Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

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<rant/ramble on>

OTA is great but my experience with my TM3 is clouded by one issue, I want blue tooth audio support to be enhanced so I do not have to use my phone to select tracks, playlists, artists, and such. Instead what was the big update of near the holiday season, fart humor, holiday fireplace like a screen saver, and the old Atari pole position game.

Seriously? Yeah I know they also updated auto pilot, put in a new animation for setting vents, and such, but I really don't need the easter eggs when there are so many programmable features this car should already have and audio support including the mentioned blue tooth support is all easily a decade behind what other cars have. hell our energy meter is a joke, it won't break out power used to move from that to maintain the pack, doesn't want to count when I am not moving, and blends in the HVAC. Auto hi beams that are spastic and auto wipers that are just, well odd.

Sorry for the ramble but the security stunt is one thing but non essential crap like easter eggs is just more things to break or be exploited. bring the cars customer facing electronics up to date before farting around more.

love my car, have serious doubts about their priorities.

Do you believe programmers are fungible? That the ones who wrote the easter eggs could easily be reassigned to work on a specific feature you want? Have you considered that maybe only a handful of employees have expertise in bluetooth, were working on the feature you want, while others were making the easter egg?

It's because of entitled comments like this that companies don't develop easter eggs. They know that someone who doesn't understand how software development works will ask this very question - "why easter eggs? Why not that one feature I want?"

That's not why companies don't develop Easter eggs. It's because: 1) Easter eggs are features. 2) Features cost time and money. 3) Features almost always also add bugs. 4) Easter eggs usually aren't in the test plan.

What you get is something that costs money and has the chance to decrease the quality of your software.

Now there are intangibles that make Easter eggs worth it. Mostly, you have to keep the developers happy. But don't act like they have zero cost.

Full disclosure, I shipped an easter egg in the Sun x86 service processor about 11 years ago.

I'd argue that the Tesla stuff here isn't really Easter eggs as traditionally understood; which are stuff put in by devs having fun; and then it's either not spotted or ignored by management. Easter eggs are usually somewhat hidden, and require some degree of intelligence to appreciate. The Tesla stuff is lame "fart apps" that were clearly put there under instructions by some PR guys or Musk himself. No developers were kept happy in this process.

The apps are part of a marketing plan, and I personally doubt that devs didn’t have fun building them.

My kids gleefully get to “drive” my Tesla using the steering wheel to play Pole Position. They snicker when we goof around with the whoopie cushion.

It’s hard not to be positively influenced by something that gives your children joy. I appreciate that there are these bits in the software which are whimsical that my family can play with.

I’m glad you acknowledge they shipped a major autopilot update at the same time.

Navigate on Autopilot (Beta) suggests lane changes but does not proceed without confirmation. But autonomous lane changing is live in Tesla internal test vehicles and will roll out after more testing. Getting on and off the highway and changing lanes is a step up, so they are shipping real features.

They enhanced the cruise to be more aware of sharp curves (will adapt speed, even below your set point, in advance of a curve).

They also added blind spot monitoring showing vehicles behind and to the sides which had not been displayed on the guidance system previously. They also distinguish betweeen the type of cars with different icons for trucks, buses, and SUVs. They also added rudimentary pedestrian detection and a very goofy pedestrian icon on the guidance display.

And also dash cam support which had been much requested.

I agree with you that the media control from the phone is lacking. The good thing is I’m confident an update will come along one day and make it better. More than I can say for any other car!

Lastly, the humorous apps have a purpose. My 6 year old son is absolutely in love with the Tesla and now begs to take my car instead of moms Mercedes. He asks me at least once a week about when I’m going to get the Roadster with the rocket boosters. (As if!) It’s genius marketing even if it is a bit silly.

Almost all the features you mention (navigate on autopilot, blind spot monitoring, dash cam) shipped in October, not in the Christmas release.

Yes, a major version upgrade two months prior. 8 weeks later, over Holiday season, you are expecting... what exactly?!

A fireplace video and new game is exactly what I would expect as a bit of fun to wrap up the year.

OP claimed Tesla has their priorities wrong. I strenuously disagree and provided ample evidence to back my assertion.

The dashcam feature is completely broken for me. It stops working after a few days without fail then I have to reformat the drive. I would prefer that someone fix this issue than work on easter eggs.

The lack of visible, public progress on an issue is not indicative of a lack of people working on it. And assigning more cooks to the kitchen probably won't speed things up.

You make good points, but from my own experience the times easter eggs get added to software are often related to underlying tech changes.

Consider that the fireplace screen saver might not just be about having a fireplace, but perhaps a test of streaming video over the air, or maybe it's rendered with OpenGL, or maybe it's testing a new app deployment mechanism, etc. Easter eggs are a great way to test new tech that could be very important, on a low-impact area of the system.

Or the fart mode could just be fart mode.

Can you elaborate on selecting tracks, playlists, artists over Bluetooth, and how Tesla is "easily a decade behind"?

On my 3, track name and album art (if available) is displayed, and I can control via the touchscreen or steering wheel controls - same as on my 2016 VW Golf R.

It's more-or-less exactly what I need and want, but of course more features are more compelling. I've never seen another vehicle from any marque offer any more options over Bluetooth. If you can select playlists, can you do the same with (say) Spotify, or only with in-phone playlists of local music? iOS? Android? Both?

I wish we had the option to have Spotify instead of Slacker radio as they do in Europe, as I actually pay for Spotify, but to be honest, I don't get a whole lot of value from browsing through playlists on my in-dash screen. I used Carplay precisely twice in my Golf for this very reason. Frankly, the phone controls are more familiar and easier to use with minimal diversion of attention.

But, I'd love to hear more about what Bluetooth supports and which cars support those advanced features.

I echo your comments on the easer eggs. I give precisely zero shits about them, and IMO, they're not even easter eggs when you practically click a menu that says EASTER EGGS. When I was 14, they were fun, when passed around via word of mouth. I've never opened any of them on my 3, I just don't care. For some reason, my (retired) dad really loves them, but I guess he's got plenty of time to sit around in the car in the garage playing games :P

I want the ability to browse my phone's library on the big screen so that I don't have to pick it up from the wireless dock. Also when you search for songs you just get random radio stations...

Search would be nice -- I just wish parent would elaborate because I'm not aware of this existing in any other BT device. I'm not sure how it would work, but I don't know the BT spec/featureset.

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