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Comment by sircastor | Hacker News Reader

I read a lot of people in these sorts of threads mention how they hate their car infotainment systems, and how they just wish it were Android Auto or CarPlay. I wanted to offer a little insight into it. I worked for an Auto Manufacturer for 7 years.

Infotainment systems are developed as a partnership (usually) between a vendor and the auto company. The hardware is often developed by a different company, I like to think of them as old-school stereo manufacturers: Bosch, Pioneer, etc. The development cycle is somewhere between 12-36 months, and that's still quite a bit before the vehicle actually rolls off the assembly line.

Many customers like CarPlay or Android Auto. Both represent a cost to the manufacturer, and require ceding the design space to another company which is very visible to the customer. Brand is a big deal for car makers, and giving that space up is hard.

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My most recent auto purchase is approaching 20 years ago. At the time, a dealer option was to have a GPS installed. That would have cost well north of $1,000 and occupied most of the available glovebox space.

My reasoning in rejecting the option was:

- That's a lot of money, and a lot of maps.

- External hardware (a smartphone, laptop, or tablet) is far more likely to provide both that functionality and be independently upgradable.

Instead I opted for a standard mains electrical outlet, which has proved its worth in recharging (or powering) any electrical device, even before USB charging became prevalent.

I feel much the same way with entertainment systems.

A tuner by itself is compatible with an external device having a small FM transmitter dongle. With 3.5mm or 6.35mm audio connector, any line-in device can feed the audio system, with controls on that device used. Bluetooth pairing is somewhat more complex though mostly works. It's about the extreme level of intelligence I'd want, and I'd avoid it if at all possible.

The present level of complexity is a major regression.

> are developed as a partnership (usually) between a vendor and the auto company.

Depending on the manufacturer this is true for most of the car nowadays, right? I watched an engineering teardown of the new all-electric Mustang Mach E recently and they even used different vendors (which produced parts of vastly different calibers of quality) for the rear and front motors[0].

Point taken about ceding the branding power to the vendor, especially when that vendor is big and scary like Apple or Google.

[0]: https://youtu.be/jWOPMtejm_Y?t=768

>Depending on the manufacturer this is true for most of the car nowadays, right?

I believe so. I was thinking specifically of the OS work and how it would be contracted out to a provider, and the hardware for the Infotainment would go out to another.

> I watched an engineering teardown of the new all-electric Mustang Mach E recently and they even used different vendors (which produced parts of vastly different calibers of quality) for the rear and front motors[0].

One of the interesting things about EVs is that a lot of traditional OEMs don't have the expertise in-house, so things like motors (which would normally be something in-house) end up being designed and manufactured by someone else.

Manufacturer custom infotainment systems are like the system on smart TV's: Crappy UX, buggy, abandoned (no updates) after a few years. Just like we all use Roku, Apple TV, or Fire, CarPlay and AA are preferred to a built-in infotainment sysem - better UX, loosely coupled to the car, etc. Discrete manufacturers should not try to become domain experts in this area. Get the basics done, let the user BYOD.

I don't understand why car infotainment system is a thing honestly.

If you really need a touchscreen that badly, just buy an ipad and tape it to the dash, would probably offer way more feature and flexibility.

My truck had dials and audio jacks, what else do you really need? The car navigation systems I've seen are universally worse than google map.

My car has CarPlay and I've found it to be very disappointing, so much so that mainly I now do as you suggest and simply use the iPhone with a dash mount. I get the audio over Bluetooth, which seems to work well enough - it seems the Bluetooth implementation is older and better debugged.

The car's Bluetooth is satisfactory for taking calls.

Part of the problem is the car's unit, as it's Android and it crashes a lot when it's running CarPlay.

I'm constantly surprised by comments on a tech-savvy site such as HN by people who'd rather live in a slide rule world. I enjoy infotainment systems because I can listen to Spotify and podcasts and easily call/text people safely while driving on long haul drives, which I often find myself on. I have zero complaints about my system other than not having the level of customizability a nerd such was myself desires.

Me too, after using Android auto on one car it's a must-have on any new car for me. Better nav system, Google assistant, Spotify, podcasts, messages. Turns my car into a drive able phone.

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