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Comment by adastra22 | Hacker News Reader

> Both to show ads in the vehicle

WTF. Is this a thing? How?

My friend's 2018 Nissan Rogue displays logos of some nearby restaurants / gas stations / stores on the navigation map. The brands that are shown change every once in a while.

Some cars show nearby points of interest as a feature; this isn't that.

People still use integrated navigation systems?

> People still use integrated navigation systems?

Yes. I have a ~5yro Ford Fiesta with navigation built in and I massively prefer it to using a phone app.

Its standalone (mapping is on an sd card) so I know it will still work if I'm in a remote area with poor network coverage. It also has physical, tactile buttons (no touchscreen) that my muscle memory can learn, and which don't suddenly reposition themselves at the whims of some app ux designer. It can automatically download traffic updates via bluetooth on my phone, but its otherwise "self hosted" on my car.

Basically, it just works the way I expect and doesn't try to distract me. Which is all that I need.

I would use my built on mapping for those reasons if I had any, but just as an aside, OSMAnd+ is an offline heavy duty free FOSS navigation and maps app. It's not quite as user friendly as google maps unfortunately, but the offline, downloadable navigation maps have saved my ass a few times.

That's cool. Definitely a win for having all maps pre-loaded, augmented by traffic updates. Also surprising that the map data are on an SD card, given car companies' penchant for technologically-outmoded and proprietary systems that force you to go to the dealer for simple updates.

FYI you can download maps to your phone too. That plus CarPlay is pretty much the same experience.

I know. But my car has mapping for the whole of the uk, wheras afaik google maps only lets me download routes or city-sized areas. And I'd have to remember to plan ahead and download over wifi.

It depends a bit, but I think you can download entire regions.

Google maps/Waze shows these business logos as well. In certain cases, the navigation assistant will also say the business' name when navigating.

Example: Instead of "Turn left onto Broad Street", it will say, "Turn left after the Wendy's".

It's pretty subtle right now, but I have no doubts that it will get more nefarious in the future.

If there’s an option to disable this “feature”, then it’s probably not advertising.

Good thing Apple Maps doesn’t subtly repeat biz names to me until I remember them. If this ever happens, I’ll move back to paper maps.

I don’t care if I have to pull over, it beats this mental manipulation and my mind being an advertisers plaything.

To be fair, for some turns that is a better experience.

I don't think that's an ad. I think Google just knows that a giant restaurant sign is a lot easier to see than a tiny street sign

Can't it be both? Google's entire career is combining something useful (gmail) with something shady (reading your emails to sell ads).

This sounds exactly like that.

You really think no money changes hands to power this feature? The last ~decade of tech teaches one to assume otherwise…

True, but instructions based on intersection features are better than both. Apple maps does this with instructions like "go past this light then at the next one turn right"

A large integrated touch-screen as opposed to your smartphone? Yeah.

These have improved somewhat

I don’t think it’s a thing. I’ve never seen a car that shows ads. Logos in the nav system doesn’t really qualify IMO.

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