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Comment by Bhilai | Hacker News Reader

Not sure about negative comments here. You dont like it, dont use the feature! Its not like Google is forcing you to use this. I bet people will celebrate this feature when Apple rolls around implementing it two years from now. I for one, look forward to using this feature on my Pixel as I live in a city where drivers are very aggressive and in general have a disregard for following the rules. I have been in an accident where the other driver outright refused to accept their mistake and made up a completely false story and a dashcam would have proved their fault without a doubt. I did mount a dashcam in my car since then but using the phone would be a much better proposition.

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> I bet people will celebrate this feature when Apple rolls around implementing it two years from now.

Not only will it be celebrated but people will claim its revolutionary

Apple would never put iPhones up to something this low-brow.

This is the company that put a charging port under a mouse so you wouldn't leave it hooked up all day: they're not going to encourage you to stick your phone in a creaky phone mount in hot sunlight all day so you can do a bad dashcam impression.

In Apple world you don't need your phone to be a dashcam because you can afford stupid accidents and other expenses that mostly screw over the poors

No need to wait for another two years, I already made an exact app you're talking about. it's not only a dash cam, but it's integrated with turn by turn navigation as well.

maybe I can claim it to be revolutionary :)

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dashmap/id1638360259

Cool app.. but why subscription? this should be a one time payment.

Why not a subscription given with each iOS version comes new APIs and deprecations requiring time and effort to fix?

Hmmm.. Id say thats a cost of doing business on the app store? App stores should be doing a better job of making sure everything doesn’t require rework ever so often, but I don’t see why end customers have to pick up that tab. On a continued basis like in a subscription.

Subscriptions for apps are like paying the service fee to a skilled mechanic for your car's maintenance and upgrades. The developer acts as the mechanic, using the subscription revenue to continually improve the app's performance, security, and features. Just as the mechanic ensures your car runs smoothly and can add better features (tinted windows, reverse camera etc), the developer can deliver regular updates, replace outdated components, and introduce innovative features. Subscriptions support ongoing app maintenance and enhancement, providing users with a reliable and up-to-date experience, similar to how a mechanic's services keep your car in optimal condition.

That's a lot of fluff for meaning to say that subscriptions earn more than one-time purchase fees.

How often do you pay your mechanic

Once per maintenance change, not once per car you buy

By that logic you should pay the app only when the version changes, not every month

Great idea but there isn’t an easy way to manage that

It is unfortunately because of API cost from Mapbox. In Google's use case, they can obviously do it for free (for being Google and not integrated with navigation within the app). The 1 week tier is aimed for rental car users, for normal users, I'd recommend 1 month.

the biggest cost for me is the navigation, mapbox charges quite a lot...on a per trip basis, but you guys can use the promo code HACKERNEWS for 1 month free trial

Thats a good point.. I hadn’t considered the continued use of paid navigation apis for this app

I love apps like this. There’s a world full of high quality software out there that is just waiting to be discovered.

Thanks for sharing.

You're saying that as if it's the same people doing both. HN has a large enough number of users for both to happen and it not being hypocrisy.

> HN has a large enough number of users for both to happen and it not being hypocrisy.

Why would that matter in this hypothetical scenario? Releasing a feature two years after someone else has would not be revolutionary regardless of which phone someone uses.

Yeah, those comments calling on the hypocrisies of a crowd are really getting boring. Same thing on reddit where people call on an entire subreddit for having been wrong or having a different opinion in a different thread.

We are talking of hundreds of thousands of user, is that really surprising that we see different opinions in different threads? I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that a comment thread about Google and Android might attract an entirely different crowd than an Apple thread.

The operative word here is "let", since any linux OS computer could do this.

It's only been goggle's abomination on top of linux that has prevented it...

Isn't it nice of the mulit-trillion dollar corporation to "let" you do things?

Let's all just worship the mega-wealthy a little more...

If it's your word against the other driver's, the insurance company can find you each at fault.

I've gotten in the habit of recording my rides since then. Was using Droid Dashcam, but it make my Pixel feel slow/hot/buggy. Very keen to see a built-in version of the same functionality.

When Apple rolls this out as Continuity Recorder, it will require your car to be signed into your iCloud account.

After watching dashcam crash videos for 5 years, I finally got around to getting a dashcam for myself (not that I intend to star in any of those videos, mind you).

From those crash videos, I've learned to never turn left in Russia. You'll get t-boned almost every time.

> Don't turn left in Russia. You'll get t-boned almost every time.

I'm skeptical. How does this happen if I yield to traffic that's already on the road?

Somebody decides to speed past you in the wrong lane as you try to turn?

Otherwise, it's not as dangerous as dashcam videos make it look. What's the opposite of survivor bias?

Oh, I see. I didn't lower my scumbag bar enough, I guess. Yeah, that's nuts.

> What's the opposite of survivor bias?

Confirmation bias, maybe.

Survivor bias is a specific case of selection bias, and the issue here is also selection bias: there's a selection effect on which dashcam videos you end up seeing.

The operative word here is "let", since any linux OS computer could do this.

It's only been goggle's abomination on top of linux that has prevented it...

Isn't it nice of the mulit-trillion dollar corporation to "let" you do things?

Let's all just worship the mega-wealthy a little more...

I was gonna say this. I've thought of this idea years and year ago. This is an old ass idea, and the only reason phones didn't do it before, is because Google and Apple wouldn't let us do it. It should be embarassing that it's taken them this long to come up with it.

I prefer to use my $25 dashcam on my car (I did my research to find a pretty decent one). This dashcams always recording and mounted.

Could you pass on the results of your research? I don't think I found a dashcam at that price range, and I was actually looking to use an old smartphone as my dashcam, but it didn't seem like a good solution as 1. I would have to start the app manually whenever the phone powers up, and 2. I wouldn't want to leave the phone in a holder in the car all the time as it could invite thieves.

> You dont like it, dont use the feature! Its not like Google is forcing you to use this.

And why only Sony have 3.5mm headphone jack now? I guess Apple did not force us right?

Google is in no way interested in traffic safety and that's the reason I despise them for playing around in this field. For example, they encourage active use of the phone while driving by asking you to report and confirm/deny reports of "speed traps". It's similar to Tesla tinkering with self driving and using everyone around us as beta testers.

> they encourage active use of the phone while driving by asking you to report and confirm/deny reports of "speed traps"

Apple Maps does this also.

That's a bummer

So what are you implying here with the quotes on "speed traps"?

There are very real speed traps on roads, and they endanger drivers in exchange for generating ticket revenue.

> There are very real speed traps on roads, and they endanger drivers in exchange for generating ticket revenue.

Not if you drive the speed limit or less. Google endangers drivers (especially other drivers) by implicitly encouraging rapid deceleration at one of these "traps".

If someone slowing ahead of you puts you in danger, you were following too close. The parent was talking about encouraging users to use their phone to report the speed traps is a cause of distracted driving, which it is, which is dangerous.

And you know what. Cops NEVER go after people for following too close. You see them always out there just knocking out speeders. Going 70 in a 60 is not dangerous. Following someone 6 feet off their bumper at 55 in a 60 is far more dangerous, but that requires doing actual work, not sitting on the shoulder knocking out ticket after ticket.

Actual speed traps cause rapid deceleration on purpose. There will suddenly be a speed limit sign that is very abrupt or very low or both.

A cop with a radar gun in a normal stretch of road with a reasonable speed limit is not a speed trap.

Though even for """speed traps""" that are just enforcement, if there is a big difference between the average speed and the speed limit then there's probably something wrong with the road design.

Wait, explain to me how a cop on the side of the road with a radar gun "endangers drivers"? If someone ahead of you slowing down before they get to a cop causes you danger, you were following unjustifiably close.

There are lots of things that can happen on a highway to take a car from 80mph to 0mph in just a few feet (very heavy things to run into) without warning, and if you don't have enough distance to react to that and stop, you are following too close.

Have you never seen how people hit their brakes, swerve into open lanes, and back up traffic for miles just because of a cop or some shit on the side of the road?

One, it's insane to ask drivers to input data while driving.

Two, these are not "speed traps", they are simply officers on the side of the road. These officers are doing a public service looking for cell phone users, and for aggressive speeders.

No they're not. They're too busy staring through the scope of their LIDAR gun to know what's actually going on on the freeway.

I personally have seen them staring through regular binoculars lately more often than a radar gun. I assume they are looking for people holding cell phones. This is in Northern California.

Also, being seen on the freeway at all helps the crazies in their dodge chargers slow donw a little. If they know the cops are out, they'll keep it to 95 instead of 105.

Waze just calls them cops on the road, I think?

But Google maps uses the euphemism speed trap so it doesn't look like just tracking cops.

Yes, I suspect it's a data collection project. Like the street view cars, but everywhere.

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