent job here.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Tesla would actually be an example of how not to do software for safety relevant, embedded systems.
    - mmustapic 3y ago
      Why?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
petercooper 3y ago
This reminds me of a problem I have with most hardware and software: being hassled about things like updates or T&Cs when you start to use them rather than after you have used them. Ask me to do firmware updates when I try to shut a device down, not when I turn it on. Ask me to update some software when I close a document, not when I launch it to do some work. All that happens is I skip the intrusion to carry on with what I intended to do and then forget about the request. (Windows is a good exception to this and it'll remind me to do its updates on shut down.)
- Rychard 3y ago
  > Ask me to do firmware updates when I try to shut a device down, not when I turn it on. Ask me to update some software when I close a document, not when I launch it to do some work. Just yesterday, I was at the grocery store and needed to check my shopping list on my phone. When I unlocked my phone, I found that it had (entirely on its own) connected to the insecure store wifi, and was downloading a 1GB+ update package. I was unable to stop this download, and it warned me that if I left wifi range it would continue the download over mobile data. Immediately upon finishing the download, the phone displayed a full-screen countdown stating that it was rebooting to install the system update. Reluctantly, I gave up on checking my shopping list, placed my phone back into my pocket, purchased the items I could remember adding to the list, and went home. I have no idea how long the installation took, but the next time I checked my phone, it had successfully installed the update. This is exactly the type of thing that makes me despise technology.
  - makeva 3y ago
    Name and shame
    - distract8901 3y ago
      My Samsung phone has forced updates even worse than this. It will download an update silently in the background and will nag me with a new notification every couple of hours. It will let me delay the update for a random length of time before just rebooting on its own. The last update let me delay for something like 10 hours, but I've also had it reboot in the middle of the day while I was using my phone to show something to a customer. This has also soft-bricked my device more than once. I use a custom launcher, and Samsung apparently doesn't like that, so the system updates can get me stuck in a loop where the launcher repeatedly crashes. There is no way at all to disable auto updates or stop the process once an update has been acquired. I've even tried blocking IPs in my router, but it seems to change addresses now and then. My only option is to just always keep WiFi off. It thankfully won't download over the cell network. I'm never buying another Samsung product. I hate this phone more than I have any other piece of technology. The idea that some company can at any moment force my device to download gigabytes of unknown data and run anything they want on my device without my knowledge or consent is just reprehensible. I paid over a thousand dollars for this piece of crap and I don't even own it. It's utterly ridiculous. Every few weeks I get a new notification that the Samsung EULA has updated. I just dismiss them. It's not like it matters if I agree or not.
lnxg33k1 3y ago
Another reason to take the bus
kyriakos 3y ago
I got this one twice already. Ironically if you choose yes, it will say "cannot view while driving" and then it goes away till the next time you start driving.
- meepmorp 3y ago
  I enjoy the corporate sense of comedic timing that went into the decision to have it wait till you're driving again.
  - kyriakos 3y ago
    Its as if the reasoning behind it was "when the popup comes up, stop, switch to parking mode so you can read the new terms of service, then continue your trip". The first time I got it a month ago I just left it on screen till I reached my destination and went through the terms. I got another update yesterday, i just dismissed it, will see it again tomorrow for sure.
    - somehnguy 3y ago
      That scenario is so comically dystopian. Nobody cares about the terms because they can't do anything about them anyway, so just leave people alone.. Also, stop changing the terms so much.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    My guess is it's all about liability, and possibly regulation. Nowadays our culture demands that products force people to be safe, rather than expecting people to choose to be safe and accepting the consequences if they mess up. I wish I could laugh at the idiocy, but it's too personal and enfuriating to me to be funny. The enraging thing for me is that it makes my car unusable for the passenger even though that person isn't even driving!!! A human is so much better at making that decision at drive-time than the dumb software. At least use the damn airbag sensor in the seat, and if there's a passenger, let them use the controls!!!
- raverbashing 3y ago
PlunderBunny 3y ago
What happens if you just put a piece of cardboard over the screen and never take it off? Are there also audible warnings? Does it cover necessary indicators such as speed or fuel tank? Edit: Oh, the reversing camera - I guess that’s pretty useful.
confd 3y ago
Stop leasing new cars.
karaterobot 3y ago
Tangent: I would love if there was a place that did car reviews that actually talked about UI. Car interfaces are such a huge part of the experience of driving now, and none of the car review channels I watch give it more than a couple sentences. If they ever mention the UI at all, it's to say whether it feels "snappy", or if it supports CarPlay, or how large the touch screen is. I want a deep dive into more of the details, since it's something I'll use every day and which really, really does factor in to my purchasing decisions.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Interesting, I agree that would be really nice. Have you looked around for such a thing? It seems like such an obvious idea, there's got to be people doing it!
- rurp 3y ago
  Totally agree. I went a fairly long time (>10 years) between car purchases and was shocked at how terrible the interfaces are in most new cars. That and creepy spyware were two of the main differentiators for me, and it can be hard to find that information on a range of cars.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  Doug DeMuro
  - karaterobot 3y ago
    I like his channel, the videos I've seen do not really go into depth about UI.
lunias 3y ago
I cannot believe the amount of screens that have been allowed into cars. Touchscreens that beckon not only for your attention, but also your interaction are somehow fine to just put wherever in the car. It's illegal to use my phone for non hands-free calls while driving (technically, but it's not even remotely enforced) but it's okay to use my television-sized device connected to my phone because it's integrated into my dashboard? Y'know maybe we should just get rid of the windows (windows are very 17th century) in cars and replace them with cameras and touchscreens? Imagine being able to both see the road AND quickly sketch out an idea with a co-worker on the windshield during your commute!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  Such messages never appear in my Tesla S while I am driving. They only appear when the car has the parking brake applied. The only messages that appear while driving are relevant for me and appear in well defined locations, they do not obscure the rest of the screen.
- vel0city 3y ago
  > Imagine being able to both see the road AND quickly sketch out an idea with a co-worker on the windshield during your commute This is quite a disingenuous take on the screens in a car though. They usually only allow limited interactions while the vehicle is in motion, so that example of sketching out an idea with a coworker already isn't supposed to be happening with the current systems while the vehicle is in motion. My passenger can't type something while the vehicle is moving, and if they scroll through lists too fast it'll go into a timeout mode for a few seconds because it assumes the driver is paying too much attention to the screen. Coupled with driver attention tracking systems on current Euro cars (and it sounds like future US cars as well) it can really enforce that a driver doesn't pay too much attention directly to the screen or other things in the car.
  - lunias 3y ago
    Is it disingenuous? I'd say perhaps hyperbolic or satirical. I remember a time when cars came with DVD players that wouldn't play if the car wasn't in park. People didn't like that so they worked around it. The lockout systems that you describe sound like the impetus for a market of bypasses. I would argue that if such restrictions are necessary then we should reconsider if the screen which necessitates them is necessary. We seem hard-pressed to consolidate all of a car's functionality into a touch screen, but the UX is often much worse than a physical input whose position never changes and can be felt with your fingers in the dark or in situations where you cannot look at it. This consolidation also seems like it creates a single point of failure: what happens if your screen breaks? It all seems like tech for tech's sake, things to justify charging more and more for new vehicles while providing manufacturers with a means of pushing updates, displaying ads, and selling services to extract more incremental value from consumers. I'd like to see a car w/ a screen for a map. That's it. You input your destination on your phone, it shows the map on the screen. The screen is for display only and it's decoupled from all other controls in the car.
gnicholas 3y ago
My Ford CMAX tries to update its software when I'm driving. It often attempts for a while, then fails, then loops and tries again (ad infinitum). When this happens, I am locked out of accessing navigation, music controls, etc. At least I still have knobs for climate control.
- freedomben 3y ago
  I will never buy another Ford again for reasons like this. In the past 8 years I've had an F-350 and an Expedition and they both are plagued by software issues. Paired with the impossibility of getting parts, I've been suffering without HVAC for almost two years! It's horribly uncomfortable for 8 months of the year, and downright dangerous the other 4 as the windshield will get covered in fog and frost that makes it difficult to see. Never again.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    I'm hesitant to buy any vehicle that has no knobs for climate control, for the safety-related reasons you mention.
rollcat 3y ago
https://analognowhere.com/techno-mage/man-without-a-nose/ https://analognowhere.com/techno-mage/man-without-a-nose/
mrtksn 3y ago
This is an obvious no-no but these popups create other issues too. My Grandma lives in a small town in Eastern Europe and I bought her a Samsung Tablet to use with Skype so we can talk to her without paying ridiculous international rates(her house had 100mbps internet but no landline for phone, only GSM which was expensive to call). Anyway, at some point Skype and later Samsung decided that we can't call grandma without her accepting the terms and conditions. The problem is that she has all kind of illnesses and she can't see the screen well and can't manage a touchscreen well. Also can't get it fixed by someone else because pretty much everyone is very old in the town. During the height of the pandemic I had to do an international travel because she wanted to see us. I Gave her my old iPhone 7 and use FaceTime now, with auto answer setting turned on in the accessibility. Works like a charm since then, as good and simple as a traditional dumb phone. People making these UX really should think better.
- pradn 3y ago
  > I Give her my old iPhone 7 and use FaceTime now, with auto answer setting turned on in the accessibility. I didn't know this feature existed. Quite thoughtful!
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    Yep, Apple's accessibility stuff are awesome. I use another old iPhone the same way as a pet cam, but for some reason that one is not very reliable and doesn't always connect but that particular iPhone always had issues.
  - Almondsetat 3y ago
    unfortunately Apple seems to be the only consumer brand on earth which actually gives a crap about real disabled folks using their devices and making their lives better because of it
    - freedomben 3y ago
      I am heavily critical of Apple for a number of different reasons, and if they weren't so heavy handed with their control then there would be third party options out there. But utlimately I very much agree and I think Apple deserves praise for that. I wish more companies would invest in it (although to some extent I concede that it is a luxury that deep-pocket companies can afford that smaller companies can't).
UberFly 3y ago
I'm always surprised we don't see more car console "Blue Screens" reported. Weird reboots mid-drive and such.
- ralferoo 3y ago
  About once every 4-5 weeks my car beeps at me whilst driving along admonishing me to say that I shouldn't be putting it in P/N while driving. Obviously, I've done no such thing. Each time about a second later, it realises its mistake and cancels the message, but it's still enough to make you take your eyes off the road to look at its stupid message. Apparently, it's a faulty sensor on the gear lever, but it seems crazy it seems to have one sensor to detect P/N for this message and another one to actually disengage the gears for parking / neutral.
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  Infamously, some Mazda infotainment systems crashed when a Seattle area radio station left off a file extension in a metadata broadcast https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/mazda_radios_images/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/mazda_radios_images/
- aeyes 3y ago
  In my car the UI just freezes until the headunit restarts 1-2 minutes later. A few years ago I rode with a friend and he'd have to turn ignition off and on again to restart the headunit. That's rather annoying while cruising on the highway. The madman still did it - a bit dangerous because you lose power steering and the brake booster without the engine running.
  - npteljes 3y ago
    And while the ignition is off, the wheel locks in place at a specific angle as an anti-theft measure. Terrifies me to think about.
figassis 3y ago
I bought a Nissan this year. I paired my phone and granted access to contacts, but not messages. Every time I turn it on it shows a popup asking to grant access to my phone's messages. I decline each time, and each time it comes back. It's like they build these products with complete disregard for user choice. "We don't care that they decline, show it again until they submit". I've been a developer of products that do this, and it's never a bug, it's always intentional. You mention to the product manager how this is undesirable behavior, and sometimes even implement it in a choice respecting way, but are quickly overridden and asked to correct.
- figassis 3y ago
  Another variation of this is the popup that only has "accept" and "remind me later buttons". It's even worse when it happens in work applications. Zoho does this. You open Zoho books, the accounting SaaS, and every X days after login, they show you a full page notice about some product/feature with options to "accept" and "remind me later". Imagine this in the middle of you rushing to create an invoice. I'm a paying customer, so I send them an email complaining and they ask me to send them a screenshot of the exact notice. I'm currently looking for alternatives.
  - solarkraft 3y ago
    Oh boy, this makes me think differently of Zoho. I previously had a rather favorable image of them, now that image is quite a bit worse. Companies should be shamed for this and the reputational damage should far outweigh whatever little gain figuratively spitting in the user's face would have.
  - TheHappyOddish 3y ago
    Anything that has a "yes/later" instead of a "yes/no" goes on my list of things to remove from my life when practical. I promise this bullshit from any company will lose you at least me.
Yhippa 3y ago
Feature Team A is working on New Functionality 1, Feature Team B is working on New Functionality 2, but no Feature Team wants to be responsible for all these weird interactions like pop-ups. That doesn't get you promoted.
ronnier 3y ago
The "car" is a Hyundai.
SergeAx 3y ago
While hilarious, it is quite legit: the display popup is shown at is a "media" display and doesn't directly affect driving (except navigation, which used to be optional).
DamnInteresting 3y ago
My 2017 Chevy Bolt EV does something like this. Any time the infotainment system restarts, and at some seemingly random times, it displays a dialog with a whole paragraph of text about how the driver needs to keep their eyes on the road, and not on the screen[1]. Sometimes these reboots occur while driving, so it sometimes displays this long distracting message about avoiding distractions while one is in active traffic. Bananas. [1] https://i.redd.it/tslqa8b29lua1.jpg https://i.redd.it/tslqa8b29lua1.jpg
- araes 3y ago
  There are some of these, where you really wonder how somebody inside a major company like Chevy could actually arrive at this. Multiple people have to code, check, authorize, and push software like this. Apparently without complaint, like they don't drive cars themselves. Unfortunately, this feels a bit like female clothing with "Don't Look Here!" emblazoned right across the front.
jedberg 3y ago
My Honda software is definitely not the pinnacle of UX design, but at least they got that part right. You can't even view the popup when the car is moving. If you pull it up when you're stopped and then start moving, it goes away and is replaced with a warning about trying to read while driving.
toasterblender 3y ago
This reminds me of when Signal messenger locked users out of their chats until they set a device PIN several years(?) ago. The fact that people may have been in the middle of important conversations was apparently not a concern.
stanislavb 3y ago
A bit off-topic, but I love it how meaningful conversations are moving to Mastodon and other Twitter alternatives now.
jh00ker 3y ago
I've seen a GMC SUV with a popup that says not to take your eyes off the road. It may come on while in Park, but it remains once in Drive, preventing any use of the screen until you ... take your eyes off the road to tap OK on the touchscreen. It pops up every other month or so. There's probably a less-dangerous way to deliver the message that doesn't involve engaging in the activity cited in the message itself. That'd be like handing out free cigarettes to non-smokers that have "cigarettes are bad for you" printed on them.
grishka 3y ago
I'm religious about never, ever interrupting the user. It's unfortunate that way too many other software developers consider it acceptable. No, I don't care about your updates and onboarding and ToS changes, I opened your app with one concrete goal in mind and you're getting in my f***ing way. You aren't being helpful a tiniest bit. If you need to inform the user about something, put a banner at the top of the screen. Or show an icon with a badge on it. Anything that doesn't require immediate attention and a context switch. Trust me, none of your stuff is so critical that the user needs to be interrupted.
- adrenvi 3y ago
  The web version of Twitter/X is an example of this. Way too many modals
  - grishka 3y ago
    The Android app honestly feels like they have a daily quota of permissible user annoyance.
IYasha 3y ago
At least there's one positive thing: they've got "Yes" on the left. :)

250 points by cpach 3y ago

SiriusXM periodically demands that I assent to their new terms and conditions (despite the fact that I’m frequently on a trial or pre-paid subscription). I think I can ignore/dismiss it indefinitely without it cutting service to the radio but eventually I get so tired of seeing it each time I start my car, I just agree to it. So, exactly what they want to happen. Well played, SiriusXM. I sort of can’t believe that there haven’t been more court cases on clickwrap licenses. They seem pretty obviously to be procedurally unconscionable, but I guess there’s generally no money in challenging them. I wish at least Congress would make arbitration provisions illegal in consumer contracts (or at a minimum require a meaningful opportunity to opt out).

thedaly 3y ago
There needs to be clear regulation, with defined penalties or precedent, forbidding the practice for these to go to court.

zwieback 3y ago

I wonder if this could theoretically happen for the main display in front of the steering wheel. Are there safety standards carmakers have to certify to when it comes to speedometer, etc.?

bri3d 3y ago
Yes. Extremely strict ones having to do with the visibility, reliability, and availability of certain UI elements as well as warning lights. In the US, this is all governed by the FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards). This is part of the reason why you'll still see separate warning lights or really weird/ugly overlays for some warnings on modern digital dashboards - in many situations, the safety critical / regulated information is actually being blitted to the screen by a _separate safety processor!_ running an RTOS, while the whiz-bang main display is powered by some commodity SoC running Linux or QNX.
- KMag 3y ago
  I really wish smart phone display chipsets had this blit overlay functionality for TOTP (including a per-device symmetric encryption key for importing/exporting TOTP secrets such that the main processor can deny itself future access to the secret, but the phone can still generate TOTP codes, without the TOTP processor needing to store all of the secrets itself). We've seen multiple secure enclave exploits. It's too bad some of this security functionality isn't baked into the display chipset. Yes, it's probably ugly (even if the chipset allows some forms of theming the TOTP code display), but it's better than having your brokerage account, your work login, etc. all exploited due to some 0day. It's also better than carrying around a handful of RSA physical tokens on your keychain (modulo phone breaking/being stolen/running out of battery).

datalus 3y ago

This is why I refuse to buy anything after a certain date when it comes to cars. Luckily I have the ability and resources to maintain and fix my own vehicle.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I'll continue driving my loud gas guzzling 19mpg car for as long as I can keep it going because these ultra connected new cars are abominations
- version_five 3y ago
  The real impetus behind electric cars is vendor lock in and monitoring. It brings a clean slate to the currently robust repair market.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    It truly sucks that they require a pound of flesh here, you can't have this nice thing without selling your soul. There is nothing that prevents them from respecting the user and allowing repair.
    - version_five 3y ago
      Greed? It's a pretty textbook case for regulation.
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        Greed is fine but ideally we would also have competition where one can vote with their wallet for a less connected old-school car.
        version_five 3y ago
        Ideally I agree. The issue seems to be that barriers to entry are too high. There is so much regulatory capture in the automotive industry, everything is arrayed in favor of incumbents.

josefresco 3y ago

Reminds my of when I tried to resurrect and old DJI drone with an out of date iPad mini for a controller. I turn on drone, launch the app and try several times to take off and fail. Try one last time assuming failure and it starts to take off! But then... Just as the drone starts to drift towards me, several notifications pop up within the app/iOS preventing control and sending me into a panic. Drone hits the house shredding a few blades, starts to careen and then before it hits me, a brave family member grabs the landing strut and keeps it in a death grip until I can dismiss the warnings and "land".

phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
At this point I’ll just try to build anything I need from the ground up myself.
- tetris11 3y ago
  Ardupilot and MavProxy are a great starting point.
  - phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
    Thanks, I haven’t heard about mavproxy.
samtho 3y ago
Instead of legislating pop over messages to happen (looking at cookie messages), we just need to legislate these trash interruptions away. I didn’t begin using the device I purchased to be interrupted by something that had literally no bearing on my life, I cannot effectively use the device if I decline, and the existence of such can cause harm if I am working with something sensitive.
- boatsie 3y ago
  on that note, is anyone ever voluntarily, knowingly clicking the “accept all” other than to dismiss these? Like why not just legislate that you can’t do the kind of tracking they are asking because I’m pretty sure literally nobody wants it…

seansh 3y ago

Reminds me of the old "If cars were like computers" post. https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/crash.htm https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/crash.htm

callalex 3y ago
This list is hilarious, by my calculations about 5 of the 10 sarcastic scenarios they presented have become 100% true of the cars they themselves sell today.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Indeed, number 10 is a dead ringer and many others are too close to true for comfort. I had to pull over on the side of the road and completely stop and restart (reboot) my F-350 a number of times to get the radio to work again. Luckily that model had redundant physical controls for the environmental controls...
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
> Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car. > $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon. Disregarding the massive waste of resources for building so many new cars, that actually sounds like a great deal compared to today.
Ekaros 3y ago
25$ and 1000 miles to gallon. Probably correct, but it would also be size of tiny toy car...
barryrandall 3y ago
Car makers are speedrunning that list.

physicsguy 3y ago

I have a 2021 Skoda Scala that does this, it’s incredibly annoying. It tells me there is a software update, but in the same message says that it can’t do it while driving…

version_five 3y ago
I rented a skoda this year and I own a VW. They share the same "infotainment" system and it's shit. I otherwise like volkswagen but I can't recommend them based on their awful computer. I joke that it must have been designed by someone who had never been in a car and didn't know what it was for, and by that standard I guess it's decent.
- physicsguy 3y ago
  We had a good one recently; it told us to go to the dealership for immediate service, the horn, cruise control and SatNav stopped working. The dealership said that it was a software update needed?!
wredue 3y ago
My 2017 silverado pops up a message telling me to keep my eyes on the road while driving cause it’s dangerous to take your eyes off the road for a long time while the truck is moving.
- teekert 3y ago
  :D My parents owned a Renault that would tell you at every single start to obey the traffic regulations. I wish I could slap that car and it would feel it.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    That would be a good use of AI. I'm just affraid that this would directly need to Skynet or something if we slapnoir smart devices too often.

exabrial 3y ago

It's fine to figure out how to pull the damn sim card on vehicles. There is 0 reason my car needs a cloud connection. It's job is to convey person from A -> B. That is it.

gambiting 3y ago
Nah I like having an app for my car. The ability to preheat/precool the car from anywhere as well as see detailed stats for every journey is worth it(for me).
- rurp 3y ago
  It's fine to leave it in if you like those features but many people couldn't care less about them and hate the distracting popups, spying, and auto-updates that change functionality.
  - Gud 3y ago
    Yes, but these things are not a requirement for a connected car. I suspect these user hostile behaviours will go away eventually, either through legislation or through more aware customers.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    I have that in an EV that doesn't even really have a screen to show you any popups on(Volkswagen e-Up). The car has remote connectivity that I can use to set climate control to selected temperature and see detailed energy consumption stats but inside the car it's very analogue, there is a basic screen for the radio(operated with buttons, not a touchscreen) but that's literally it, even the driver cluster still uses analogue gauges.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

RajT88 3y ago

Just FYI - you can replace your head unit even on newer cars. There's a bustling aftermarket industry for this kind of stuff: https://www.belsee.com/android-car-radio/hyundai-radio.html https://www.belsee.com/android-car-radio/hyundai-radio.html This way - your data gets abused by the Chinese government instead of Hyundai! (I kid, sort of, but these head units let you exert more control over your car, as they often ship rooted, or can be rooted) If you DIY install the head unit, you can often completely pay for the head unit and have cash left over by selling your old head unit to someone who needs one. (Lots of people need a stock head unit, because theirs got stolen, or they bought a salvage title without a head unit, or whatever).

tomxor 3y ago
I'd pay to just not have one, but I'm not even sure that's possible any more. I'm really not looking forward to when I'm forced to buy a new car - few things make me more mad than smartphone tech with universally slow and terrible UX, duck-taped onto machines, let alone dangerous machines.
- LAC-Tech 3y ago
  Seriously. I have zero use for a touch screen in a car. Maps? When I drive I look at... the road. If I need directions, google maps can tell me to turn left etc by voice commands.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    I don't think I could live without it anymore, but I have a really tight parking situation at home and the parking sensors that are exposed through the head unit are really useful. Not to mention navigation and all that stuff. These features are really considered standard now by most (but definitely not all) people.
    - LAC-Tech 3y ago
      I had that in a car from 2008 or so. Camera feed switched on when you were reversing, but no touch screen.

gwbas1c 3y ago

What country do they drive in MPH with the steering wheel on the right side of the car? I've heard a lot of references to "miles" in British culture, but I assumed that was habits of older people. I thought the UK was all metric by now?

guntherhermann 3y ago
Yeah, this'll be the UK. We use a mix of imperial and metric, so you'll see "300m to next service station" and also "30 mph" speed limits :). People typically weigh themselves in stone and lbs, yet the food we buy is weighed in grams
- folli 3y ago
  The UK. Europe's last stronghold against the French Revolution's dictate of the metric system.
- gerdesj 3y ago
  I often convert these new fangled units back into old money. Chains per fluid ounce (Ch/FlOz) is so much easier to comprehend. I jest but that isn't as mad as our pre-decimalization currency. We were still spending coins that called themselves a shilling and calling them five pence (and 2s as 10p) for quite a few years afterwards.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
    Fun fact: chains and furlongs are the archaic intermediary unit that get you from our smallest unit (inches) to our largest unit (miles) in a way that isn't completely insane (i.e. "simply 5280 feet to the mile"). It's really: - 12 inches to the foot - 3 feet to the yard - 22 yards to the chain - 10 chains to the furlong - 8 furlongs to the mile Using even more archaic units we can simplify further: - 8 inches to the link - 100 links to the chain - 10 chains to the furlong - 8 furlongs to the mile And 1 acre is 1 chain by 1 furlong, or 10 square chains.
    - 3y ago

callalex 3y ago

The page struggled to load but I eventually succeeded. Here is a summary: This poster owns a recent model Hyundai car that popped up a notice about changes to their terms and conditions in the privacy policy. The car presents this pop up while the car is in drive and moving at speed, not when it is stopped/parked.

altairprime 3y ago
If that affects a driver in the United States, that behavior — if reported properly to NHTSA — would likely result in Hyundai being forced to recall and update all vehicles to revise whatever code permitted that popup to be issued while the vehicle was in gear and in motion. If anyone does see this and wants to report their own vehicle’s safety issue, I expect they’d listen and be interested, even if non-US: https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

eviks 3y ago

At least it wasn't an ad!

iamnotsure 3y ago

Ads in disguise.

cpach 3y ago
I’m afraid I don’t follow. Do you mean the pop-up is equivalent to an ad for Hyundai?
- iamnotsure 3y ago
  Kind of. Same for companies that send "we've updated this or that" emails. Spam that pretends it is not spam, attention thieves.

capableweb 3y ago

Is there any car company or car accessory company that could get things like this correct? Not even Apple can get it correct it seems, as in CarPlay, if there is a incoming call, it covers the entire screen with the person/info who is calling, so if you're using navigation, until you either reject the call or pick up, it hides the maps behind the notification...

Yaggo 3y ago
Tesla does excellent job here.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Tesla would actually be an example of how not to do software for safety relevant, embedded systems.
  - mmustapic 3y ago
    Why?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

petercooper 3y ago

This reminds me of a problem I have with most hardware and software: being hassled about things like updates or T&Cs when you start to use them rather than after you have used them. Ask me to do firmware updates when I try to shut a device down, not when I turn it on. Ask me to update some software when I close a document, not when I launch it to do some work. All that happens is I skip the intrusion to carry on with what I intended to do and then forget about the request. (Windows is a good exception to this and it'll remind me to do its updates on shut down.)

Rychard 3y ago
> Ask me to do firmware updates when I try to shut a device down, not when I turn it on. Ask me to update some software when I close a document, not when I launch it to do some work. Just yesterday, I was at the grocery store and needed to check my shopping list on my phone. When I unlocked my phone, I found that it had (entirely on its own) connected to the insecure store wifi, and was downloading a 1GB+ update package. I was unable to stop this download, and it warned me that if I left wifi range it would continue the download over mobile data. Immediately upon finishing the download, the phone displayed a full-screen countdown stating that it was rebooting to install the system update. Reluctantly, I gave up on checking my shopping list, placed my phone back into my pocket, purchased the items I could remember adding to the list, and went home. I have no idea how long the installation took, but the next time I checked my phone, it had successfully installed the update. This is exactly the type of thing that makes me despise technology.
- makeva 3y ago
  Name and shame
  - distract8901 3y ago
    My Samsung phone has forced updates even worse than this. It will download an update silently in the background and will nag me with a new notification every couple of hours. It will let me delay the update for a random length of time before just rebooting on its own. The last update let me delay for something like 10 hours, but I've also had it reboot in the middle of the day while I was using my phone to show something to a customer. This has also soft-bricked my device more than once. I use a custom launcher, and Samsung apparently doesn't like that, so the system updates can get me stuck in a loop where the launcher repeatedly crashes. There is no way at all to disable auto updates or stop the process once an update has been acquired. I've even tried blocking IPs in my router, but it seems to change addresses now and then. My only option is to just always keep WiFi off. It thankfully won't download over the cell network. I'm never buying another Samsung product. I hate this phone more than I have any other piece of technology. The idea that some company can at any moment force my device to download gigabytes of unknown data and run anything they want on my device without my knowledge or consent is just reprehensible. I paid over a thousand dollars for this piece of crap and I don't even own it. It's utterly ridiculous. Every few weeks I get a new notification that the Samsung EULA has updated. I just dismiss them. It's not like it matters if I agree or not.

lnxg33k1 3y ago

Another reason to take the bus

kyriakos 3y ago

I got this one twice already. Ironically if you choose yes, it will say "cannot view while driving" and then it goes away till the next time you start driving.

meepmorp 3y ago
I enjoy the corporate sense of comedic timing that went into the decision to have it wait till you're driving again.
- kyriakos 3y ago
  Its as if the reasoning behind it was "when the popup comes up, stop, switch to parking mode so you can read the new terms of service, then continue your trip". The first time I got it a month ago I just left it on screen till I reached my destination and went through the terms. I got another update yesterday, i just dismissed it, will see it again tomorrow for sure.
  - somehnguy 3y ago
    That scenario is so comically dystopian. Nobody cares about the terms because they can't do anything about them anyway, so just leave people alone.. Also, stop changing the terms so much.
- freedomben 3y ago
  My guess is it's all about liability, and possibly regulation. Nowadays our culture demands that products force people to be safe, rather than expecting people to choose to be safe and accepting the consequences if they mess up. I wish I could laugh at the idiocy, but it's too personal and enfuriating to me to be funny. The enraging thing for me is that it makes my car unusable for the passenger even though that person isn't even driving!!! A human is so much better at making that decision at drive-time than the dumb software. At least use the damn airbag sensor in the seat, and if there's a passenger, let them use the controls!!!
raverbashing 3y ago

PlunderBunny 3y ago

What happens if you just put a piece of cardboard over the screen and never take it off? Are there also audible warnings? Does it cover necessary indicators such as speed or fuel tank? Edit: Oh, the reversing camera - I guess that’s pretty useful.

confd 3y ago

Stop leasing new cars.

karaterobot 3y ago

Tangent: I would love if there was a place that did car reviews that actually talked about UI. Car interfaces are such a huge part of the experience of driving now, and none of the car review channels I watch give it more than a couple sentences. If they ever mention the UI at all, it's to say whether it feels "snappy", or if it supports CarPlay, or how large the touch screen is. I want a deep dive into more of the details, since it's something I'll use every day and which really, really does factor in to my purchasing decisions.

freedomben 3y ago
Interesting, I agree that would be really nice. Have you looked around for such a thing? It seems like such an obvious idea, there's got to be people doing it!
rurp 3y ago
Totally agree. I went a fairly long time (>10 years) between car purchases and was shocked at how terrible the interfaces are in most new cars. That and creepy spyware were two of the main differentiators for me, and it can be hard to find that information on a range of cars.
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
Doug DeMuro
- karaterobot 3y ago
  I like his channel, the videos I've seen do not really go into depth about UI.

lunias 3y ago

I cannot believe the amount of screens that have been allowed into cars. Touchscreens that beckon not only for your attention, but also your interaction are somehow fine to just put wherever in the car. It's illegal to use my phone for non hands-free calls while driving (technically, but it's not even remotely enforced) but it's okay to use my television-sized device connected to my phone because it's integrated into my dashboard? Y'know maybe we should just get rid of the windows (windows are very 17th century) in cars and replace them with cameras and touchscreens? Imagine being able to both see the road AND quickly sketch out an idea with a co-worker on the windshield during your commute!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kwhitefoot 3y ago
Such messages never appear in my Tesla S while I am driving. They only appear when the car has the parking brake applied. The only messages that appear while driving are relevant for me and appear in well defined locations, they do not obscure the rest of the screen.
vel0city 3y ago
> Imagine being able to both see the road AND quickly sketch out an idea with a co-worker on the windshield during your commute This is quite a disingenuous take on the screens in a car though. They usually only allow limited interactions while the vehicle is in motion, so that example of sketching out an idea with a coworker already isn't supposed to be happening with the current systems while the vehicle is in motion. My passenger can't type something while the vehicle is moving, and if they scroll through lists too fast it'll go into a timeout mode for a few seconds because it assumes the driver is paying too much attention to the screen. Coupled with driver attention tracking systems on current Euro cars (and it sounds like future US cars as well) it can really enforce that a driver doesn't pay too much attention directly to the screen or other things in the car.
- lunias 3y ago
  Is it disingenuous? I'd say perhaps hyperbolic or satirical. I remember a time when cars came with DVD players that wouldn't play if the car wasn't in park. People didn't like that so they worked around it. The lockout systems that you describe sound like the impetus for a market of bypasses. I would argue that if such restrictions are necessary then we should reconsider if the screen which necessitates them is necessary. We seem hard-pressed to consolidate all of a car's functionality into a touch screen, but the UX is often much worse than a physical input whose position never changes and can be felt with your fingers in the dark or in situations where you cannot look at it. This consolidation also seems like it creates a single point of failure: what happens if your screen breaks? It all seems like tech for tech's sake, things to justify charging more and more for new vehicles while providing manufacturers with a means of pushing updates, displaying ads, and selling services to extract more incremental value from consumers. I'd like to see a car w/ a screen for a map. That's it. You input your destination on your phone, it shows the map on the screen. The screen is for display only and it's decoupled from all other controls in the car.

gnicholas 3y ago

My Ford CMAX tries to update its software when I'm driving. It often attempts for a while, then fails, then loops and tries again (ad infinitum). When this happens, I am locked out of accessing navigation, music controls, etc. At least I still have knobs for climate control.

freedomben 3y ago
I will never buy another Ford again for reasons like this. In the past 8 years I've had an F-350 and an Expedition and they both are plagued by software issues. Paired with the impossibility of getting parts, I've been suffering without HVAC for almost two years! It's horribly uncomfortable for 8 months of the year, and downright dangerous the other 4 as the windshield will get covered in fog and frost that makes it difficult to see. Never again.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  I'm hesitant to buy any vehicle that has no knobs for climate control, for the safety-related reasons you mention.

rollcat 3y ago

https://analognowhere.com/techno-mage/man-without-a-nose/ https://analognowhere.com/techno-mage/man-without-a-nose/

mrtksn 3y ago

This is an obvious no-no but these popups create other issues too. My Grandma lives in a small town in Eastern Europe and I bought her a Samsung Tablet to use with Skype so we can talk to her without paying ridiculous international rates(her house had 100mbps internet but no landline for phone, only GSM which was expensive to call). Anyway, at some point Skype and later Samsung decided that we can't call grandma without her accepting the terms and conditions. The problem is that she has all kind of illnesses and she can't see the screen well and can't manage a touchscreen well. Also can't get it fixed by someone else because pretty much everyone is very old in the town. During the height of the pandemic I had to do an international travel because she wanted to see us. I Gave her my old iPhone 7 and use FaceTime now, with auto answer setting turned on in the accessibility. Works like a charm since then, as good and simple as a traditional dumb phone. People making these UX really should think better.

pradn 3y ago
> I Give her my old iPhone 7 and use FaceTime now, with auto answer setting turned on in the accessibility. I didn't know this feature existed. Quite thoughtful!
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Yep, Apple's accessibility stuff are awesome. I use another old iPhone the same way as a pet cam, but for some reason that one is not very reliable and doesn't always connect but that particular iPhone always had issues.
- Almondsetat 3y ago
  unfortunately Apple seems to be the only consumer brand on earth which actually gives a crap about real disabled folks using their devices and making their lives better because of it
  - freedomben 3y ago
    I am heavily critical of Apple for a number of different reasons, and if they weren't so heavy handed with their control then there would be third party options out there. But utlimately I very much agree and I think Apple deserves praise for that. I wish more companies would invest in it (although to some extent I concede that it is a luxury that deep-pocket companies can afford that smaller companies can't).

UberFly 3y ago

I'm always surprised we don't see more car console "Blue Screens" reported. Weird reboots mid-drive and such.

ralferoo 3y ago
About once every 4-5 weeks my car beeps at me whilst driving along admonishing me to say that I shouldn't be putting it in P/N while driving. Obviously, I've done no such thing. Each time about a second later, it realises its mistake and cancels the message, but it's still enough to make you take your eyes off the road to look at its stupid message. Apparently, it's a faulty sensor on the gear lever, but it seems crazy it seems to have one sensor to detect P/N for this message and another one to actually disengage the gears for parking / neutral.
sbierwagen 3y ago
Infamously, some Mazda infotainment systems crashed when a Seattle area radio station left off a file extension in a metadata broadcast https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/mazda_radios_images/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/mazda_radios_images/
aeyes 3y ago
In my car the UI just freezes until the headunit restarts 1-2 minutes later. A few years ago I rode with a friend and he'd have to turn ignition off and on again to restart the headunit. That's rather annoying while cruising on the highway. The madman still did it - a bit dangerous because you lose power steering and the brake booster without the engine running.
- npteljes 3y ago
  And while the ignition is off, the wheel locks in place at a specific angle as an anti-theft measure. Terrifies me to think about.

figassis 3y ago

I bought a Nissan this year. I paired my phone and granted access to contacts, but not messages. Every time I turn it on it shows a popup asking to grant access to my phone's messages. I decline each time, and each time it comes back. It's like they build these products with complete disregard for user choice. "We don't care that they decline, show it again until they submit". I've been a developer of products that do this, and it's never a bug, it's always intentional. You mention to the product manager how this is undesirable behavior, and sometimes even implement it in a choice respecting way, but are quickly overridden and asked to correct.

figassis 3y ago
Another variation of this is the popup that only has "accept" and "remind me later buttons". It's even worse when it happens in work applications. Zoho does this. You open Zoho books, the accounting SaaS, and every X days after login, they show you a full page notice about some product/feature with options to "accept" and "remind me later". Imagine this in the middle of you rushing to create an invoice. I'm a paying customer, so I send them an email complaining and they ask me to send them a screenshot of the exact notice. I'm currently looking for alternatives.
- solarkraft 3y ago
  Oh boy, this makes me think differently of Zoho. I previously had a rather favorable image of them, now that image is quite a bit worse. Companies should be shamed for this and the reputational damage should far outweigh whatever little gain figuratively spitting in the user's face would have.
- TheHappyOddish 3y ago
  Anything that has a "yes/later" instead of a "yes/no" goes on my list of things to remove from my life when practical. I promise this bullshit from any company will lose you at least me.

Yhippa 3y ago

Feature Team A is working on New Functionality 1, Feature Team B is working on New Functionality 2, but no Feature Team wants to be responsible for all these weird interactions like pop-ups. That doesn't get you promoted.

ronnier 3y ago

The "car" is a Hyundai.

SergeAx 3y ago

While hilarious, it is quite legit: the display popup is shown at is a "media" display and doesn't directly affect driving (except navigation, which used to be optional).

DamnInteresting 3y ago

My 2017 Chevy Bolt EV does something like this. Any time the infotainment system restarts, and at some seemingly random times, it displays a dialog with a whole paragraph of text about how the driver needs to keep their eyes on the road, and not on the screen[1]. Sometimes these reboots occur while driving, so it sometimes displays this long distracting message about avoiding distractions while one is in active traffic. Bananas. [1] https://i.redd.it/tslqa8b29lua1.jpg https://i.redd.it/tslqa8b29lua1.jpg

araes 3y ago
There are some of these, where you really wonder how somebody inside a major company like Chevy could actually arrive at this. Multiple people have to code, check, authorize, and push software like this. Apparently without complaint, like they don't drive cars themselves. Unfortunately, this feels a bit like female clothing with "Don't Look Here!" emblazoned right across the front.

jedberg 3y ago

My Honda software is definitely not the pinnacle of UX design, but at least they got that part right. You can't even view the popup when the car is moving. If you pull it up when you're stopped and then start moving, it goes away and is replaced with a warning about trying to read while driving.

toasterblender 3y ago

This reminds me of when Signal messenger locked users out of their chats until they set a device PIN several years(?) ago. The fact that people may have been in the middle of important conversations was apparently not a concern.

stanislavb 3y ago

A bit off-topic, but I love it how meaningful conversations are moving to Mastodon and other Twitter alternatives now.

jh00ker 3y ago

I've seen a GMC SUV with a popup that says not to take your eyes off the road. It may come on while in Park, but it remains once in Drive, preventing any use of the screen until you ... take your eyes off the road to tap OK on the touchscreen. It pops up every other month or so. There's probably a less-dangerous way to deliver the message that doesn't involve engaging in the activity cited in the message itself. That'd be like handing out free cigarettes to non-smokers that have "cigarettes are bad for you" printed on them.

grishka 3y ago

I'm religious about never, ever interrupting the user. It's unfortunate that way too many other software developers consider it acceptable. No, I don't care about your updates and onboarding and ToS changes, I opened your app with one concrete goal in mind and you're getting in my f***ing way. You aren't being helpful a tiniest bit. If you need to inform the user about something, put a banner at the top of the screen. Or show an icon with a badge on it. Anything that doesn't require immediate attention and a context switch. Trust me, none of your stuff is so critical that the user needs to be interrupted.

adrenvi 3y ago
The web version of Twitter/X is an example of this. Way too many modals
- grishka 3y ago
  The Android app honestly feels like they have a daily quota of permissible user annoyance.

IYasha 3y ago

At least there's one positive thing: they've got "Yes" on the left. :)