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Comment by digitalixus | Hacker News Reader

Or car markers could just stop being stubborn and greedy with their proprietary trash and just support Car Play/Android Auto. That way the car acts as a dumb terminal for displaying stuff from the phone and nothing is actually stored in the car.

But no, gotta charge hundreds for in-car map updates (that only get updated as often as you purchase them) and radio/traffic subscription that mobile apps charge a fraction of and always up-to-date for as long as you keep the apps updated.

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You just listed 2 more bits of proprietary crap though.

They're more slave than masters though, pretty much relayers in a sense. They're also more standard. For some reason standardization is always underappreciated

I agree with you that car makers should stop trying to provide piss poor alternatives to our phones and instead acts as conduits for them and I remember things like PlaysForSure so I am much more in favor of an open standard like Bluetooth that doesn't live or die by one company.

I'm pretty sure the phonebook thing is OBEX. You probably don't want the car hitting your phone for the phonebook every time you want to make a call. IVI systems are slow enough as it is.

Yeah, I was reluctant to say Bluetooth because it implied that we should stick with existing protocols but that isn't exactly what I meant to say. Rather we should have some forward thinking protocol that works over multiple interfaces and is still open and platform independent like Bluetooth. Maybe even just a baseline Car Dock standard requiring Microphone, Speakers, and a Touch Display.

Bluetooth is just so encumbered with legacy concepts and limitations. It hosts a myriad of protocols that don't benefit users but are easy to implement to check the Bluetooth feature checkbox. There's a full generation of Bluetooth equipped cars that only support headset or handsfree protocols but not A2DP or other useful protocols people want.

I agree for most car makers, but I personally find Tesla’s UI to be better than CarPlay. And the map updates are free.

Agree 100%

Tesla doesn’t charge for map updates.

I was really hoping for Apple and Google to create a bidirectional standard similar to PCoIP (a la VMware), and be able to essentially use the car’s touchscreen as a thinclient to the phone.

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