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Comment by youeseh | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

That, and they would probably be stolen.

Article about Tesla's struggle with industrial grade vs automotive grade with their displays: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...

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...

I bet they could just throw in an iPad cheaper than whatever it costs them to build their terrible custom solution.

It doesn't cost them much. They just mark up the feature when they sell the car because they can.

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.

you're welcome

https://www.seicane.com/index.php/android-subaru-forester-hd...

google for 'carname' + "tesla style stereo"

get one before tariffs kick in. you're welcome.

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.

That's called a 2 din car stereo slot :D

Yup. Easily found in economy vehicles but not often in luxury cars.

Porsche CarPlay is fantastic.

I think it’s partially for maintenance/surveillance, depending on your degree of skepticism.

Alternatively, the more bloat they cram into the machines, the more they can charge.

I’d love a car that was just a car, a set of speakers, and A/C.

> 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.

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