Automotive Grade Linux Platform Debuts on the 2018 Toyota Camry

Trying to understand the issue from a technical or UX perspective is going to lead to a whole lot of failure. You need to understand the psychology. And what auto manufacturers resisting CarPlay and Android Auto are doing is akin to hitting on people in a committed relationship. It makes them angry and want to reject you, not dump their significant other. Accept that you'll never be more than friends and build the best platonic relationship you can, no matter how much you want them to love you.

What I would love is a simple standard for aftermarket radios, like you used to have. One connector, and it wires up to the speakers, a display (that you can replace), and all the hardware buttons e.g. in the steering wheel. You'd have a one-way connection from the car to the device for information like speed.

When I buy a car, I don't want an integrated entertainment system. I want to buy a system from a stereo manufacturer that integrates with the card.

And I want the option to buy an "in-car-ITX" barebone from NewEgg, pop in an SD card with a LibreICE distribution or whatever, and roll my own entertainment system if I like.

I want things like changeable themes, Spotify support, information about the currently playing radio song (even if not supported by the station), and so on. I want fluid animations and no latency, readable text, and idiot-proof usage. That really shouldn't be so hard.

I've tried to "learn" the system.

* there's a mess of apps to download and it's unclear which work with the tier of sound system I got and they completely oversell what they do.

* there's no way they're going to do a better job at GPS and directions (my tier wasn't supported, but I didn't know that until I downloaded their app and figured it out myself)

* it makes no sense to have a separate voice dialing from Siri (it's unclear that it's separate, it's just terrible at it, and it's unclear on how to train new names)

* it auto-connects known phones and starts playing random songs. I know that's part of Bluetooth, but if the wrong device connects they bury device swapping multiple menus deep and you have to "disconnect" the old devices and "connect" the correct one instead of just connecting to the phone you want

* they separate bluetooth phone and audio--you have to connect your phone to each one. I get this is a "feature" but it just confuses things. I doubt most people know there's a distinction

* plugging into USB (to charge) does not mean I want to switch audio over--I use a cigarette lighter USB adapter to get rid of this confusion

* features differ between USB attached device and Bluetooth even for things that they both could technically support (i.e. album artwork doesn't show up over Bluetooth but does over USB). I would forget which is attached--I doubt most people understand the distinction. Again, not using USB solved this.

* and really, most importantly, don't crash. If you do (which happens at least monthly), don't make me turn the car off to restart it.

I'm not intending to rant at you. I've told my dealer about the crashing issue and asked if there were any updates (there weren't), the rest I've learned to live with since I don't plan on buying a new car for 10+ years. I now plan to write a letter.

I don't think those... um, infotainment systems are a differentiator other than the ones that are so bad as to rule out the car entirely. I've never heard anyone, anyone say they liked their car infotainment system. Ever.

To be honest, I really hope they don't actually think of those systems as an important extension of their brand. Or if they do, they realize that Android or iOS are much better user facing tech companies and brands than any car manufacturer...

This is 2017. If I need to "take my time to figure out how to use it", it is completely and utterly broken.

It actually seems like most manufacturers are including CarPlay and Android Auto in new cars. In terms of CarPlay, Toyota is one of the notable holdouts. Mazda, the other notable holdout, is going to offer CarPlay in newer models and upgrade older models to support it. Jaguar was the other major holdout, and it seems like they will also support it in the future. I can't think of any other car brands sold in America that don't offer it except Tesla.

    > there are a lot of systems that people don't like because they never took the time to figure out how to use them. Cars aren't like phones. When you're in them, you're most likely driving and you don't have the bandwidth to figure out how to do something as well as drive.

I have to rent cars regularly and each one is a chore to figure out, especially at night after a flight when I just want to get moving with headlights on and a little music. Sometimes I feel like taking a picture of the damn things because they're so comically counter-intuitive.

In the HMI architecture document, they mention Qt, HTML5 and JavaFX for apps:

https://wiki.automotivelinux.org/_media/eg-ui-graphics/17080...

the WindowManager spec seems to assume Qt as default: https://wiki.automotivelinux.org/_media/agl-hmi-fw_windowman...

and most of the UI demos seems to use it too : https://gerrit.automotivelinux.org/gerrit/#/admin/projects/A...

I could not find apps built with Tizen's native toolkit (EFL).

The Entune interface just isn't very good, and it's not going to get better. This isn't unique to Toyota -- no matter how good the system in your car is, it will seem very outdated after 5 years. In contrast, CarPlay and Android auto are great now and will improve with software updates over time.

Surprised and dismayed if this is the prevailing viewpoint, that using a phone while driving is a necessity that should be made as safe as possible.

My car has pretty basic integration: calls, music. I have access to the phone book and playlists on the car display and I don't need nor want more integration.

I found the best way to attach a phone to the mount was to buy a phone 'holster' - the belt clip type. Break the clip part off and grid down the back so it's flat, then use a 3M adhesive pad to attach the phone holder to the mount. Then you can easily snap the phone into place and see the screen while driving. It's more work than a cheap vent-clip type, but absolutely worth it.

No affiliation with the company, I just think they have the best product and I found them very helpful.

(I’m agreeing that car mounts suck, and car play is amazing in the cars I’ve been in that have it )

It's a different set of people with different constraints.

No.

Just ... no.

A critical control system should be simple, able to be used without taking one's eyes off the wheel/road.

Any control system (atmosphere, lights, defroster, wipers, ...) that requires you to remove your attention from the road in order to operate a touch screen interface with a generally terrible UI/UX is BROKEN. And dangerous to boot.

This is what I find now in many (not all, but the majority) of my rentals.

Want to turn on defroster (which is usually a snap decision as the rear window is getting foggy/frosty)? You have to navigate a screen. Not push a single button.

Want to turn down the radio? Now you have to navigate MULTIPLE screens to find the O(&^*&^$^$&^& control pane for the radio, and shut it off.

And so on.

This is not progress.

This is risk.

Pardon my pun, but someone is asleep at the wheel here. These control and interface systems are inherently broken, by not being as simple as possible.

A lot of luxury cars no longer have a conventional key but some kind of electronic system. Sometimes it is proximity based, so you simply have to have the key and push a button on the steering column or dashboard or maybe center console. Other cars have a key that has some kind of electrical connector and must be inserted into the side of the steering column and then you push a button, and still another one I drove seemed to have a proximity key but you had to stick it into the side of the steering column and turn to start the engine.

Then you have to figure out the parking brake... Used to be that it was a ratchet pedal, or a handle in the center console, or one of those pull-and-twist deals in some 4x4s. This was already a little annoying, but now there's a huge diversity of buttons and toggles in non-obvious places. At least the electrical ones usually disengage if you hit the gas.

Now for the automatic gear selector...

One guy somewhat sheepishly apologizes that his car was hard to drive... but it was an old stick-shift 4runner with a strange feeling clutch. That one I was actually able to work out!

Last week at lunch, we were lamenting the disappearance of headphone jacks from phones. We speculated that a Bluetooth-to-jack adapter would be a popular accessory, letting people keep their old headphones for use with their latest media players. I'd wager there's a whole class of products that might fit here, for example a set of old-fashioned analog knobs backed by Bluetooth or some other interface to the players, as an alternative for those who feel more comfortable - or safer - with the old gear.

Toyota, the automaker under discussion here, offers steering wheel controls that are pretty decent. The main weakness of such systems is that the interface between stereo and phone has such little functionality, and that is where many people will be playing their music. Eventually you're going to be poking at a phone and a badly-designed app unless you're happy to simply play everything from a long playlist.

Controls I want to operate without looking at them: fan, temperature, air routing, defrost, windshield wipers, high beams, turn signals.

I ended up splitting the difference, going for a modern Bluetooth equipped radio with old-school physical buttons and a knob. I play music through my phone over Bluetooth and control playback with the phone's voice control. My eyes never leave the road, and my right hand never leaves the steering wheel except to change volume, which is easy with the huge knob and muscle memory.

Exceedingly poor UI design.

I don't know if capacitive screens and proper GPUs are just somehow incompatible with cars, or what the engineering problem is to get solid framerates with solid responsive time in a good looking screen, but no car manufacturer other than Tesla seems to have been able to solve this problem.

Now that doesn't address everything you're pointing out here, which several of these are legit points. I'm just saying if my car's touch screen felt more like an iPad and less like an Android tablet from 2006, it would be a metric fuckton easier for me to use.

Of course provided that the stupid proprietary toouchscreen infotainment system can actually be interfaced with them.

I don't think such a product exists (or that current infotainment systems would allow such a connection), but it could be a nice thingy.

That's a very odd way of putting it. You do realise that music is not just a marketing platform, but also a very common form of entertainment and medium for artistic expression, right?

I'm not sure if you're saying that you don't listen to music at all while you're driving, but if you are, I think you have a very uncommon experience. When I ride in other people's cars, there is almost always music playing, either from a phone connected over bluetooth, a stack of CDs in a CD changer, or just a music radio station. Driving in silence is so uncommon that I'd consider it strange. When I am driving my own car, I often use my long Australian commute as an opportunity to listen to a full album.

Given that people do listen to music in cars, and that against better advice, they often fiddle with their non-built-in music playback devices while the car is in motion, an in-car entertainment system with a proper interface goes a long way to prevent distracted driving.

However, I have never crossed Australia, in either direction.

Sadly pretty much no longer available in a new car. So I'll probably never buy another one.

I don't use active GPSes, although I do use electronic maps for plotting my route beforehand. I prefer to know where I am going, and I hate the GPSs that try to talk to my with the force of a thousand suns.

Not sure where you are, but here it's illegal to drive with headphones.