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The Coming Wave of In-Dash Auto System Obsolescence
jfruh writes "Automakers are striving mightily to bring their in-dash systems into the modern age, providing integration with smartphones and other advanced features. The problem: while smartphones go in and out of vogue every few years, modern cars have lifespans of a decade or more. Add in the fact that many (though not all) manufacturers have no plans to allow software upgrades to their systems, and you might end up driving a car with a fancy in-dash computer system that's completely useless for much of the time you own it."
When I recently bought a car, I specifically searched for a model that does not have any touch screen jazzy GPS-smartphone-capable stuff thrown in. Apart from the slow upgrades that are offered by the manufacturers, I find it extremely distracting. A phone call can always wait, and I prefer physical buttons on the dash to skip music tracks or control the volume. Unless you have steering wheel mounted controls (which I admit, most cars have these days), I find the prospect of taking my eyes off the road to figure out where on the screen to touch to change route/track very distracting and potentially dangerous. Voice activated commands are not yet very accent-insensitive. I speak with a marked indian accent, and I find that a couple of systems were not able to pick up commands very easily. More distractions and it just ends up making the journey more tiresome. So car makers, please spare some of us the bleeding edge technology and give us cars that we can actually enjoy driving.
No touchscreens, please. Any UI that requires you to remove your eyes from the road is a non-starter. Pleas, let's not *add* to the already out-of-control distracted driving problem.