I was always pretty skeptical of CarPlay, honestly. Bluetooth audio + maps on a phone holder seemed like it was perfectly fine, and putting myself even further into the Apple ecosystem felt unnecessary. In short, I had always considered an auto's entertainment system/software to be something to ignore.
Renting a car with CarPlay for a week (and a reasonably long "commute" during that time) completely changed my mind. Typically the only reason I ever used a built in car display up to this point was...to set up my phone in Bluetooth. Suddenly I had familiar applications that made that screen useful: Maps, Overcast (podcasts), Messages (read aloud, not displayed, of course), etc. A phone in a holder is, of course, totally acceptable and fine, but as I'm just starting to consider buying my first car in almost a decade I'm suddenly looking at CarPlay as a requirement.
Other notes on this for those that are interested: A lot of cars with CarPlay also support Android Auto, and they always have a base system if you'd prefer not to use either. OP is talking about this from a luxury car perspective, but it's available in a really wide price range from entry to super-luxury.
Last year I got a rental with CarPlay. It was the first time I had a system in a rental that didn’t seem more intent on downloading my contacts than on displaying nav info or playing music.
It's funny you say that, because last time I had a rental with Android Auto it would not let me even start it without allowing access to my contacts and other details. I ended up not using it because of that.
The normal car bluetooth systems on the other hand don't mind if you don't give them access to things, and you can restrict it to music and calls only.
Maybe they just want to facilitate you by letting you voice your contact and send message or call your friends by voice. I don't have a car with Android Auto, can you deny the permission?
I use LineageOS which has something called PrivacyGuard. I can give the app permission to access my contacts but then deny it at the PrivacyGuard level. I'm pretty sure that it just returns an empty contact list in this case.
I find Carplay dangerous for my use case:
As the interface follows what’s happening on the phone, you often lose the maps and directions as the guy controlling CarPlay need to check his messages
I have no idea how they’ve managed to design it like this, it’s like they only think single driver commuters would use it
In iOS 13 they're conceding that this isn't how it's always used - a passenger might hook their phone to CarPlay, or the driver might hand their phone off for someone else to use.
That's releasing early next month. Probably a gold master build at the event on 9/10, with wide release following after that.
I never thought that anyone other than the driver would want to connect their phone to the head unit in the car, regardless of how many other people might or might not also be in the car.
On further reflection, I think it's still overall not a good idea. If the driver wants to change the music being played, or the volume, or whatever, and there is a passenger in the car with them, then I would think it would be okay for the driver to have the passenger do that on their behalf. And that might affect the display.
But I guess I can wait to see if iOS 13 can change my mind.
You are assuming that the driver's phone is the one connected. The typical use case is a couple, where either can drive. The first one to look up directions is the one who connects the phone. I do this all the time with my wife. Sometimes we have to disconnect one phone and connect the other so the passenger can continue using the phone without killing the map for the driver.
My kids usually manage the music, it's easy at the moment with an AUX lead so no real connection with the car. I can see as things are getting more connected this could have issues.
Anecdote: I have only used CarPlay in rental cars, and every time I start driving while my wife connects her phone and gets directions and music going. It’s annoying that the map disappears when she checks her messages.
I usually have someone driving me, but would strongly prefer to control the music. With Carplay, if I connect my phone in order to control the music I'll lose navigation if I use my phone for anything at all.
Best solution I've found so far was putting my Spotify account on my drivers phone, then I can change the music using my phone without messing up waze.
This is the most infuriating thing. Android Auto does it for some apps also, but it feels baked into the core experience of CarPlay. Given the choice between the two, this UX mishap alone makes me choose AA over CP even when I'm driving alone.
It’s obvious why it’s designed that way: to reduce the distraction of using the phone while driving. If you have the dash showing one thing and you’re doing something else on the phone, you’re now potentially doubly distracted from operating the two ton lethal steel weapon you’re supposed to be paying attention to.
You may not agree with the design choice, but it’s completely obvious why they made it that way.
The case where then passenger needs to do something is rare enough when compared to the safety issues. In design you also need to weigh and make trade offs.
I agree, I can't believe that was overlooked. I used Carplay for the first time a few weeks ago and I was blown away that Apple allowed it to be released - it feels really unpolished and slow, and the experience changes depending on what head unit you're using, just like Android's unpredictability. It doesn't feel like an Apple product at all.
Classic Apple being run by old baby boomers move. Of course everybody in the world is commuting alone by car, why else would you use a car. We’d also all like more U2 forced onto our phones please.
Also being able to control everything via Siri with actually competent speech recognition is a godsend compared to the several minutes of shouting in various accents that most in-built voice control systems require.
The need for internet access is slightly irritating however.
In my experience Siri over CarPlay is significantly more reliable (in that it understands me better over road noise) than Siri over Bluetooth audio (in both cases using the mic/speakers built into the car). FWIW phone calls also sound clearer when plugged in via USB. I’m guessing it’s because of poor audio quality for voice over Bluetooth in at least the cars I tried.
1. That I can't tell siri to play things on spotify, etc, although apparently siri support for spotify is coming. I'm on the iOS 13.1 beta but it's still not there
2. Carplay limits the listing of bands/albums/songs in the menu. I get that they don't want me visually scrolling through hundreds of albums while I'm driving, but since there's no carplay search, and I can't (yet) control spotify with siri, this means to play the music I want I have to pick up my phone and select my music from there. Much less safe than if they just listed all my music on the screen.
They list far more albums when the car is at a stop, but it's still not all of it. Scrolling through my artists gets me to about G before it stops listing.
Siri support for spotify really can't come soon enough for me.
I think Spotify needs to implement Siri support so I’m not surprised that it doesn’t work on the beta. I’m also excited for this integration because I loathe Apple Music. Spotify is so much better. It’s annoying that Spotify doesn’t work as wel natively. If Apple Music was just a Spotify clone, I’d happily switch to them just for the first party support, but they insist on making it different. Spotify’s interface and music organization is just so much better.
Yeah, after the latest beta release if I ask siri to play on spotify she says "Spotify hasn't set up playing from siri yet" or something along those lines. I'm gonna be a happy camper when it starts working.
Apple provide the API, so this is just the car manufacturer doing "the right thing".
I think the wording may some "certain cars" enforce it because after-market head units may not be connected up to the speedometer and therefore have no way of including this information.
We have a Suzuki that’s supposed to disable most of the touch screen controls when driving (including the TV/DVD and changing any navigation settings aside from zoom), but the used car dealer we bought it from informed us that he had already disconnected that sensor as a routine service to us...
Really can depend on the car too. I mostly love CarPlay in my Mazda[1]. My wife hates it in her Chevy Volt[2].
[1] Apple gives the car manufacturer the ability to truncate the length of scrollable lists while the car is in motion, which Mazda does. Nothing like only being able to see the first 15 items in a list of podcasts, or artists, or songs. I hate this. But otherwise the implementation is great, especially the integration between the car's physical controls and CarPlay. There's a steering wheel button to bring up Siri. There's direct physical button access to Maps, Now Playing, and the home screen. It would be nice if Apple allowed me to set Google Maps as the default mapping app, but Apple maps has become good enough most of the time. Aside, my 2016 CX-9 came w/o CarPlay. Mazda made it available as a DIY'able retrofit last year. The parts were a couple hundred dollars and it took a couple hours to retrofit.
[2] Once the entire entertainment system froze up and it didn't fix itself till like the next day. I've been meaning to check if there's an update from Chevy.
I'm an Android user, but have been considering switching to Apple, and it turns out that you can make GMaps or Waze the default mapping app for CarPlay. I was just reading about it as part of this thread.
That's just putting a shortcut on the screen. It doesn't change any other defaults. Siri will still only open Apple Maps. Same with Calendar, iMessage, Contacts, etc.
“Give me directions to foo” - gives directions to foo in apple maps
“Give me directions to foo using Waze” - gives directions to do using Waze
This might be new, but it definitely works on the iOS 13 beta, although I’m pretty sure it worked on iOS 12. It would still be nicer if we could just set default apps
Yup. At first I blamed Spotify. Then Apple. Then I learned it was Mazda to blame:
1. "Intelligently filter content when the vehicle is moving. Certain cars may cause CarPlay to truncate lists of content when the vehicle is in motion or has exceeded a certain speed."
2. contentLimitsEnforced: A Boolean value indicating whether contents limits are enforced by the content server.
3. enforcedContentItemsCount: Returns the number of content items that are displayed when content limiting is enforced.
CarPlay worked fine on my Chevy Volt(s). I owned the later generations. It’s even better on my Bolt since it seems they figured out that everyone will either use CarPlay or Android Auto. The problem with the Volt(s) is that there didn’t seem to be a way to remotely update the HUD. This has changed with newer Bolts
I've been waffling on this, but my biggest concern about the center stack display is that it's far away from looking at the road. I've been using a suction cup RAM mount on the windshield for years with Waze up constantly on my phone, podcasts playing to the bluetooth or wired connection, and most importantly, I have to look slightly to the right to see the directions, not down and far away. Even then, it's refocusing on something close instead of staying with my eye focus on the middle distance. Someday I hope to switch to a HUD, but my 2010 Mazda Miata does not leave a lot of dash room to mount such a thing aftermarket.
I agree, I have Android Auto in my 2019 VW Tiguan. Its awesome but its very easy to spend more time than you think picking a playlist from spotify etc.
With your phone you know not to touch it when driving but the center console feels acceptable.
I had one close call where the car's auto breaking saved me from hitting a car that decided to turn without indicating. now I treat my centre console almost like my phone, I will use the console stopped at lights but not my phone.
To me, the size of display outweighs location by far. Also the fact that I don't have to worry about a suction cup or magnet or whatever letting go while I'm driving; also I don't have to glue anything to my dash.
To be clear, I hardly touch the infotainment screen while in motion. I can do almost everything I need to by voice, the only touch command is to choose an option from a list.
It would be nice to have a HUD projected on the windshield, but I don't find it distracting to look at the Infotainment screen.
100 times this. As nice as the stuff in the center display is, it's too far away from the forward field of view to use. I've been using a suction cup to hold my phone as well but it's very frustrating - it falls off every few months especially during temperature changes.
I came to a compromise of using ~1/4" aluminum rods anchored in the forward vent and around inside the CD player to create a phone holder cradled above and slightly off to the right of the main dashboard. This creates a mechanically sturdy enclosure that I really wish cars would come with built in.
A HUD would be even better but I don't think I could ever trust a display driven by car manufacturers' software stacks.
that suction cup will not hold in the event of an accident and now your phone is a projectile. always put your phone away in a compartment and use handsfree.
no one will follow this advice, but no one will think they will be in an accident until they have a huge welt on their head and can't figure out why.
It might bounce but at that point there's way less energy involved and the accident's intense enough that a welt on my head is the least of my problems.
Someone flung from a car won't damage you, but have a look at videos with crash test dummies, where a passenger in the back isn't wearing a seat belt. Them being flung in to the back of the driver's seat creates a huge impact.
The windshield won't be flung anywhere, but an electronic device will. Getting smashed in the face with an iPhone going 50Km/h is going to do some damage, rounded corners or not.
>that suction cup will not hold in the event of an accident and now your phone is a projectile.
I guess?
What do I do about the legally mandated 2-4lbs steel backed rear-view mirror that's required to be hand-removable without the use of tools in most places?
To be clear, i'm not saying you're wrong -- i'm saying that making a car a safe crash space will drive a person mad. It's practically impossible.
Why not just use CarPlay on your phone with the phone holder? Is it not exactly the same as a car with built in CarPlay? Atleast on android auto I noticed no difference between the App on my phone and connecting my phone to my car's Android Auto.
The whole point of CarPlay is that it’s on the built in screen. Many states have laws now that prohibit operating any sort of handheld device while driving (and yes, a phone or even GPS unit in a mount still counts as handheld)
That's really dumb, phones now have 6"+ screens and are way more powerful than any head unit in a car...
"Many states have laws now that prohibit operating any sort of handheld device while driving" I don't believe you, otherwise most uber drivers, food delivery drivers and taxi drivers would be getting pulled over by the police.
You are wrong, in the ad absurdum extrapolation in this thread that using a phone for navigation is illegal in “all of Europe”.
You presumably meant EU, a part but not all of Europe, but that too is wrong. For example, the law in the Czech Republic, a member state of EU, states that it forbidden to hold a phone (or other handheld device), in hand or otherwise (e.g. between shoulder and ear) while driving (§ 125c / 1f) 1. z. č. 361/2000 Sb.).
Handheld devices probably are illegal to use while driving in all of EU while being (hand)held, but absolutely not when mounted and used in the same manner as car’s builtin display. It may be the case in some country, but is not true generally.
Because a lot of manufacturers put control of the car's settings in the stock head unit. You'd have to swap it out if you want to change a particular setting.
What I'd be willing to compromise on is an external screen that will handle CarPlay or Android Auto. I can't seem to find one out there.
That feature is my least favourite part of Android Auto - using it on the main display hides the navigation behind the steering wheel. I really hope this can be fixed.
I got a leaf about 6 mo ago and it has carplay/android auto. This makes the infotainment/nav stuff no car maker ever could be arsed to do proper, completely moot.
It’s a requirement from now on! :)
I keep saying that an EV with carplay has made me look at a car differently - it’s a chassis with a battery. Choose the size of both according to what fits, say, 99.9% of all trips.
For someone who lives in a city and have a charger in the garage of course this is a luxury, but to me it just makes so much sense.
Did the car you rented have a Play/Pause button on the steering wheel? That’s what I am missing the most: being able to quickly pause (and later resume) whatever I’m listening to through CarPlay because I need to pay attention to something that’s happening inside or outside the car. Reading the CarPlay documentation, it seems that it supports such a button, but it’s hard to find a list of cars that have one.
So on my Mom’s recent Honda we’ve (accidentally) discovered that pressing the volume knob like you would to turn off an old radio plays/pauses what you’re listening to.
Give that a try on any car you look at, you may find it works.
Thanks; I’ll double-check but I think pushing the volume button turns the whole infotainment system off. Which does pause whatever’s playing, but also turns off navigation or whatever else I had on the CarPlay screen.
I believe the steering wheel had some basic media controls, but honestly I didn't end up using them very much. I found myself using Siri more than usual so I wouldn't need to spend too much time looking at buttons to figure out what they did, but I think I could get used to more buttons if it was my own vehicle and not a short term rental.
Yes, this is one of my pet peeves too. The steering wheel has volume controls with press-to-mute, then right next to them are forward and back controls... a press on that control would be perfect for play/pause, but alas— no.
My volvo's big central volume control has a large play/pause button in the middle and it works to pause anything that Carplay is playing. There's also a play/pause control on the steering wheel. Overall, my 2016 Volvo does a pretty good job with Carplay integration, though it also has a bunch of native software that mostly sucks in comparison, such as a voice control that I've never been able to use.
So it turns out that if you turn the volume all the way down to zero, it pauses playback. And if you turn it up again, it starts playing. I didn’t test whether navigation messages from Maps can still be heard. Not perfect as it takes a few seconds to do when you might need an immediate pause to avoid distraction, but it’s probably good enough for me.
This was happening to me (and many others). I disabled notifications in the Amazon Music app and the switching has stopped.
I still get an occasional dropout where the song gets really quiet for a few seconds but my Spotify app keeps running and no longer switches to Amazon Music randomly.
I really just want my car to drive and to last a long time.
Aren’t these screens almost entirely bad? In 10 years, screens in cars will be the new smoking, except that they kill other people, and the NYT will be full of editorials about how they snuck up on society and caused so many accidents - who could have known?
I think most cars with CarPlay support Android Auto because most systems are essentially Android tablets.
And that's one thing I have noticed, Android pretty much owns the industrial market. Every touchscreen device you see in the wild is basically an Android device. Those payment kiosk things in restaurants, CarPlay, etc.
Well there’s a good reason for this: In this day and age it’s pretty much the ideal option. In fact I think android makes a horrible phone OS (not because it has no good features) but I’ve never had an android phone that didn’t become a battery sucking and unmanageable nightmare. And are high quality audio APIs available (I gave up caring a few years ago)
AFAIC, Android is best suited as an industrial OS. Before android it was Windows CE, which was even bigger garbage than Android, and of course now it is dead.
Alternatives are things like custom rolled Linux (and really why?) and RTOS/GUI platforms like vxworks, qnx.. they have their place. 90% of shit can just use stock android and whatever mods you need.
I love Android as a mobile OS on my Pixel 2; especially with apps like MiXplorer (fully featured file manager). I can't count the number of times being able to plug in a flash drive and copy files to it has saved me.
Subjectively, running Android 10 on a Pixel 2, battery life has never been better, and apps running in the background sucking up my battery hasn't been a problem.
I've used the ubiquitous cheap Huawei and Xiaomi phones, and while they get the job done, the experience isn't nearly as good, as you have to deal with their UI and clutter. Unfortunate.
Linux serves as the hardware abstraction layer for Android. You’re going to need a “custom rolled” kernel for whatever platform you decide to launch in the car.
I had trouble updating the console in our 2017 Suzuki[0] and extracted the update file - it was QNX
[0] the update instructions say to put the update file on a FAT32-formatted USB drive and plug in. The update file is 6GB and FAT32 has a 4 GB file size limit. Tried exFAT, UFS, and a few other file systems QNX has support for, no go with those.
Yes, but that has no bearing on the ability of your car to run Android Auto. You cannot run it on the hardware that's built into the car. If you want Android Auto you must project it from a phone or tablet onto the display.
Most of the airplane seat-back media centers I’ve used seem to be running Android. Although I was just on an Air China flight that appeared to be using either Windows CE or QNX or something non-standard.
I actually couldn't disagree more, I deeply dislike Tesla's infotainment center. It's a much larger version of "traditional" manufacturer's displays with more functionality that I want shoved into it.
I'd much prefer that display be an extension of my personal device. I don't want a new infotainment ecosystem with the manufacturer's choices baked in, I want the an extension of the one I'm going to keep using when I get out of the car, replete with my personal preferences for things like map applications, music, etc.
This is interesting because I rather like Tesla's nav system and music. The browser is kinda lame but I have a phone for that.
Perhaps it was my coming from the crime against humanity that is CarWings in my old Nissan Leaf. I liked my Leaf, but there was nothing on the center console that wasn't better on my iPhone.
From what I’ve seen most cars that support one support the other. It seems to be rare for a car to only support one of the two. Must be easy to implement both of you do one of them.
Most of the systems in-car are android based, so android-auto support is pretty much free; and iThings are so common that not supporting them would likely cost sales.
Does your wife's have an issue where once in a while it refuses to go into AA, and you have to hard-reboot the infotainment system? Mine does this thing where AA icon shows up, touching it does does the click animation, but doesn't actually launch AA.
That's my only real complaint with the system, actually. Once in a while it just really doesn't want to launch AA. Once I'm in though... works great. (Okay, maybe the steering wheel could use a play/pause button, but that's minor)
good luck figuring out how to turn on your a/c without looking. I loved my old Ford Fusion because it was a touch interface but with raised and lowered plastic so you knew what you were pressing.
the newer fusions replaced controls with actual buttons which looks cheaper and doesn't make it any easier to figure out without looking. probably due to increased failures or simply cost savings
Car companies are NOT in the business of building infotainment systems. They are in the business of building cars. A while back, to compete and differentiate themselves, they all started to build their own touch screen systems with their own custom interfaces. All of them sucked. Even the ones that were the best of their class still sucked. Not only that, every single interface was different. Going from car-to-car meant re-learning a new system. They all have limited resources to throw at this problem so everything is sub-par. It's like going to McDonalds for good coffee -- no, you go to a coffee shop if you want good coffee. McDonalds just provides coffee because they have to. Same is true for car manufacturers.
Trusting the OEM is just a bad idea. It is better for everyone involved to give this responsibility to those who are good at it. Apple and Google both have huge ecosystems of accessories and application developers -- not to mention massive user bases. Apple and Google have entire teams dedicated to integrating with auto makers and ensuring that the experience is consistent across all vehicles.
So why would you want to pay thousands of dollars more to get, for example, a navigation experience on your car that sucks balls? Instead you can plug in your smartphone – which some have arguably more computing power than a lot of commodity PC's sold in the last few years – and have a vastly superior experience.
Too bad none of them differentiated themselves by not putting anything.
I'd love to buy a luxury car that lets me hook up my iPad for all infotainment and GPS. Just give me a nice simple dock that looks good with the rest of the fit and finish.
An iPad is not going to survive in a parked car in the hot sun. Supposedly that's the reason that Tesla's have the "dog mode" aka "Cabin Overheat Protection". Their cars will cool themselves down to prevent the big touchscreens from being destroyed by high temperatures.
Strange - one of my former supervisors had modded his truck's center console to use a Android tablet of some sort (don't recall which one, but it was fairly high-end - maybe one of the Samsungs) - it was basically "built-in" and non-removable; in fact, if you didn't know, you'd believe that it was OEM (it was a very clean install he'd done).
I'm in Phoenix, Arizona - and even in the middle of summer, with the sun beating down and turning the inside of every vehicle into an impromptu slow cooker (seriously - you can slow-cook in your car here in Arizona; that is, if you don't mind your car smelling like a working kitchen afterward), the LCD never had any problems that I could see.
I was honestly very surprised, as LCDs are normally very temperature sensitive (more to cold than to heat - but I would think that the temperatures inside a car in the summertime would be hot enough to cause problems). Usually, though, whatever the temperature - if the LCD has problems, once it comes back within it's normal range it will start working properly again.
Wherever that “supposed” claim comes from is BS. They have the dog mode to prevent dogs from cooking, and you explicitly enable it when leaving a dog in the car. Hence the name.
That's also a killer idea. A lot of people do this in the aftermarket world, but it would be unreasonable to expect you to "BYOD" for basic infotainment purposes. There needs to be _soemthing_ there for the people who don't have devices, or just need to make a quick run to the store and don't want to grab their ipad and dock it etc...
That was the especially galling part about all these OEM infotainment systems -- they were charging like $1200 for the equivalent functionality of a Kindle Fire.
My 2011 Subaru Forester's "infotainment" is a TomTom GPS with a few extra hooks into the cars radio. It's absolute trash, but you can remove the GPS entirely and the radio/CD player/AUX still works with a small button only interface.
I've dreamed about being able to dock my phone in place of that shitty GPS.
I think Toyota have docking stations as option on some of their cars, but only for rear passengers. Attached to the back of the front seats, for kids to watch stuff on a tablet.
> I’d love a car that was just a car, a set of speakers, and A/C.
My 2004 TJ is pretty much that - it's dash is reminiscent of the basic dash I had in my old 94 Ranger.
In an original Wrangler (ie - pre-JK, 2 door), the dash is pretty "small" - there isn't a lot of room between its front and the firewall - so while it seems like a lot is crammed in there, it also makes fishing wires and such fairly easy (coupled with the bareness of the interior - custom wiring is a dream - just lay it down and zip-tie it to the rollbar in most cases).
The "center console" area is almost designed to be modded, and plenty of people have done it. But if you want to keep it stock, it is pretty bare-bones. You can even get it with a cigarette lighter -and- a DC power outlet (I should also note that one mod that I've seen was kinda neat - stowing a small inverter behind the passenger speaker area with the "plug" mounted nearby on the side or underneath the dash area).
The downside is that it isn't a new vehicle - but I have the "bulletproof" 4.0 I6 - so even with it's mileage, I'm not worried. There's also the fact that the interior is...spartan (and the body isn't designed to protect you in an accident - not a big deal, as usually most cars that get into accidents with Wranglers disintegrate, while the Wrangler is usually drivable - might have to take a hammer to some parts first). Despite it being basic, though, the AC works incredibly well here in Phoenix!
Oh - and terrible gas mileage - there's that - though having a lift, 33" ATs, and a rear tire carrier don't help either (I've heard that you can get up to 16 mpg with a TJ on stock tires and no lift - but I ain't changing mine - I'm fine with 12 mpg - smiles per gallon, man).
But...but...if you can live with all that...you too can own a wallet that cries itself to sleep every night.
The other problem is, even if the car comes with a good screen experience the manufacturer probably won't update it. (Tesla is good about this but a lot aren't.)
A friend of mine had an early-2000s Mercedes S-class. It was a very expensive car when it was new and still an amazing car in almost all respects -- except for the completely outdated, ugly DVD-based navigation system. He used a dashboard mount for his smartphone instead.
Even luxury cars made less than 10 years ago have screen software that feels very outdated compared to what a new Honda Civic comes with. The cars still drive great, but a significant part of the way you interact with them is obsolete.
I hope both Carplay and Android Auto continue to get regular updates and don't break backward compatibility, so a car that comes with one of those systems today won't feel obsolete in 5 years.
Cars have the same problem many other "smart" products have such as TVs and refrigerators: the technology lifecycle is significantly faster than the overall objects lifecycle.
It's not unreasonable to expect a fridge or TV to last 10 or 15 years. Yet, if it's "smart", and had a top-of-the-line processor put in it 10 years ago, today it would be equivalent to running an iPhone 3G. More likely, it was in development for a couple years, and was based on a cheaper/lower-end/older processor.
Cars have the same problem, but with the non-tech part being 5 digits $$$ instead of 3 or 4.
I think part of the problem is the manufacturers would rather you replace the entire thing (because the processor is outdated). Someone buying a new fridge every 3 years (instead of every 10-15) because theirs won't run the latest apps is great for them.
With cars, Android Auto and CarPlay have so far saved consumers from that nightmare.
I have a Mazda 3 skyactiv which is not a luxury car. The infotainment system is rather very solid. It's very responsive. I almost never had a problem with Bluetooth and I never needed to use the touch screen because the buttons UX is good enough.
Comparing to the other crap I've seen in the same category cars, I'd say the Japanese pulled a hell of a job.
Which year? My 2015 Mazda 3 Grand Touring has a kind of slow system. Boots slowly and a bit inconsistently. I've had lots of problems with Bluetooth (with three different phones, 2 Nexus and a Pixel), and often have to hold 3 buttons in to reboot the software. I've also had it black screen and reboot on its own. That being said, I used Mazda AIO Tweaks software to install Android Auto, and it's largely reliable. It does stutter when switching between music and navigation, and the music even stutters while turning if maps are on... but for the daily commute, it works fine.
I have the same model and if I start the car and walk away with my phone, good luck getting Bluetooth to reconnect thereafter. Have to shut the car down for it to reconnect with the phone. Other than that, everything else is excellent UX wise even the navigation, however it's outdated so phone mount + Waze works great.
Hmm. I never started the car and walked away with my phone. Can't think of a situation where I need to do that. But then my phone is big and doesn't fit in my pocket.
I've also got a 2015 Mazda 3 GT and I absolutely love the system. It boots quickly and works really well. I got the CarPlay upgrade done though. Everyone that gets in thinks my car is brand new.
Is that a Mazda installed system? Do you know what version software you have? I know with mine, I had one of the last versions where a Mazda AIO Tweak install was easy. (Later they make it harder.) So maybe there were some improvements made to the official Mazda software in later versions.
the only problem with my 2019 Mazda cx-5 system is that the maps are stuck in 2008. It works, but you still have to go through many levels of menus to search and find destinations. Thankfully it supports carplay.
Agreed. I'm happy that my Tesla doesn't have CarPlay. I don't need my messages showing up on screen or constantly being read to me, I use driving time to decompress after a day of being social with my coworkers.
I would gladly take CarPlay in my Tesla over the current system. Slacker is fine but it's not great and I prefer my preferences over those that Tesla chooses. On top of that, I have my phone set to DnD while Driving and that would extend to CarPlay also so my messages wouldn't pop up or bother me.
Agreed. I've driven a Bolt with CarPlay and it's better than my Model 3. Tesla's Siri (or any mic input) is ridiculously slow. They're both Google Maps but my phone already knows my locations. Other apps (like podcast app) as others have said is great.
Yep. The car has a calendar app which can be configured to pop up on entry. Calendar sync is handled through the Tesla app on your phone, which also acts a share destination for locations (automatically entering the location in the nav system) and other such conveniences.
You can turn on do not disturb if you don't want messages or notifications, you can even make it automatic as part of driving. AND you can get map navigation that isn't in a phone.
Tesla's system might be good right now, but they're unstable fiscally as a company and they have NO incentive to be excellent in designing software and maintaining old software far into the future. And Tesla might go belly-up, at which point their ability to maintain said software declines to zero.
Not related to cars, but your comment is exactly what I recently thought about infotainment systems on long haul flights. Annoying, sluggish to the point I don't want to navigate the menu since the response time is in order of seconds, and the UX is terrible in most of those interfaces. Furthermore, the content is randomly added (oh, you like Big Bang theory, here's episode 7 and 12 of the 4th series, and 1 and 10 of the 7th).
I don't know if these systems are outsourced or built in house by the airlines, but they make my blood boil every time. Especially considering that airlines pay the plane 100+ M$ but they save money on putting crappy Android tablets with a bloated software on it...
Like a lot of specialty industries, anything that goes on a plane requires a boatload of certifications and tests. Most consumer electronics companies aren't set up to run that gauntlet, so it falls to companies created specifically to do so. Naturally they tend to be lacking in traditional areas like software quality because they don't have the resources to attend to it.
I am a professional engine mechanic by trade, however during my apprenticeship I worked at a luxury dealership so these complains are painfully familiar to me. Back in the day, it was the BMW I-Drive controller or the center console navigation ring that people hated.
Do you want to know how you can tell if someone can actually afford a luxury car? Its not whether they get good financing, or whether they get options, its whether or not its serviced.
>but I’m equally sure I’d be charged some outrageous fee for that “service”.
You see, actual luxury vehicle owners do not question the price at all. They dont see anything other than the signature box on the invoice. You could for example as I have, charge $190 just to replace the light in the glovebox, and they wouldnt think twice about that amount of money. I was once faced with a BMW owner looking at seven thousand dollars to replace their electronic air-ride suspension, and the hardest decision they had to make was whether they should buy another BMW while this one was being serviced.
Luxury owners rarely see opulence as anything more than a disposable commodity. If they dont like the apps, or if they dont like the stereo, they just buy a different car. A salesman once told me of a woman who traded her 8 month old Porsche in for a BMW because she didnt like the little song the car played when it started up.
I appreciate your first hand experience, but it's not at all what the actual demographics of Audi, BMW, or Mercedes-Benz are.
"Actual luxury vehicle owners" are just the mass affluent. There's really nothing special about them. The upper 20% household income demographics of just about any developed nation. Read the sales numbers for literally any of the German big-three. They're just what you expect. A4s sell more than any other Audi sedan; Q5s sell more than any other Audi SUV.
The typical owner isn't someone with a 7-series.
Makes for a nice story, though. And sure, the mass affluent frequently lease. They also often live beyond or max out their means.
I used to sell computers at retail. Probably 5% of customers were mega-rich. One guy dropped $50k on laptops and accessories for his kids for Christmas. Another lady paid me about $5k to run some Ethernet cable, build a fancy desk and setup her workspace.
Your entry level rich person is a surgeon. The Ethernet lady owned a half dozen McDonalds.
Your figures surprise me, maybe they’re for the US? I would have expected sales of a1, a3 and q3 to be way higher than the “true” (longitudinal) models
What percentage of luxury car owners do you think are living beyond their means, versus your actual luxury vehicle owners?
I often wonder about the people who drive late model luxury cars, on the rare occasions I see them in my town. Are they killing it? Or did they buy it on finance to compete with the Jonses?
My "this is what I'd do if I was super rich" fantasy isn't a ferrari or a rolls royce. It's having a driver. I find car ownership and driving stressful.
Some people don’t care about the newest, shiny thing. They just want to buy the best thing they like when they’re in the market for it and then use it until it needs replacing.
I don’t know how it is in the US but my dad and the dads of many of my friends here in Spain have owned Mercedes, Audis and BMWs for decades and none of them ever thought like that for a second. I know so in fact, because bitching about official service gouging is a national sport around these parts, and for good reason.
There are plenty of people with more money than those people who would scoff at that kind of stuff out of pure principle, culture or growing up poor.
Or it's a tax deduction because leasing cars are deductible while buying them is not as easily deductible, so it's overall cheaper for them to act that way then to be traditionally money smart about it.
Yeah, I’m definitely not a typical luxury car owner. I got a mid-range car from a high end brand, and I got it at a 40% discount because it was a demo model.
That's basically why you might buy a Volkwagen - they even kind-of look the same internally. But there's a noticable difference in driving experience, performance and handling.
Nah, a higher end Ford Fusion is an “American Audi”. Same performance, same handling (with the notable exception being the difference between Torsen and a viscous coupled AWD system)
Compare the fusion to an A4 and you’ll find the A4 feels cheaper. Now an A6 does not compare to a fusion, but a Lincoln continental blows it away.
It’s all in the eye of the beholder (luxury by name, or actual feel of luxury). If anything a Volkswagen competes with Honda these days. Utilitarian and bland... plus Volkswagen will have a random electrical failure that totals the car. Now if you had said Nissan you would have had a point (but the price point doesn’t match Ford)
I would never buy an A4 as they do seem cheap. An A6 is a very different car to drive. Wife had one the other day as a loan car.
The last Ford I owned was about 16 years ago so I don't know what they're like these days. Swapped it for a Honda Jazz/Fit and more recently I have a Golf. The build quality of the VW was a big step up from the Honda. Simply felt more solid and sturdy. Both have been reliable.
What’s interesting is that VW is a premium brand in germany and Europe. The lineup bein. Audi luxury, VW premium, Skoda utilitarian cheap, and Seat sporty cheap.
Soooo glad my 2007 335i doesn't have that first gen iDrive system. Pretty sure it will up the resale value since it worked like crap and the bump in the dash looked terrible.
Buying a car with too many software bells and whistles is a good way to buy a car that will look old within just a few years. The software built by the car companies is almost never updated in a major way. I remember when built-in GPS was an option for $1-2k extra on a new car... Five years later and the built in GPS interface looks ancient, and isn't nearly as functional as just using your phone anyway. I'll take a phone mounted to the dashboard over built-in GPS any day.
Every car company should provide some basics, like bluetooth connectivity, but aside from that, Android Auto and Apple Carplay are the ways to go. They get updated constantly and are made by companies with stakes in keeping them current. This way, I don't need to purchase a new car to get decent software.
I would go even farther - I don't want a screen in my car. I have enough of that in other devices. Give me a convenient place on the dashboard to attach a phone holder, and provide a nearby USB power port, and I'd be super happy. Focus on making the climate controls work great, and have great Bluetooth, and I'm all set.
> the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it would require all automobiles sold in the United States built beginning in May 2018 to include backup cameras
I feel like we have passed the peak of technology working well. Now my life is full of devices I can't actually get to do what I want or figure out how to use, and every year it gets worse. Crappy TV, crappy car computer, can't seem to manage to get my calendars to sync on all my devices so I'm never really sure if I'm looking at all my events (and let's not talk about trying to get facebook calendars on there), afraid to try upgrading the OS on my Mac laptop cause who knows what the hell it will do...
or wait, is this just what getting old is like? Do the kids these days think everything works great?
I feel like I'm not in control of most of the technology in my life, and most of it is unreliable and unpredictable and has terrible UX.
Eh, not true in my experience. Especially not the getting worse every year part. Things mostly still get better over time - now you can get CarPlay instead of the shitty builtin infotainment systems, and even those get more usable. Smart TVs work a lot better than they used to.
What I’ve noticed is there are still industries that don’t use a lot of computers yet and every once in a while the entire industry all at once decides “we need to force computers on everyone now”. And they do this way ahead of putting any thought into user experience so it usually sucks and you end up dealing with new sources of shitty computer interfaces sometimes I.e. smart TVs. But they do generally seem to get gradually better from there.
I agree. My Smart TV has a problem with the network and needs to be rebooted about once a week. I wish they had a big reboot menu item right in the home screen.
Phone keeps getting jankier and jankier UX as the software gets more and more and bloated (I'm looking at your Chromium and Google Maps). Right now my virtual key presses lag about 5-10s
Pretty much any single technical device or software component in my life malfunctions in several ways. Just last night I rebooted UE4 Editor about half a dozen times when it started rendering black and mouse stopped working. I have a Cardo bluetooth set (for motorcyclists) and every feature in that device is broken/malfunctioning in some way. And I paid 200€ for that. Utter f*n BS.
Steve Jobs greatest contribution was to scream at people to make their shit work. I wish every engineer had a personal stevejobs screaming at him with a red face to make his/her shit work.
Unfortunately the sad fact is.. there's no value in quality to businesses. As long as people buy their shit (and there are no better quality competitors) the added quality would only be an added cost.
You nailed it. Google Home never hears me, I have to shout at Alexa, they frequently misunderstand me... I just want my lightbulbs to turn on. Light switches don't seem too inconvenient anymore. My TV takes longer to load than a CRT could warm up. My smart security system is cool... until any of the multiple SPoF crap out.
I miss the days when software would ship when it was done. Or as close to done as reasonable. Living in the days of constant updates means I don't know what my phone's UI is going to look like tomorrow.
Hopefully we can find a balance in the coming years.
There's probably some nostalgia in there. I'm not sure computer tech ever worked that great. And probably you never did have calendars synced to all devices - it's just people expect that stuff now.
That said I'm pleased to drive a car with no in car computer.
Haha, I think you've turned the corner to 'old'. I appreciate the awareness of your 'or wait'.
When I was a kid in the 80s every adult I heard complained that they couldn't set the clock on their VCR, but that every 12 year old knew how instinctively.
I really resonate with this. It feels like everyone in the "value chain" between you and your product is trying to interpose some software based monthly recurring revenue stream to boost their margins.
The recent story about how Cisco routers would 'phone home' to see if your license for the software was still current and not operate if it wasn't struck me as another absurd example of how lame this can be.
What always astonishes me is that a company like BMW which makes an excellent car can convince itself that it can maintain and operate a software service infrastructure. Just get a few web designers and some coders to whip up an app. Reality is complicated, and what others make look "easy" (Amazon, Google, Azure) has a lot of layers you can't easily "outsource."
Even back in the 90's Sun was fretting over the fact that if you just bought one copy of Solaris with your computer and never upgraded, all those engineers sitting around would just consume cash waiting to do something. Free software has whacked the software business model even further afield.
I have a 2017 BMW X3 with every option. The Bluetooth integration is terrible. It did force me to move my music service to Spotify (which is the only music service BMW supports.) Turns out Spotify is awesome, but BMW's integration of it is awful. Sometimes I travel in complete silence in protest of my BMW's Bluetooth flakiness.
I continue to use it because Sirius XM horrific sound quality is always there, whereas Bluetooth occasional does what it's supposed to.
The BMW Connected app provides more frustration than value. I use it on occasion, when I've forgotten about how terrible it is.
I loathe voice control systems of all kinds, doesn't matter how good they are. I hate both talking to computers and listening to computers "talk". The first thing I do when I get in a new car is turn off the voice.
You can get map updates much cheaper from people hanging out in BMW user Internet forums who sell them for $50. If you're a computer person and can follow instructions you can save a lot of money on map updates.
My phone is in my pocket most of the time, I just press play in the dongle to resume music I played at home. Even when it’s hanging on a hook on the dashboard I don’t want to fuss with the wires.
That blows my mind. I bought a 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe and see no reason to use google maps because the factory infotainment is so good. Bluetooth is super reliable. I considered BMW, Audi when shopping but just could not pay $15k more for luxury.
I honestly don't even see the need for screens in a car. I'm perfectly happy with having physical buttons/dials to control my music and AC. I don't need to know anything else other than what's on the dashboard. (speed, rpm, fuel, etc for those who are wondering)
It just seems like a huge waste of time, effort, and money for something that a smartphone can do, all while introducing a mandatory version of a potentially fatal distraction. And it looks shitty and operates pretty terribly.
Maybe this will make more sense if/when cars become fully automated, but it should have no place in a vehicle today, when your attention should be on the road.
This so much for me. My truck has all knobs and buttons, it's extremely easy to adjust anything. No screen but a simple one in the middle (the 8 Matrix screens or whatever they're called)
Meanwhile my wife's car has a full infotainment system and I have to stare at it to figure out what buttons to hit next and it drives me nuts.
That said I'm also partial to removing all screens outside of some kind of GPS. People already don't respect driving their 2-3 ton machine at 100+ feet per second, stop giving them even more reasons to not pay attention to the road.
Maybe you don't, but I'm never buying a car without a 360 camera ever again. It's available in even the cheapest cars, and makes anything parking related both easier and safer.
So this might be an exception to the rule, AFAIK. I know in the US, it's required by law that all new cars require some sort of backup camera.
I think this is acceptable if it's kept to a small screen, or integrated into the rear-view mirror. But, I dont think this should give manufacturers an excuse to add an entire, shitty infotainment system.
My opinion of course, but I have to wonder how many accidents are caused by people staring at their integrated screen of potential death.
I'm going to caution drawing the wrong conclusion there: I would not be surprised if those same people would be involved in accidents if they didn't have large screens, because they'd simply be looking at the phones instead (mounted or in hand, makes no real difference).
Just because your center console _can_ play a film, or show that sportsball game you want to watch, doesn't mean a responsible driver will use it for that. Blaming the screens for irresponsible drivers is probably blaming the wrong thing entirely.
I don't like spending money on cars at all and always buy those for about 3000$ and use them for a few years. I treat them like crap, wouldn't be worth it in my case.
I often use company cars and they are always nice and comfortable, but I didn't encounter any software system I like yet.
I my car I rig my smartphone to the audio and have all features with slightly worse ergonomics.
Maybe interesting for families that often drive on trips but I don't really see the added value yet.
But, it would actually be interesting to get more technical information about the car. But these are hidden by the shitty proprietary software in cases I encountered. And of course you don't get access to maintenance information without manufacturer specific devices...
It was expected that manufacturers try to roll their own systems and try to hide actually useful info in favor of some fucking internet music store. Disappointing.
On my 2012 BMW I disabled the iDrive screen. I was even thinking of removing it completely to lower the chances of theft but I was afraid it would mess up some systems.
I was just thinking about this in relation to CarPlay last night. I’m so happy to have an interface that 1) isn’t garbage and 2) actually improves throughout the life of my car.
I also know that whatever car I go to, no matter how crappy the entertainment system is I get to use CarPlay and don’t have to worry about the OEM garbage. Slow? Ugly? Confusing? Who cares!
I’ve outsourced the entertainment system to a software company with a clue, and I couldn’t be happier.
My maps are real-time updated by Apple. I can listen to whatever new streaming app comes out next year and takes over the market. I have Siri for voice commands, not the awful thing built into my car.
Sorry car makers, you screwed up for too long. Now everyone just wants to bypass you with CarPlay (or Android Auto).
In my opinion, the sane way to approach cars is to accept that it's an excellent mechanical machine with shit software. Even if they were to do an awesome job, which they won't, over the years the software/screen will get outdated.
The solution is to minimize the software use, and enjoy the car as a mechanical machine, eg. buy the torque-y 30d not the 20d. Eg. I know the map is shit, so I just don't think about it, I have a $2 thing and I mount my phone and that's it. My phone will always have a nicer screen, better software, better 4G, it will always be configured better for me (I get a new phone every year).
On the car, I just use the radio, the bluetooth for Spotify (sometimes it doesn't work), and that's it. Things like "CarPlay" or whatever, voice commands, it's better not to think about it and just enjoy the ride.
The only tech upgrade I'd take on a new car is the surround camera because I'm a shitty parker, but that's it.
Unfortunately - I think what you're seeing here is that people here (especially in this article, on HN, and in general) are not focused on the "driving experience" but more of the "commuting experience". People are not using these vehicles to /drive/ but to /commute/ or just get to a destination. They're no more engaged in driving than they are in flying when on an airplane.
I think the audience for these things are people stuck in bad commutes or long boring trips where they are unengaged from driving.
Very true. My daily commute is 90% autobahn, and not the exciting unlimited speed autobahn, but just regular four lane highways with several speed traps on the way. So get on the road, engage cruise control and keep your lane, not much else.
Having something to listen to actually improves my concentration, prevents my brain zoning out and becoming really inattentive from boredom ;)
This right here. If I wanted a driving experience I would have bought a manual transmission Porsche 911 with the shit radio no serious driver bothers to turn on. But we live in modern times and people drive for work/school/errands is mind-numbing enough. Constantly down/up shifting while the engine drones on near idle would be torture.
To each their own, of course, but I think a car with CarPlay will age much better. The way CarPlay works is that your phone controls most of it, so you’ll be able to take advantage of the yearly iOS updates without getting a new car. Basically a free yearly update for the infotainment system, at least for a good long while.
There’ll probably come a time where Apple phases out support for really old CarPlay devices, but to my knowledge it hasn’t happened yet, and Apple has strong incentives to keep it that way (since they want to give you incentive to upgrade your iPhone, even if you have an old car).
A counterpoint: my personal 2009 BMW with the "professional" navigation has aged exceptionally well having updated the maps only a couple of times. I rent cars very frequently on business trips and have yet to find any (including, annoyingly, newer BMWs) which compare in overall utility and usability unless they have CarPlay. Having said that, it's an absolute given that I will not be buying a new car without CarPlay or the future equivalent thereof.
I had an E61 BMW 5, I think the nav/system/display was good. Now I drive the 4 series and the nav/system is not much different in terms of functionality, it's just a bit more pleasant on the eyes and higher resolution. Overall, it's the same story: I don't rely on it, and when I do use it it's an amusing reminder of in-car software, but it doesn't bother me. I've sat in the newest generation cars in BMW dealerships, and it seems like it's going to be the same story [ignoring things like CarPlay].
It's something I think about a lot, but it doesn't seem like a good trade-off. It's more expensive, and for real-world use-cases a torquey diesel seems a more fun fit: in city traffic, I'm going mostly 0-70 km/h, so torque at low revs is good. And when I'm going longer distances on the freeway I'm not accelerating anyway, I like the low rumbling noise of my diesel and fuel economy is good.
It seems to me an M-car mostly makes sense if you're going to the track, which I never do. CMIIW
I'm in agreement but I've not seen this sentiment shared much. A car is a seperate piece of technology to my phone and I've never felt the need to mix the features of them. Call me a luddite but I use the car to drive and that's it. I don't need any software integrations for the way I use it.
I am also in agreement. I want the car to be as mechanical as possible. The ideal phone-car integration for me is a 3.5mm aux jack that lives in the glove box somewhere. I am the kind of driver that will not look at their phone in the car, even at a stop light. Everyone who knows me knows that if I am driving, they should not expect any sort of response from me until I have parked safely. It's sad this has become an exceptional and even controversial stance.
Even the electronic safety nannies that are exclusively part of the car get in my way sometimes. I will intentionally disable stabilitrak and traction control on my car every time I start it up, unless the weather is bad. I also feel safer and more in control if I can feel the road through the steering wheel and don't have things like fly-by-wire keeping me isolated from the physical reality unfolding around me.
I've heard lots of complaints regarding things like lane keep assist being too aggressive and making steering non-intuitive or annoying. Good luck disabling that on a 2019 model year vehicle. Everyone wants to be so goddamn comfortable and disengaged while they are driving their 4000lb death machines around. I really don't get it anymore. What are our priorities?
I would argue turning off traction control feels safer up until the moment it doesn't and then it causes a crash. Traction control is really impressive tech even on older cars and I wouldn't want to turn it off. By "fly-by-wire" do you mean power steering? Driving without that just sucks. I like low-tech interiors but I don't mind newer tech on cars like blind spot detectors and auto-dip headlights. If only you could pick and choose.
My brother turned off traction control on his RX-8, then crashed it into the side of the onramp. Friends don't let friends turn off traction control, unless they're professional drivers.
I sort of agree, but also can't. A car should be good at driving, that's its job. It does something very different from a phone. However, we rarely use cars just to drive. We use them to get places. Especially in cities, that process can be boring.
Phones are very good at offering music, news, and other things that we generally use to fill boredom. I want that option available when I've been in mostly stopped traffic for the last 15+ minutes.
Can it be done without AA/CarPlay? Sure. But it's much more convenient to have the full integration.
Fair enough, I was just giving my driving experience. I don't like to use the car for anything but driving. The most interactive it gets is me putting on a CD.
From what I understand, all the electronics going wrong actually dings their reliability ratings considerably. Even minor things like little bugs and software hiccups are considered bad for reliability ratings.
> I used to love that car. It’s the first nice car I’ve owned (in Denmark, there was a 225% tax (VAT included) on cars last I bought one, so most people get the smallest, crappiest car that can work for their needs).
Is this right? Apparently the base price for this car is around $60,000, so this person paid $195,000 ($60,000 + 2.25 * $60,000) for this car?
i can speak to Israel. Base price on cars is more expensive, then you basically pay 100% tax on the base price of the car.
It makes cars a small fortune compared to the US. When I tell Israeli coworkers that I paid about $6K for a 3 year lease of my chevy volt (after state / utility company rebates), their mouths drop. That's basically free to them.
Also in Israel it used to be common that a benefit you got from your company was a car (because it wasn't taxed as income). It could be similar in other european countries? which hides the cost of the car from many of the consumers. Now, Israel taxes cars basically like income so its not as common a benefit you see anymore (employees would rather have cash than a car). The only reason to get a car as a benefit if for some reason the company can get the car cheaper than you could have gotten it yourself.
The "get a car from the job" used to be a common trick in Denmark years ago, but they changed the rules to you get taxed heavily for it, so it there’s not much to gain that way.
I feel that having no desire to spend money on such obviously material objects is a big "easy mode" in my life. It sucks to see so many people fall for all the luxury marketing and then go into debt to finance it.
Sucks? Absolutely not! Everyone who buys an expensive car has that much less disposable income, and won't be able to bid up the housing market to even more extreme heights than the combination of cheap credit and restricted zoning already causes. I hope they buy two.
You may have missed the part where the author of the article lives a short drive from German autobahns, or perhaps you don't count driving in excess of 220 km/h as pushing the car to its limits.
According to the author blurb, he's in switzerland now. The 225% VAT in Denmark is why he'd never gotten a luxury car before and instead just got the cheapest thing that could fulfill his needs.
If you're referring to the United Nations World Happiness Report, know that the metrics they use to measure those scores are literally just a measure of how socialistic a country is.
Because the government of Denmark has presumably thought of this obvious loophole and found a way to close it. I assume if someone buys a car in Germany or Sweden and wants to register it at their address in Denmark, the Danish bureaucracy says "sure, we'll give you the registration papers as soon as you pay the 225% tax on the purchase price of your new car".
It's similar when you buy a car in Oregon (no sales tax) and want to register it in Washington (10% sales tax). If that was a way around paying the tax, every single person in the state would be doing it. The government has thought of this as well. And if you say "oh, I'm even smarter than that, I simply won't register the car in Washington", that gets you a felony conviction when you're caught.
It's almost as if governments can anticipate some obvious loopholes and close them.
They have indeed. If you reside in Denmark, you are required to have Danish license plates (and thus to pay the aforementioned tax). Even if you have your official residence in Sweden, but you stay the night in Denmark a little too often, the tax authorities will deem that as residing in Denmark.
The chances of getting caught are high. If someone who dislikes you notices a car with Swedish plates staying the night too often, they might report you, and the fines for violation are terrifying, the tax itself with 50% on top if memory serves.
There's a legal way to avoid this sort of thing, which is to buy a cheap but upgradable vehicle and retrofit "parts", which usually aren't taxed at the same rate. The most famous example of this sort of thing is the "Chicken Tax":
So as a private consumer instead of buying a $100k BMW and that ends up costing $225k you'd buy the $100k one, and an entry level $50k base model, and have $75k left to spend on moving parts over before you'd break even.
When that's considered tax fraud and when it's considered perfectly legal will differ by country. I assume it isn't illegal for danes to buy a new engine, seats etc. for their existing cars without needing to change the VIN.
Exactly what happens in the Netherlands. Ford Mustang Ecoboost is €70k, a GT is €111k. For the difference of €41k you can easily put in a V8 with over 500 horsepower, change the wiring harness, change the ECU, brakes, suspension. For less than a GT you can pimp out your EcoBoost and create a better car.
I was just talking to a friend about this. My main reason for not jumping on a Tesla is the lack of CarPlay. I would love it if automakers stuck to providing a great automobile platform and just implemented a standard computer interface for all devices to hook up. I don’t know when I will get a new car, but ditching CarPlay is not an option.
I was worried about that too - because I loved the (apparent) simplicity of using Apple maps from my phone... until I actually got the Tesla and found voice navigation is way easier and flawless. (And in the very occasional situation I have an address on my phone now I can just share it to the Tesla). I don’t miss CarPlay (at least for the features I used).
Nah, I have a 3, and here is what it lacks compared to Android Auto:
* Reading of messages
* Replying to messages
* Correct album covers for things like podcasts, audiobooks
* Playlist support
* Waze or Google Maps (yeah Tesla's maps are good, but they don't have road closure information which makes them pretty useless here in Michigan during the construction season. I often forgo Tesla's navigation and use Google Maps instead)
Sure, Tesla's software is better than pretty much any other automaker, but it's still lacking some critical features, at least in my opinion.
The Tesla map tiles are from Google but the implementation of the app sucks. It doesn't preload tiles along your route so if you go out of mobile coverage it just draws blank rectangles which is hideous. There are many other defects.
It gets improved over time with frequent updates though, including new map data. And I don't know how stale your knowledge is on this, so I wouldn't be so sure this is a problem. People tend to repeat very old information a lot about Tesla, when reality has already moved on. I haven't had a problem with blank tiles in the last year or so and I've been plenty of places with low/no coverage.
I am interested in the success of Tesla, I have invested in it. However, my current setup with CarPlay is just too comfortable for me to change it. Does Tesla offer a Zoom app already? That’s one of the latest feature of CarPlay that has greatly improved my day to day, handling meetings from my car.
I have a Tesla, mostly love the software, but I would far far prefer CarPlay.
Having to use my phone to select podcasts or songs or deal with texts is pretty damn backwards.
The integrated music service for Tesla is third rate and a bit embarrassing. I don't know why I have to be stuck with their terrible deal that they made many moons ago.
Firstly from an aesthetic point of view they're hideous, you'll end up having to buy a plastic piece of crap to hold it in and aftermarket stereos are just not great, it won't be flush to the rest of the dash.
Secondly depending on your car a bunch of stuff that used to work with your car (forward/reverse sensors) might not show up any more.
Thirdly stalk adaptors costs a fortune.
You really want a car that has got that experience sorted and after driving a modern VW, I'd say a VW or Audi is probably the way to go. They'll have Carplay/Auto/Mirror and that's what you want. The experience of an aftermarket stereo is just not great.
Normal cars, yes. A Tesla… I don't think so. The infotainment center in the Tesla isn't in the DIN form factor, and it's tightly integrated with other vehicle functionality like HVAC controls, cruise control / Autopilot, battery status, etc. There's no way of replicating those features with an aftermarket stereo.
On vehicles in which you can change the infotainment yeah. But this doesnt really go well for the tesla.
In addition, to my knowledge older Volkswagen AG vehicles are ripe for replacing the infotainment with a newer, carplay enabled system, but on newer models it seems that it is rather locked down and not as easy a solution as you suggest.
True, but system integration is a mixed bag when you do. When it is built in originally, you are assured it will work w/ steering wheel controls, etc.
On the flipside, some manufacturers impose limitations on what you can do when driving, which is annoying, so after market might get around some of that?
I haven't seen a car with a standard DIN1/2 amplifier in a very long time.
My last car, the "stereo" was just a control board with a screen and some buttons. The head-unit was actually under the seat. The space directly behind the stereo controller was air ducts and a center speaker.
I replaced the radio in my 2016 Toyota Prius V because the software was sooo bad. It was the only model in 2016 that didn't support hands free Siri, They pushed out a final update to etune 2.0 removing features as it moved into maintenance mode, and it crashed and rebooted on hands free calls.
I bought my new radio from crutchfield.com, they did all the compatibility checking for me, suggested all the additional adapters and devices for best compatibility, and for $25 spliced all the wiring harnesses for me. I installed it myself, and have been very happy with the results. I now have wireless carplay, so handsfree works great, I can easily get directions/eta while driving, I can easily listen to podcasts, and as a bonus I get visual information on various car sensors, like which door is ajar, and the PSI of each tire. The most important feature is that it hasn't crashed once.
The result has been better than I expected, there were somethings that weren't quite obvious, such as there not existing OEM adapters for the hands free mic and the gps receiver for my model of toyota. But ultimately, it wasn't hard to run the new mic and the new gps sensor that came with the radio out through the seams of the dash. The handsfree audio quality is way better with the new radio's mic. Everything else integrated with the OEM hardware of the car.
Interesting, I hate the entune system on my 2015 Prius V. I was afraid something aftermarket wouldn't be able to pull things like the gas mileage, hook into the backup cam, etc. Is there a model of replacement I should be looking into?
> The built-in GPS is next to useless, since the maps are from 2015. In theory, I could purchase a map update from BMW, which I’ve tried several times. But the site (BMW ConnectedDrive) that sells map upgrade is a mess. All the times I’ve tried, I’ve run in to one error or another. That site is all around awful. Completely indecipherable error messages, shoddy layout and design work, you name it.
I'm feeling this one. I drive a 2015 Subaru. Overall it's a great car, but the infotainment system is just dire, slow and clunky and painful to use.
Of course the maps in the built-in GPS are pretty out of date by now, too. And you can download new maps from a Subaru web site, but only if you're willing to shell out $200 (!) for the update -- which is just enough money to make me feel like I should put it towards a completely new head unit instead, which would solve a bunch of problems (including the maps) at once. But then aftermarket GPS head units that also support CarPlay/Android Auto cost $700 and up, so...
I have a 2018 Subaru. It's still terrible. The built in infotainment system basically serves as an Android Auto launcher for me. The dumbest feature is that it insists on turning the radio on every single time I start the car, even if I've pressed in the volume button to mute it.
I bought a 90's car a few months ago - low mileage dependable Japanese car, nearly bare bones except for air conditioning and airbags (which were both optional equipment). In average condition, they go about $2k, mine was immaculate, so it was $6k. Truly like driving a brand new car from the mid 90's.
If you are sick of the electronics, just get a "new" old car. You won't regret it. You can even easily replace the tape deck with a high quality head unit to get all the features you need, but done right because car audio companies are just better at doing infotainment type stuff, and you can get something unobtrusive.
Everything that I thought I would miss, or have a hard time adjusting to be without, ABS, power windows, power locks, traction control, remote start, etc., turns out, I didn't really need it. Yes, there is the safety aspect of it, but I guess that depends on what kind of a drive you are, and what type of area that you live in.
When I got my 2001 Xterra it had one of those hideous neon double-din monstrosities of an aftermarket stereo in it. I ripped the entire thing out and replaced it with a cheap amp and bluetooth receiver. Now it's just a blank panel with some USB ports for charging. And judging by the reports in this thread, it's more reliable than a BMW system.
Honest question: are there new cars on the market today where I, as a driver, do not have to directly interact with any piece of software? In other words, are there still cars around that solve problems mechanically?
A close family member took a job at a location that was too far away for public transportation and bought a Kia Picanto [0] in 2004. I regularly drove that car until 3 years ago, and it was an overall pleasant experience. The car only had mechanical buttons and switches inside, no screens at all (only a LCD for clock and mileage, and the
radio display). The clutch pedal was connected to the clutch via a bowden cable (I know that because it snapped one time while I was driving). The gas pedal was also connected directly to the motor. It had 3 rotating switches for the AC and the heating, a button for the emergency light, and a button for the back window heating. It was an honest car.
I want a car I can control, not a semi-autonomous home entertainment system that tries to mask its mechanical shortcomings with cheap software.
I own a pre-JK Jeep Wrangler (2004 TJ) - it was probably among the last of vehicles made in this century (for the United States, and probably most of Europe) that match what you're wanting.
Everything is pretty much mechanical on mine; in fact, I think the AC controls are still old-school resistor speed control, bowden cable vent control, and vacuum-assist function control. If you look at the electrical diagram in a Haynes for it, you can see that there isn't much "there" - it's still mostly "switch connected to relay, relay connected to accessory" - everything isn't routed thru a computer or such.
My TJ has plenty of downsides that probably don't affect later versions of the vehicle - high gas mileage being the greatest; spartan interior (there's a label inside the vehicle that says "The body of this vehicle isn't designed to protect occupants in the event of an accident, but is only for protection from the elements"!) - though easy to clean (remove drain plugs, hose it out), so much road noise you have to yell to be heard at speed (again - due to the spartan interior), and a rough and somewhat unstable driving experience (part of that is due to my lift and larger than stock tires, tho).
Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, it's not only an anomaly - but most vehicles sold in first world markets just aren't built that way any longer. Safety concerns (airbags everywhere!) have mandated for larger vehicles, which meant more dash to stick stuff on and in (otherwise, it'd look odd), CAFE rules (here in the USA), etc. Also emissions and fuel economy mean much more computer control, and more "drive by wire" and for some reason manufacturers decided that all has to be routed thru the entertainment console too.
Outside of the first-world developed economies, though, you'll find those cars you want. But you likely as not can't import them, or if you can, they can't be driven or licensed for public roads. Many won't pass US or EU crash test safety standards, if that matters to you. These cars are mainly built and for the markets in India and China - as well as marketed to African nations (I don't know of any "domestic" African nation made commercially available vehicles - there may be some foreign manufacturers though).
One vehicle I wish I could purchase and drive here in the USA - but likely never will (it likely couldn't be licensed for public roads, but even if it could, it probably isn't something you can purchase in single quantities - at least easily) is the OX:
Great off-road handling (for a FWD-only vehicle), diesel engine, build-it-yourself from flatpack, easily fixable, central driver position, extreme hauling capacity - it's like everything I'd want in a vehicle, but sadly I can't own one. Downside is (likely) no AC system - but I could probably hack something in.
I figure that if I ever want a vehicle like that, I'm going to have to build one myself on a small pickup chassis or something.
There's a flagged & dead comment in this thread that argues (in four snarky words) that a Tesla would be a better choice for a software-oriented car.
Snark aside, it's a fair point. If software quality is important, of all current manufacturers, Tesla seems the best fit since their product is as much software as it is car.
My biggest gripe with Tesla is their lack of carplay and android auto.
They offer their own navigation software to automatically plan charging stops on long trips, but for most trips I just want Waze and their excellent traffic aware routing and speed trap notices.
I've used both and I'm sorry but CarPlay is far inferior to Tesla's UI.
In addition, Tesla's screen is the only interface to the car's critical functions. They're not gonna hand it over to CarPlay unless they were to provide a separate screen for the purpose.
Tesla's touch UI design is great, the screen is huge and responsive, and the maps are imperfect but tolerable. But phone integration is lacking (messages, music control) and voice controls are primitive. What I want is to replace the Tesla map window with a CarPlay/Android Auto window, and Tesla voice control with Siri/Google Assistant. The rest of the UI can stay.
This article is absolutely how I've come to feel about cars in the past 12-24 months. If a car doesn't have both CarPlay and Android Auto, I just won't get it[1]. It's like the top feature I care about after number of doors and the engine.
[1] - And there's no way I am paying extra to use it, sorry BMW.
That's exactly the conclusion I've come to as well. My current car has CarPlay and there's no way I'll go back. And trying to charge me a monthly fee to use it is just insulting.
Same. My previous car had CarPlay and was totaled after about 10 months when someone hit me on the freeway. When I shopped around to replace it, I didn't even consider any car without CarPlay.
You're totally right, and it's <1% of the car, but perception is everything. BMW doing it the DIVX way[1] for a feature that's included on a Ford Focus rubs me the wrong way badly.
Cars buying decisions are becoming more and more about UX and entertainment experience rather than HP and engine specs and even driving experience. It is scary for them to cede control of UI and UX to Apple and Google.
Auto OEMs have can't beat Apple and Google as far as the head-unit is concerned. They should accept this and find better ways of differentiating their overall experience.
Yeah, it’s a shame that Tesla does’t have CarPlay. However nice Tesla’s interface is, most of what I want is access to stuff that I already have on my phone.
I don’t know. While they’re better than many OEMs I keep hearing that they e had Bluetooth bugs (like album art not showing) for something like 5 years that they just don’t seem to care to fix.
Whenever the topic of software and cars comes up, since I work in the software industry (with a bit of hardware on the side) it's funny to see that almost everyone I've met thinks I drive something "really high-tech" (I've actually been asked several times if I have a Tesla) but they're all very shocked when they find out what my daily driver is: an early-70s "land-yacht" with no software and minimal electronics, but an upgraded powertrain.
I'm really not a fan of the newer cars with tons of complexity and horrible UX (e.g. touchscreens replacing physical controls.) It could be a bit of a "knowing how the sausage is made" effect too, but I also happen to know quite a few software engineers who are into classic cars as well.
Hang on. When I saw the headline, I assumed that he was referring to the software "in" the car. Ie, the software controlling the Engine, or the ABS, or Transmission, or the in-cabin lights, or headlines, seat controllers, or ... I could go on.
He is complaining about the software in his central console that he interacts with each day. It is only a portion of all the software used in the car.
I guess the big lesson learn here is nothing drives a customer satisfaction other what they directly interacts with.
When I read the comments of how people are happy with their 2003 model car X, or they drive an old but great manual 1997 model car Y, I get really confused. Safety systems in cars continue to improve, from more and better airbags, to crumple zones, automatic collision braking, pedestrian detection braking, intelligent headlights that don't blind oncoming traffic, seatbelts that pre-tension, better traction control, better brakes, blind spot monitoring, backup cameras, etc. A 2020 model car will have more of these features than an older car. It is more likely to keep you and others safe, including pedestrians safe. MPG keeps getting better -- the newer cars are generally nicer overall.
I'm not sure why you are confused. Do you expect people to jump out and just buy a new car every single year? Some people do this, by way of leasing. They upgrade all the time. For others, buying a car is a substantial investment and not necessarily something you want to (or are even capable of) jumping out of just for new safety technology.
Also newer does not mean better. I have an old 2000 Jeep Cherokee that will probably last an eternity with its stout 4.0L engine. It's currently got 253k miles and is one of the most comfortable and enjoyable cars I have ever driven. I also have a modern 2016 Ford Mustang. I can appreciate both vehicles for what they are, but I wouldn't say one is better than the other purely based on age. In fact, the older one is easier to maintain and parts are far cheaper.
I think the safety features are the big thing. Most 2 year old cars now come with active braking and a slew of other safety features. And / year old cars are already massively cheaper than brand new. Keep buying and selling within the 2-5 year zone and you can have the best safety tech for a fraction of the new / lease price
I have children learning to drive. Much happier for them to be in the wife's 2018 model with active breaking, lane keeping, blindspot alerts and headlights that are 3x more effective than my 2008 car.
I think those people like the spartan features of older cars. If newer cars had those new safety feature but the same interfaces and simplicity as older cars I think you'd find less people pining for the days of their old Fiat Punto.
I don't think they're wanting to eschew safety because they like their older car, it's just A) not everyone can afford a new car, and B) the old car controls just the way they want it to, regardless of being less safe.
I have a super fancy new car that is quite expensive. It has all the gizmos on your list and then some.
It has a relatively small incremental benefit. I love the thing, sure, but it really isn't 'worth it' at all, it's purely an emotional thing of having a whizzy whee rocket sled, and I can actually definitely afford it.
If I had, say, the median net worth in the US, I'd be driving a 1998 Civic. That's what I did, until I didn't.
It's just like, not that big a deal. Most people, myself included, are probably doing this stuff for status. Having a battleaxe car is a specific type of signaling in and of itself (in fact this is one of the things I miss the most about my old car...)
In addition to the other replies, there is a serious argument to be made for keeping a car longer or buying used in terms of environmental impact. MPG improvements have been minor enough to not offset the huge environmental cost of manufacturing the car itself. It's better to keep the old Explorer that still runs than to buy a new Prius.
I'd be interested to see a study about whether the last twenty years of safety gadgets have actually reduced accident casualties significantly. My thought is that at least as far as collision performance, things have been pretty well understood that whole time.
The incremental safety improvements are at best marginal.
The period of most rapid car safety improvements came during a single ten-year period, from 1910 - 1920. Since then, with small variances, deaths per passenger mile have halved roughly every 20 years. The rate 20 years ago was already very low, with the inter-vehicle variance likely greater than the total car fleet improvement.
20 years ago you had ABS, airbags, side-impact airbags on many vehicles, and crumple zones.
You also had far fewer distractions, whether built-in or carried by drivers or occupants.
Auto MPG is largely a function of engine size. Fleet average in the US remains ~25 MPG. A 1970 Datsun or Toyota would deliver > 30 MPG. Hybrid, deisel, and electric vehicles are exceptions to that rule, but generally, buying a small-engined small car delivers max benefits.
Note too: the improvement from 10 MPG to 20 MPG is twice that from 20 MPG to 30 MPG. If you're interested in fuel consumption rather than range, it's the fuel consumption per distance travelled, usually given as km/100 litres in Europe. 10 MPG == 100 mi/10 gallons, 20 MPG == 200 miles/10 gallons, 30 MPG == 300 mi/10 gallons. A doubling of efficiency would require going 20 MPG -> 40 MPG, or 400 mi/10 gallons.
TL;DR: progress isn't progressing as progressively as progressive would like to think.
Am I the only one who wants less integration with normal phone functions while driving, not more?
I use my Android phone with a mount and Google Maps for navigation, but it's a pretty horrible and distracting experience.
Even though you're actively in driving mode you'll get all sorts of notifications / message popups you'd normally want, but I don't want them while driving.
There needs to be some OS-level quieting of everything except the navigation and phone calls, you can't put the phone in airplane mode because you'd like real-time traffic updates.
The least crappy way I've found of dealing with this is using an old android phone without a SIM card and nothing on it except Google Maps, then teather it to the main phone (with SIM) for network, put the main phone on silent and throw it in the glove compartment. But that also sucks since I'd still like music, podcasts & audio books. So now I need to sync those too to that phone, and it leaves out using the phone (as in, talking to people via voice) through the car speakers.
Except that when the phone is unlocked (for e.g. maps) notifications still flicker as they happen, sometimes obstructing the top where Google Maps puts the street name and lane information.
...and I don't know about iOS, but I've had this happen at the very worst of times on Android. I've need to click on a dialog in Google Maps to accept a route change, and just then a pop-over dialog appeared that I accidentally clicked. Now the routing is backgrounded and you have some other app open.
>CarPlay will be non-negotiable. I don’t want to have a separate computer system to manage in my car. I want to use the insanely powerful pocket computer I always have with me with my car’s audio system and display.
I agree, but even CarPlay is not flawless. And when something weird happens, it's hard to decide if the flaw is on the phone side or on the car side, since it's not clear how much is the responsibility of the car display.
But there are enough weird glitches when the phone is not plugged in at all.
At least on the phone side there's some likelihood it'll get patched. You're also more likely to get a new phone before you get a new car, even if you drive a luxury car and lease it.
My 2016 car has a bluetooth bug where it freezes the whole radio. I specifically avoided the higher end touchscreen model. The only way to reset the unit is to turn off the car (which can be problematic on the highway). I took it to the dealer and asked if there was a software update for the infotainment system and described my issue. They looked a bit confused at the idea of a software update.
Carplay has been a pretty buggy experience for me as well (in a Citroen). I'm not sure how much it's the fault of the car or the phone.
- sometimes nothing happens when I plug in the phone
- navigation instructions are sometimes barely audible even though the music is loud
- Siri sometimes gets stuck
It's nice when it works, but it still feels a lot like a beta.
Siri voice recognition is really bad. The car's built in voice navigation is much better (eg. the car will offer the top 3 choices when it's not sure, and I can just say "2" when number two is correct. Siri on the other hand will almost always try to send me to places hundreds of kilometers away....
- the car can choose to always open carplay when the phone is plugged in, or it could use other signals to "intelligently" decide if it should open carplay. You can try seeing if it pops up depending on what state the UI is in (are you in a menu?), the time since you last interacted with the display, or whether or not the car is moving.
- likely an issue with attenuation on the car's side (if you're listening to music via the car; if music and navigation is through carplay that's an issue)
- car might be doing something to activate or pass through the microphone to the phone
From my own understanding, it is much more difficult to work with the Apple bluetooth stack than the Android bluetooth stack, at least from a non-Apple point of view.
Yeah, I’m not hoping for perfection. My iPhone is not perfect either, but Apple’s software is still in a very different league, quality wise, than BMW’s.
I just bought a new vehicle a few months back and my number 1 requirement was that it be a vehicle and not a computer on wheels. I have no power windows, no power locks, no backup camera, no lane assist, or any of that junk. The most advanced piece of electronics on the dash is a CD player and an aux in.
It is shocking how much more attention I pay to what I'm doing and even how much more I enjoy driving when I don't have to futz about with a bunch of annoying technology.
I have no plans to ever purchase a car with a built in operating system/screen. The benefits don't outweigh being annoyed by your own car.
All I need is a dashboard phone mount and an FM transmitter, preferably transmitting to a radio with physical controls. Touch screen systems in cars have always been terrible every time I've used one and bluetooth is always a nightmare in general. I value being able to physically control what goes where with aux cables instead of the car suddenly blaring a youtube video because the bluetooth synced itself mid-drive or something else typical of bluetooth systems. Good thing 90s cars with good physical radios are cheap, plentiful, and reliable.
I have a 2014 BMW i3, and while I don't have the problems you do, Mikkel, I have missed Carplay now that I've used it. I've been tempted by https://unique-ad.co.uk/product-category/bmw-carplay-kits/, which seems like it would address all your issues, assuming the kit lives up to its promise.
Software in cars (with the possible exception of Tesla's) has always been terrible compared to that of smartphones. BMW has long had the reputation of worst-of-the-worst in this regard.
Which is why I insist my phone have a 1/8" jack as well as my car: It's the only reliable way of connecting the two. Bluetooth never works and USB always wants to download my contacts when all I want is for my music to play.
Can't agree more, CarPlay is IMHO the only "smart" functionality that actually makes sense to use with my car. Their native infotainment system feels more like "everyone else has it, let's put something together quick", than a serious software project. And especially stupid is that, because they sell multiple packages of equipment, there are overlapping functionalities. For instance I have a clock on main board and on the touch screen, and they're not in sync as those are 2 completely separate systems. There are also two temperatures (at least they usually match). Infotainment system has no access to car performance params, I have to use weird stick behind the wheel to, for instance, check the tire pressure, although that's a type of info that's much more appropriate for touch screen than the half of the features they've put there... literally zero thought was given on how to create integrated and pleasurable UX, it's just a number of pluggable modules, to make it easier to sell...
Oh boy, I can relate. In fact, I would go as far as saying that many modern cars (sedans) are so close in terms of mechanical reliability, safety features, etc, that the differentiating features that determine which car I buy end up being mostly the car software behind all the dashboard features that I use every single day: Android Auto, Bluetooth connectivity, precision of the touchscreen (if any), lag, etc.
Manufacturers take note:
If your shitty infotainment system takes more than 3 seconds to show the video feed after engaging the reverse gear, I won't buy your car.
If your shitty system doesn't let the passenger change radio stations when Android Auto is in use (because the physical button for the radio channel is repurposed to zoom in/out in Maps in Android Auto coughChryslercough), I won't buy your car.
If your shitty HomeLink buttons are non-responsive the first few seconds after the engine is started (because your firmware is bloated and takes seconds to boot what could be done in milliseconds), I won't buy your car.
I work in infotainment for a manufacturer. We're required to bring up the camera in less than 2 seconds from cold start. I'm can't recall right now if that was a legal requirement our internal one.
I've been thinking about this problem recently. I drive a 2010 and can handily afford a new vehicle, so I've been somewhat attuned to the good and bad features of new vehicles. 10 years is a long time in the auto industry, especially when it comes to cars and their interior tech. Having watched my friends with newer cars struggle to get them to work properly has really put me off shopping for a new one, since these systems generally aren't optional anymore - there's no longer a 'base model' with a plain stereo and dash items.
Anyway, because of this I've been keeping my eyes out for cars that are still in new production today, but are using an old design. These are, in my opinion, better because their systems date from before a time where problems like those mentioned in the OP didn't exist, yet the car is brand new. There's not many out there, any it seems limited to low volume - read: pricey - models. One example is the Nissan 370z.
I have similar but slightly different issues with my 2018 3-series BMW. For most things, I think the BMW apps are actually better than what you get from CarPlay. For example, the BMW GPS makes better use of screen real estate. (On the other hand, Apple seems to do a better job of accounting for traffic in route planning.)
The one puzzling omission from the BMW software is support for podcasts. For that, CarPlay is the only usable solution.
One major irritant is connecting and disconnecting. This is especially bad when there are multiple iPhones in the car. (I know, what are the odds, amirite?) I had my iPhone plugged in via USB, and playing music. My wife was using her iPhone, which the car decided to connect to CarPlay. And certain actions on her phone somehow confused the iDrive system to stop playing music and bring up her iPhone on the display.
I wish that car manufacturers would either get it right, or turn the whole thing over to Apple. These intermediate solutions just suck.
I have a 2018 3 as well. CarPlay is ok, but the maps only uses 2/3 of the screen. However it was a cool feature of “send to bmw nav.”
I had the odd multi phone behavior so I bought a “usb condom” that blocks data and only allows power. I keep this plugged in for charging and pair only with wifi/Bluetooth.
This stops for me the fighting of multiple phones taking over
My dad recently ditched his Audi Q7. Not for exactly the same reasons but because of endless electronic glitches and downright bizarre behavior. Now he’s got an EcoBoost F150 and loves it.
Consumer-grade hardware & software is a wonderful demonstration of why aerospace and medical systems cost what they do.
How so? It seems consumer hardware & software (phones, bluetooth speakers) work much better than expensive, name brand cars. I think this extends to aerospace and medical equipment, the manufactures of these devices know their industry and their engineering but are 5-10 years behind in the implementation and polish of basic things like bluetooth. Medical devices especially are notorious for poor security; unsecured endpoints, outdated/unsupported OS versions (think MRI machine with 20 year lifespan running Windows XP Embededed).
Sure. I’m talking about the general category of “software which must work, else people will die”. The difference between working 99.9% of the time, vs working 100% of the time appears to be very expensive.
Automakers and their suppliers could develop to the same standards but the software and associated hardware might well cost more than the rest of the vehicle. There’s no market for that.
Even with that cost, you usually have to get device-specific training and sometimes certification to operate them. They also often have rigid operating procedures you are required to follow, with deviations possibly leading to fail-safe modes, audit, and/or recertification...
Apropos of not much I was just driving to an unfamiliar location and using the car Satnav. I was reminded why I actively avoid it. The text to speech mangles almost every street name, even completely commonplace English language names. "Gracefield" became Gra - ss - fie - lid or something. I implemented the simple Bethesda Naval Laboratory text to phoneme algorithm in the early 1980s based on a Steve Ciarcia article in Byte magazine and I'm sure it was better. Also I hear the OP on the subject of updates. I bought this car new less than 4 years ago, the Satnav regularly scolds me at ignition time to do an update - the dealer looked at me as if I was crazy "No we can't do updates - you should try and figure out how to do it yourself".
Recently I had a almost brand new Honda Civic rental car and a brand new Android phone.
When I wanted to charge my phone on the usb-port, I was ask if i wanted to activate android auto. I said yes. The phone said I had to engage the paring break to continue. The parking break was engaged. I never got beyond that.
I suspect none of parties involved (Honda, Google, Nokia) ever tested even the most basic setup.
(Yes, i tried again, multiple times, engaging and disengaing the parking break, the break, turning both devices on and of again, to put the car into neutral), but gave up after about 10 Minutes.
I used google maps with bluetooth audio. But actually, I use want a dash-board mount for my phone. Or maybe, just maybe a monitor in my dash board that connects to my phone. But i highly doubt car makes wont screw that up.
Ran into this issue way back in 2005 when I bought my first modern-ish car (Subaru Legacy.) I'd always just replaced the radio with something decent and modern every few years in previous cars, but in this one the audio system was integrated into the HVAC controls and you couldn't replace it. So, no adding aux input jacks, nothing. I sold that car after 2 years and bought a car that had a standard double din head unit.
I have a JVC head unit in my car now that does car play/android auto, exterior cameras, etc. I will never buy another car without an upgradable stereo. This usually means I'm shopping on the lower end of the market, but that's worth it to not be stuck with auto manufacturer's software.
Never driven in a rental or borrowed car that had bluetooth that worked worth a damn.
So I bought the cheapest car I could possibly fine, got the the most bottom base model that I could get. Then put in a Sony Stereo headset and separate amplifier that was small enough to fit into the glove compartment. Added a little 12 inch subwoofer to the rear hatch and upgraded the door speakers.
I don't need a loud stereo. I just need one that was decent and wasn't a piece of shit. Spent about 400 dollars and got something that is a lot easier to use and more reliable then what you'd get out of of a 100,000 dollar car.
I had to hack Hyundai's website to keep my navigation and monitoring service. I bought it used 3 years old in 2016. At that point they had already removed the ability to purchase updated maps. Then this year I got an email saying the navigation and monitoring services would be unavailable for renewal. The renew UI was disabled, but I reverse engineered their API, crafted a request, and got a system error. To my surprise my subscription was renewed. There is no reason I can think of to discontinue these services other than to goad me into purchasing a new car.
Apple Car Play and Android Auto are just going to be this exact same thing repeated. Once you have your CarPlay 1.0 car, the new FancyPhone 11 will come out and only support cars with CarPlay 2.0. Then you're right back where you started!
This whole thing is dumb as hell. How about a standard like USB-C where you can pass thru keyboards, pointing devices and alt-mode video with one cable? It's a somewhat open standard, and would work with a number of phones RIGHT NOW with no stupid software tricks. Plus it charges your phone at the same time!! Like magic!!
Two counter-examples. While my 2015 Mazda does not officially support Android Auto, clever open-source programmers came up with a way to install it. I did that this spring. When Google updated Android Auto in the Play Store, the update came through without having to make any updates to the car.
And, more interesting to me, the integration is, in my opinion, super sweet. When I'm using Google Maps, arrows are put up on my heads-up display. All the steering wheel audio controls work. The physical NAV and MUSIC buttons take me right to the correct tab in Android Auto, and the back button does what I expect it to.
I got to try out MySync/Android Auto in a Ford Everest. I like it, and it worked great most of the time, except every once in a while randomly it would crash and bring you to the entertainment system's home screen, and the only way to get it to relaunch was by unplugging USB and plugging it back in. Also one time, the audio would not switch over to Android Auto, so even though it was connected and the UI worked, the radio was coming through. This persisted until the next time I used the vehicle (there was no way to just "reboot" the entertainment system)
I have not yet driven a vehicle where Bluetooth or USB to a phone works flawlessly.
Have you considered not trying to find a car with good infotainment systems, but just replacing it? I have an earlier BMW (E61) and there's a custom-made Android integration for it that costs around $500, trivial when compared to the cost of a new vehicle.
I haven't bought one because as seen in another comment here I expect less of the car software than you apparently do, but when I looked into it it seemed to work well for people that tried it.
Was waiting for an article like this to appear. I have an X1 and integration with iPhone is a disaster.
The Audible app on the iPhone will popup a warning that consists of the BMW logo taking up 80% of the screen with a small text warning at the bottom saying "don't use this while driving" and a small "x" hidden somewhere to close the warning. It's beyond ridiculous.
What gets me most is the Audm app on the iPhone. Whenever I get back in the car after using it, it will cause the car to start playing the same song from my Apple Music library. Always the same song, but randomly picked as far as I can tell (it's not the last one I listened to nor or the first one alphabetically). It's like an alarm clock - you end up hating the song because it comes on every single time you start the car. When I delete the song from my library it will just pick another one. When I stop using Audm, this annoyance stops. No idea what the logic behind this behavior is.
The BMW connect app is currently stuck in a loop where it says it's "doing something", even after having restarted my phone. So it's currently unusable, guess I should reinstall it. This is an 80EUR app which I got so I can remote lock the car cause I always forget and people have helped themselves to stuff in my car so many times. The X1 doesn't lock itself when I walk away, unlike the 116D did.
GPS - garbage interface compared to Waze which I can't stop using despite my aversion to being tracked.
> The BMW connect app is currently stuck in a loop where it says it's "doing something"
Cute error messages really frustrate me when they get stuck or display frequently. They just remind me how much I want an error message that gives me something to work with. This seems like the lazy implementation equivalent of “commit” as your commit message.
Being in Nepal I made the plunge earlier this year to buy a vehicle even with the extra 250% import tax the government places on them.
Imported from India, no GPS working, no maps. The entertainment system is a piece of shit! Bluetooth works fine but Ford India crippled the entire system.
That said, I've realized that touch screen systems have no place in any vehicle. Too damn distracting requiring you to take your eyes off of the road, incredibly risky when driving around Kathmandu.
I more and more grew to love simple solutions that just work, and do so in a predictable way — and lets face it: stuff fails, so having it fail in a predictable way is good too.
Cables might sound oldfashioned but they tick these boxes for me. Just buy them in packs and throw broken ones out or repair them. If you get decent ones even that will be rare.
Mechanical rotary switches to switch between multiple modes? Hell yeah. Actual potentiometers that end when you are at max for values that make sense? Sure way.
Since the eighties a lot of specialized interfaces that should have been condensed down to perfection were instead defaced by membrane buttons and a single push encoder that is meant to do all the things. Nothing against encoders, they are cool for certain stuff — but even cooler is a fixed interface where everything is literally in your hands.
That is why touch interfaces are even worse: ever tried to use one with your eyes closed?
The thing is: good working solutions and well defined haptic interfaces pair incredible well with sturdy and wellwritten code. Electromechanical parts are just more expensive, and that is why they fell out of favour.
On the other hand we literally live in times where anybody could build their own car radio if they just wanted..
My best car "feature" was a rental I had that when connected to bluetooth and driving, would auto-reply to SMS messages with "I'm driving and can't talk right now".
At the time I had facebook notifications send me sms messages, and if you reply, it would post the reply to facebook.
I had left a bunch of "I'm driving and can't talk right now" comments on random posts without realizing it until days later.
I have experience with a fully-analogue auto, with a radio and CD player, and a newer model with an in-dash display, "programmable" cabin climate controls, and Bluetooth connections.
Being able to pair my Android tablet for listening to podcasts is neat. But an FM broadcast dongle had solved that problem for the earlier vehicle, as would an AUX IN port, though it lacks that.
The earlier car had come with a pricey GPS option. My reasoning in rejecting that was that the hardware and software were likely obsolete on installation and would get no fresher. That's proved accurate, and a year later, I had my first experience of a long road trip with the Internet in my pocket. Pre-iPhone era, having maps and Google search was a game-changer, though could be distracting. An assessment I've maintained to the present.
I still rely largely on my own navigation capabilities and mapreading skills. Paper rarely crashes, reboots, or experiences flat batteries.
I read stories such as these with mild bemusement, until the thought registers that I'll likely be unable to find another vehicle as suited to actual transport as the one I own presently.
My favorite is the voice recognition system in my Toyota 4Runner. It seems there are no lengths it won’t go to to keep from just calling the person I want to speak with:
Me: “Call Bob Smith.”
Car: “Bob Smith ONLY has a home number, do you want me to call that?!?”
Enters Mobile number for Bob...
Me: “Call Bob Smith.”
Car: “Bob Smith has TWO numbers! Which one should I call?”
Deletes home number for Bob Smith...
Me: “Call Bob Smith.”
Car: “Bob Smith has no OTHER NUMBER, do you want to dial his mobile number?”
Erring on the side of not calling the wrong number.
Somebody somewhere made a judgement call: we'd rather annoy people by double-asking them about almost every call, than accidentally dial and ring the wrong person or the wrong number for them.
What annoys me is that I have a 2012 luxury model (pre carplay/android auto), the hardware can support it (since I got bluetooth, gps and ipod connectivity) but there is no option to do a software upgrade, not from the manufacturer.
Imagine the goodwill if a 2012 model had a complimentory software update during my next scheduled service. The bastards wont even update GPS maps.
Not sure why you think BT and GPS are sufficient for Android Auto compatibility. AA and CarPlay require the ability to use your car's display as a peripheral.
I got the option to play video from external device as Picture in Picture, so I'd say the inbuilt unit is quite capable of sharing the display and touch screen.
Similar experience but buying a new car is very heavy-handed. I have a car from 2009 that I otherwise love but it only had a very basic stereo (only MP3 CDs no maps etc).
I was delighted to learn there are a bunch of after-market stereo systems you can buy that have CarPlay/Android Auto integrated. I got the "budget" pick from thewirecutter[1] and love it. I had a shop install it, and I got a backup camera installed at the same time that integrates perfectly with the system. Total cost for everything including equipment and installation labor was under $500. Best money I've spent in a while. (I wish I'd got the steering-wheel buttons too that for an extra $50 but I didn't even know it was an option at the time.)
>I used to love that car. It’s the first nice car I’ve owned (in Denmark, there was a 225% tax (VAT included) on cars last I bought one, so most people get the smallest, crappiest car that can work for their needs).
What is the reason for these extreme car taxes? as an Australian, I expect if the government here tried to introduce/enforce these sorts of taxes (per [1]) there would be riots and possibly worse - we have a very strong car culture. It would be political suicide to even announce you were considering it.
I see some reference to "green" fees and C02 emissions taxes, but those are in the context of fuel being purchased. Surely this cannot also account for the taxes on the purchase price of the car?
If you want urban sprawl like we have in Canada and I assume Australia, then go for it. Denmark doesn't let their cities look like crap. I say this as someone that loves my home city, Toronto, but cars are a collective action problem. To any one person it makes sense to take the car instead of the bus, but if we all take the car then we all get there 2 hours later than if even half of us took the bus or streetcar.
We have a 2006 Subaru. We don’t drive for our commutes so it’s in great shape but have debated what we’ll do when it’s due to be replaced. I’ve driven some rentals along with loaners when we’ve had our car serviced, and the primary reason I have not to buy a new car is uniformly terrible software combined with a touchscreen interface. Physical controls are so much faster and safer to use that I won’t consider a car which doesn’t have them — it’s amazing how bad the QA is on new vehicles, with slow, laggy buttons for things like climate control. Having 10k tracks in iTunes meant an entire generation of entertainment systems would literally crash after plugging in a USB cable; now they’ve progressed to popping up a modal dialog which blocks all functionality until you acknowledge that they’re bad at their jobs.
I rented a 2018 Toyota Prius recently. Wonderful car, but the software was horrible, as it usually is.
The worst problem was that when I turned the car on, it would start loudly playing random music from my iPhone via Bluetooth. Every single time, without fault. Sometimes it would just happen randomly while driving, too. There's no setting to turn it off. If you google the problem, you'll a bunch of forums like priuschat.com, full of exasperated people who are trying to figure out the problem and failing.
There's no real solution. There is a workaround, and it's hilarious: Create a playlist containing just a single track that contains a few hours of silence. Can't stop it from being played, but at least it will be quiet.
My 2013 Audi has a rather poor non-touchscreen interface. It has Bluetooth pairing for phone calls but not for plain audio (music), which is really odd. It does have one of those very old large iPod connectors, and I've attached a Bluetooth adapter to that, which works well enough, except that it doesn't turn off when I turn off the car, and my phone can reconnect randomly for about half an hour.
I have done some shopping and found an Android Auto-capable headunit that would replace the whole built-in thing, but it's something I haven't jumped on yet. I wonder how many other cars can have their headunit replaced with something CarPlay or Android Auto capable?
If I was going to buy a new-new car, the first thing I would check at the dealership is if the media/climate controls are reasonable (either physical buttons or 'good' touch screen) and if the bluetooth/phone connection is relaiable. If I found any issues, I'd just go to the next car brand. If none work, then I'll continue buying late 2000s cars and using Bluetooth to FM transciever.
Considering that late 2000s cars certainly do all the car things, there is little poing in getting a newer car until the auto industury figures out how to release a 2019 car with at least 2018 hardware and decent software.
> No Apple CarPlay (or Android Auto) at all. Once I’d driven a car with CarPlay, you didn’t want to drive a car without it.
First, you have a 2015 car, which means it was built in 2014, Apple Carplay was released in 2014.
Secondly - I disagree about CarPlay being superior, I like the new BMW iDrive much more than carplay. Maps are better in newer bmw, and the voice recognition of addresses is amazing.
Also apple carplay does not support the heads up display, which is a must for me now.
> Not only do they charge you extra to use CarPlay. Even though you own a car with CarPlay-capable hardware
Doesn't Tesla charge you extra for auto-pilot? Even tho your car has capable hardware already?
The whole article seems childish and a pointless rant, to be honest! All software in cars that is not mission critical will take a long time to mature... calling a car crap because its website is non-functional... seriously? :-)
> iDrive often flakes out and starts sending a continuous stream of “play” signals to my phone
Automatically sending "play" commands - even only when the phone is connected (or reconnected) - is the worst thing ever that I've encountered. Especially with iOS devices. Every single time I turn the ignition on, my car forces phone to play music - and I rarely want that. Makes me want to kill whoever had that design idea (j/k)
I wonder if there are Bluetooth proxy devices (IDK, a pair of ESP8266s?) that just strip certain AVRCP commands sent within 5 seconds after (re)connections while passing through everything else...
Is it okay to mention... Tesla and how the experience of the software in a Tesla is what makes it such a magically wonderful experience as compared to any other car ever... among other things it upgrades automatically... so I can remember when my wife and I were driving in our 2014 tesla and we were like that’s weird there is no button for the passengers to adjust the volume... a week or two later after an update the button we were missing appeared... or being able to play fart games and now chess with my daughter while waiting to pick up my other daughter... delightful...
This is because Tesla is a classic Silicon Valley tech company masquerading as a car manufacturer while the actual car manufacturers are trying to masquerade as Apple with a hundredth of the budget and a penchant for outsourcing critical parts of the experience to the lowest bidder.
I don't know exactly who to blame, but the android auto experience in my 2017 vw is, in a word, infuriating. android auto deadlocks for the remainder of the drive 80% of the time I put it in reverse (I assume due to some resource contention with the backup camera?). this can only be fixed with a hard reset of the infotainment unit. of course, the unit has no manual reset. the only way I've found to fix it is to turn off the car, remove the keys from the ignition, and step outside the vehicle for about five minutes. it's great fun on road trips.
Just drove around Ireland in a rental Renault last week. It refused to let through the audio from Google Maps navigation unless music was playing. And not just any music e.g. Spotify, it had to be an MP3 from the built-in Apple player.
I had one album of songs loaded onto my phone. I listened to that god-forsaken thing for hours and hours each and every day, because navigating strange roads in a drive-on-the-left country is hard enough without trying to read the map at the same time.
I would have given quite a bit of money for a simple 3.5mm aux in connector.
I've been looking at buying a car recently, after having just rented cars and using carpools for the past decade or so. I've been looking at maybe getting a Volvo C70 – I like the idea of a hard top convertible, and also crucially it's old enough (2013) to have actual dials instead of crappy touch screens while still being new enough to be comfortable. I do like CarPlay, it'd be nice if I could have both, but if it comes down to it I'll take the dials and buttons over a touch screen any day.
Car software is almost always poor. I'd prefer a car simply have a convenient holder for the phone, which has far better software on it (and is far cheaper than the car computers).
Software is why I love my Tesla Model 3. Sure, there are improvements they can make with the infotainment system, but that is where they f’n rule! It just gets better. Over-the-air software updates are what have totally pushed them ahead. The car gets better over time with no trips to a service center, or having to buy a new car.
My previous cars were stuck with whatever crappy interface and options. They could never provide me updates to fix their awful software and interfaces.
Look at car ads: the infotainment system, as it is called, is now the primary argument for selling cars. That is another symptom of the epoch rot. And they're made harder to replace with aftermarket units.
Having said that, bluetooth took more than ten years to stabilize and some may not have it right yet.
For Carplay: Apple has constantly been stiffening the conditions for certification, which now includes a multi-day drive test. So the next crop may be somewhat better.
This is why I'm tempted to buy an older land cruiser and redo the interior instead of buying something new with a million buttons that will fail after 5 years.
I’ve had text input on my 2016 Subaru Outback block for 5 minutes+ while trying to input an address. I’ve never had a RPi zero block for anything that long. I wonder what terrible hardware they use and if it’s performance is measured in kilohertz. It makes that expensive GPS system a slap in the face. I would love to be able to feed it a string containing my destination address that I input from the phone. For now, it never gets used.
Car manufacturers try to hook you into their software when you really should never use any of it. Unfortunately these days you can't even buy a car without a pile of software in it. Instead you should use only the products that come with the phone and totally ignore the preinstalled crapware that comes with a car. We need to go back to the days where a car does only one thing and one thing well.
I on the other hand, love that my 4Runner has a built-in crappy navigation system. I don't like the fact that it's crappy but I love that it's there whether I have my phone with me or not. Yes, it's not often that I don't have my phone with me but one time when I needed navigation, to get back home, and I dropped my phone and broke the screen it was a godsend.
Damn this opened my eyes to how luxury tax works on cars in Denmark. According to https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2244599, there's a margin tax rate on these cars of "85% of the taxable value up to DKK 185,100 in 2017 and 150% of the rest.". Sweet jesus that's a lot.
My 2013 Tacoma has alot of software issues with the touchscreen radio -- Bluetooth goes haywire, UI gets funky, among other things.
Toyota says there no updates were ever made, despite some issues I'm sure people have complained about. I can't see the harm in open sourcing something like this
Plus side is, eventually I'll just have to learn to either hack it, or cobble something new with the parts.
I have a 2017 Tacoma and the Entune system is an aggravating, outdated mess. I love how it shows a generic album cover (of missy elliot from the early 2000s) whenever you play any type of hip hop song.
The maps are terrible in general, but their one small redeeming quality is that they work offline. There have been a handful of times where this has been useful when driving out of reception.
I had a 2015 Highlander with Entune. I just bought a 2019 Highlander with Entune.
I'm Apple/iOS all the way, but honestly... Entune is relatively stupid and inoffensive and I don't ever think about it. I think I actually wanted nothing related to my tech life in my car. Nothing that resembles my desktop or my AppleTV or my iPad.
I think I don't really want a car. Maybe when I ditch this Highlander I'll live somewhere I can easily do without a car of any kind. Don't even want an EV.
I'd have liked to have Android Auto for my Prius, but overall it isn't too bad, because I have the super-basic version of Entune.
It plays BT and USB audio files, and has dedicated buttons for voice command, call and hangup.
The voice command thing I rarely use because it isn't very good.
All I really want is a way to trigger Google Now from the car controls. My BT headset can do this, but there is apparently no way to do this with the car. Just frickin' open up a hands-free profile connection, and turn on the microphone!
I plan on driving this car for another 15 years or so (or until they stop selling gasoline) but I'll upgrade my phone a few times in that interval. Let me just use the phone.
I have a 2012 Prius with Entune. The car is fine, but Entune is terrible.
Besides having only a handful of apps that aren't updated, it takes a long time for bluetooth to detect that my phone is present (30-60 seconds), and every few months it loses its mind and I need to tell it to forget the bluetooth pairing and make it again.
When the car was new (and the map fresh) I tried to use the gas station finder feature -- and it directed me to a stretch of road with nothing at all on it .. not even a former gas station.
I have a 32GB thumb drive with my mp3 files on it; for some reason, 30 or so seconds after starting the car, it resumes playing the contents of that thumb drive even though I might have turned the audio off, or on radio, or on bluetooth. Their menu system for navigating through the 8000 songs I have is super inefficient.
When I drive with google maps on my phone, the audio alerts are forcibly routed through bluetooth ... even if the audio is off in the car.
To be fair, the bluetooth problems could be an android problem.
It also strikes me as funny that the car has GPS built in but there are three dedicated buttons to set the hour/minute/second of the clock.
All in all, a terrible experience. It seems like it is simply a checkbox feature that helps to sell the car but they don't actually care about.
This is exactly the experience I had. Driving my friend's Honda Civic was way more pleasurable than driving another friend's BMW, because the former had Android Auto. Now I refuse to rent a car without one.
OP could probably buy an OTT Apple Carplay unit I think, rather than throwing the whole car out just to replace the infotainment.
One useful tip: even with Bluetooth connections, "Hey Siri" will still use the phone's microphone for input if that's where it picks it up, for that one command only.
Of course, this still leaves the obvious flaw of iOS not being able to designate separate 'input' and 'output' devices for some reason.
Isn't that a Bluetooth thing? In A2DP it cannot use microphone at all, and you can't really stream music over HSP or HFP because of terrible quality...
I managed to get a free line from T-Mobile so I keep a phone plugged into my car 24x7. It is so nice to have it automatically go into car play or android auto every time I start my car. I even went so far as to retrofitting a car play touch screen and ecu into my 2014 from a 2016 so I could add it to my fiesta.
It's not feasable for any car brand to have a independent, competitive, updated and bug free car software. It will be a matter of time until we have only CarPlay and Android Auto probably with a skin (like we see in Android phones) for branding purposes.
This is kind of off-topic, but given there's a pretty huge VAT on foreign cars, and this guy lives in Denmark, why didn't he just go to Germany to buy his car, and presumably not have to pay the VAT?
If only it was that easy. You have to pay the special car tax (and VAT on top of it) to get Danish license plates. And you’re not allowed to have a car on foreign plates if you live in Denmark.
However, I moved away from Denmark before I bought this car (that was actually part of the reason I got it, a BMW costs less in Switzerland than a humble Skoda would in Denmark).
first thing I thought of when I lived in Denmark, but That loophole is closed. Cars bought in a foreign country need to be taxed if used permanently in Denmark. Otherwise ginormous fines.
This is an under-appreciated thing about Teslas: they are as competent at the software as a tech company, so this crap doesn’t happen. Your five year old vehicle is almost as good as a new one, hardware permitting.
I can't wait for this guy to get a car like an Acura or Infinity with software he can tolerate because my guess is 500m into owning it he's going to realize all the BMW-ness he took for granted.
The touch screen terminal in my Hiunday i40 is absolute crap. I wish the carmakers would open their APIs and leave a hole in the middle panel for whatever 3rd party table the user chooses.
I hate it when a song starts playing soon after starting the car. It will be great if the driver gets to choose. Maybe he wants moments of silence or listen to a lecture on another app.
I still have a photo somewhere of the X6 nav system showing "-1 km" to destination. It did look beautiful though, in that glorious custom font from Dalton Maag.
Sorry earlier commented.. I'm scared shitless of drivers.... Especially along freeway/highways/motorways.... I'm the asshole that files reports you to the police for endangering my life, my children and my existence. My friend went down a highway in Canada at 222mph. I literally took him outside and punched him in the face. I apologised and told him his mum would be the next up in line.
One of the most annoying things about my BMW 535 is onboard electronics. The car is only 4 years old, but it already doesn't even work with bluetooth properly: map directions stop audio playback as they should, but then fail to actually come through the speakers. Next time I buy a car I will be extra anal about the entertainment system. For any kind of extended commute the ability to have directions _and_ audiobooks/music working properly at the same time is more critical to me than just about any other aspect of the car, excluding reliability and safety.
And car manufacturers should at this point get on with the program and offer proper software updates. I didn't pay $70K for the car to deal with this bullshit.
Upgrading the head units in modern BMWs is, practically speaking, impossible. Almost all manufacturers have moved away from standard single or double DIN units.
That's not always possible. Even in my car, with a standard interface, the head unit controls all the car setup options so if you remove it then you can't use that functionality anymore.
The thing has a diesel engine, it's in a different class than those cars. You'd have to get pretty wild with turbos to make any of them perform with similar torque && economy. Or step up to all electric drive which would be even more expensive.
Once again. BMW 3-series is not a fancy car. 5-series? Maybe. 7-series? Totally. If you care about things like CarPlay, It makes zero sense to get BMW 3, because you can get a fully loaded Acura for the same price.
It's a massive bummer that a luxury 7-series does not have good software, but it doesn't make the car less fancy. It has gorgeous interior, amazing fabrics, etc. The OP could simply acknowledge that BMW's software sucks. I'm pretty sure most brands have the same software installed on all of its models.
Oh yeah, it is weird to call a 320d a “luxury car”. Even in Nordic countries with super high taxes it’d be weird to describe anything below a 5-series as “luxury”.
I guess it’s rather pointless to argue about where to put the bar for "luxury". For some, it might be Audi or BMW, for other it might be Ducati or Bentley, it’s not exactly a scientifically defined term.
Renting a car with CarPlay for a week (and a reasonably long "commute" during that time) completely changed my mind. Typically the only reason I ever used a built in car display up to this point was...to set up my phone in Bluetooth. Suddenly I had familiar applications that made that screen useful: Maps, Overcast (podcasts), Messages (read aloud, not displayed, of course), etc. A phone in a holder is, of course, totally acceptable and fine, but as I'm just starting to consider buying my first car in almost a decade I'm suddenly looking at CarPlay as a requirement.
Other notes on this for those that are interested: A lot of cars with CarPlay also support Android Auto, and they always have a base system if you'd prefer not to use either. OP is talking about this from a luxury car perspective, but it's available in a really wide price range from entry to super-luxury.