Completely out of subject, but why is it that when I open all these stories on my iPhone they are formatted with no spacing on the left side? Not sure why, but it makes them hard to read for me:
Photography Credit: Courtesy BMW; Illustration by Colin Wood
The year is 2042. Your BMW has slid off the road and buried itself in a deep snowdrift on a rural secondary road west of Palatka, Florida.
Global climate change sends freakish fingers of frigid arctic weather south that slice into the roasting year-round tropical fronts that hover over the New Republic of Free Florida, producing intense localized frozen precipitation.
You were unlucky enough to be caught in one when a 4-foot-long glacier iguana darted across the road in front of you, pursuing a feral child unlucky enough to be caught outside in the whiteout–or perhaps cunning enough to use himself as delicious live bait to lure the ice iguana into a trap. Anyway, you’ll freeze to death long before you find out.
Or will you?
“Wait!” you exclaim aloud, with no one around to hear you except the small but growing murder of biomechanical cyber-crows waiting for you to lose enough consciousness that they can replenish their carbon-fueled powerplants with your not-yet-hardened flesh. “My BMW has heated seats. I can simply switch them on and delay my icy death long enough to be found by a passerby who will rescue/cannibalize me–preferably the former.”
You remove the glove from your right hand with your teeth, your left arm long ago amputated and sold on eBayBio to pay for the medical debt you incurred after breaking–ironically enough–the same left arm.
A small smile crosses your face as you recall selling the repaired arm for even more than your debt, the ALF tattoo on the bicep increasing its value dramatically thanks to his brief but meaningful stint as president after his streak of Oscar wins. “Suckers,” you mutter to yourself, recalling what was found in his trunk just three weeks after the sale.
Saying a silent prayer that your Amazon Prime Index Finger has not frozen beyond its ability to operate a touch screen, you fumble for the seat heater control. The cyber-crows have now alighted on the tiny slivers of sheet metal that still peek from the snowbank and are using their limited capacity for speech to bait you into panic. “Eaaaaaaaaatttt mannnnnnnnnnnn. Eaaattttttt mmmaaannnnnnnnnn. Caw.”
But those flying abominations don’t know that as soon as you tap this one button and fire up the seat heater, your slide into the frigid beyond will be stayed as long as your fuel holds out–and that could be a while. After all, you had just stopped to fill up with advance biodiesel at the Soylent Chevron (“Now with more Belgians!”) before encountering this freak late-June ice hell.
Finally, your finger finds purchase on the highest setting of warmth on the seat heater’s touch screen control…only to bring up an alert on the driver information center: “Your subscription to the seat heating function of this BMW’s ConnectedDrive system has expired.”
Just as you begin to fumble through your pocket for your credit card, you realize the crows are now attuning their built-in Bluetooth transmitters to your car’s door locks.
This scenario may seem a bit outlandish (crows probably won’t evolve Bluetooth until at least 2050), it’s also 100% possible that this is exactly what we can expect as BMW–and certainly more carmakers to follow–rolls out more and more access to existing functions through subscription-based microtransactions.
BMW recently revealed that it will let you subscribe to heated seats for just $18 per month in its ConnectedDrive-equipped cars, which is, uhh, I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s good that buyers of a used BMW will have access to options that weren’t chosen by original owners. Or maybe it’s bad that yet another facet of our existence is being swallowed up by microtransactions.
Is not having access to a touch screen-based option really as outright tauntingly offensive as the blank switch or empty block-off plate on your dash constantly reminding you of the options you were too cheap to purchase?
I dunno. A solid implementation of this system could be a boon to the “cars as a mundane necessity” segment of the market, which, boring though it may be, is most of the marketplace.
But yeah, I think I’d much rather be able to add heated seats by running a few wires and installing some heating coils. With my wiring skill, I’d probably burn the car to the ground, but at least I’d know I created those warm, cozy flames.
Anyway, I need to wrap up this column. I subscribe to the pants that I’m wearing, and I just got a notification that the subscription runs out in a few minutes. I don’t think the other people in this Panera will appreciate my choice not to renew.
Completely out of subject, but why is it that when I open all these stories on my iPhone they are formatted with no spacing on the left side? Not sure why, but it makes them hard to read for me:
In reply to Slippery :
I got the same issue. I think it is apple thing as everything reads proper on all my non apple devices. The weird part is in the forum the left margin is proper but articles don't have one.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
A story about subscriptions that requires a subscription to read.
The irony.
I read it as "cyber cows" not "cyber crows" and now I want an entire sci-fi thriller in this universe where the herd leader cyber cow somehow overthrows BMW.
earlybroncoguy1 said:In reply to JG Pasterjak :
A story about subscriptions that requires a subscription to read.
The irony.
I do not have a subscription and was able to read it ...
In reply to earlybroncoguy1 :
Right, but your subscription supports us constantly writing new articles. BMW's supports.... using the hardware already in the car you paid for?
In reply to earlybroncoguy1 :
I so hate this buisness model. $200 plus a year to use heated seats in your car. That is 2k over 10 years. I guess that if they don't raise the price for 10 years the value of the dollar will be then worth less than now. They would better off getting there $$$ up front. And what is the cheepest BMW going for these days? Would 2k added now really matter to the demographic that purchases them. What about a lease. I can see this being written in or out of leases so your $400 a month lease will creep up to close to $500 if you add in 4-5 options. I get it from a business side but it just seems so slimy. I would have that I need a shower feeling every time I got out of my car as I would feel like I was being fleeced by the manufacturer every time I use it. Why don't they just charge you for every minute you use your heated seats similar to the data or minute you use on your cell phone. BMW has reached a new low in my book with this. Puts a whole new meaning to the ultimate driving machine.
Soon there will be a cost associated with every button in the car every time you use it. I can see a one cent charge every time your blinker flashes or if you want to roll down your window it is five cents.
This BS needs to be stopped now!!!
Oh how about you get charged a per minute rate for ac but the rate per minute is dictated by fan speed an temperature. Lower temp or higher fan speed increase your per minute rate to use the ac.
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