Tony Sestito said:This is a surefire way to alienate about 90% of people interested in buying their vehicles. You're simultaneously ticking off Apple users, Android users, people who don't want a subscription service in their car, and people who don't like Google. And on top of that, Apple Car Play/Android Auto has become an industry standard application suite/interface on just about every car manufacturer (and aftermarket) infotainment setup. It works really well in just about every vehicle, provided you have a smartphone to power it, which nearly every driver does now.
Way to go GM for finding yet another new and innovative way to massively fail. Gotta hand it to you, you're getting really good at that.
I get how some older stuffed shirts might not be that tech savvy, but this is basic marketing, which should be their bread and butter.
So you're trying to find a vehicle that drives well, looks good, has the features you need and want, has reasonable expectations of safety and reliability, isn't "market adjusted" so badly that it breaks your ability to be okay with the transaction...
...and at the end of all that you end up with the least-worst option being one of these things, you either pick something meaningfully worse overall, or you have formally okayed this approach and confirmed that "this is what the market demands."
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to RevRico :
Modern car audio is very, very good. The speakers make great upgrades for older cars. I keep a lookout for Volvo's premium package front speakers, there are three or four elements per door with separate subwoofers (in the FRONT DOORS!) and mids and tweeters, all in something that looks pretty swappable. And they sound better than any aftermarket stuff I have played with. When I bought the car, I stuck my Black Sabbath disk in the thing and when Jack the Stripper came up, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
Almost everything has HVAC and car control items (maintenance, tire pressure monitor resetting) built into the infotainment module, which oftentimes is just a screen and the actual nuts-and-bolts is in different units stashed elsewhere in the dashboard. Or trunk. Or both.
Honda made some radios in the mid-2000s Accords that die with regularity. What usually happens is that a half-DIN head unit gets mounted UNDER all that mess, which stays up top for HVAC/etc reasons.
Which Volvos have this setup?
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
I don't have the stats on this, but I would assume the #1 complaint or touchpoint for a modern car for most consumers is the infotainment system, even for the older folks. I know for a fact that people avoid entire lines of cars based on its difficulty to use. I know I have! OEMs spend insane amounts of time and money to get this right and have for years. But in today's world, it's more important than ever. Every time I'm at a press event, the infotainment system is always one of the 1st questions the press asks the reps. We finally get a universally accepted system that works basically across the board, and leave it to GM to throw it away in favor of some potential BS subscription model no consumer wants.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
It is the highest complaint. And it doesn't get better with ownership length suggesting it's not about getting used to the interface, it's about the function.
I like my Subaru a lot but when the radio turns on randomly 2 minutes into the drive (at podcast volume) I get annoyed. Or when it does the same thing just as I click into reverse which brings up the reverse camera and lags the whole system by a solid 4-5 seconds. This is a simply system and I could replace it if I needed to. One of the few.
No wonder radwood era cars are so popular
spandak said:I like my Subaru a lot but when the radio turns on randomly 2 minutes into the drive (at podcast volume) I get annoyed. Or when it does the same thing just as I click into reverse which brings up the reverse camera and lags the whole system by a solid 4-5 seconds.
The level of brokenness which we don't seem to have much choice but to accept at the moment always makes me think of Keith's story of pranking his wife by telling her Tesla's nav to go to Olive Garden fairly often for months, only to be thwarted by her acceptance that this was a normal level of dysfunction for the nav system. I want to find the perfect term for this, but I'm afraid "Olive Gardening" would only ever work here at GRM, and only sometimes, and really refers to the attempted prank rather than the underlying issues.
"I wasn't that attached to the idea of Android Auto specifically, but the new Chevy infotainment system Olive Gardens all the dang time..."
In reply to spandak :
One of the reasons I avoided the WRX and other Subarus my last go-around shopping for a daily driver was THIS! A friend had a 2018 WRX Premium, and the stupid radio would do wacky stuff like this, and the dealer "couldn't replicate the issue". Every time I was in the car, it would start seeking radio stations, try to load all his contacts on his phone at a snail's pace, turn off and on, and more.
The good OEM radios I've used keep things super simple and feature CarPlay and Android Auto seamlessly. The Chrysler/Stellantis UConnect and even the Harman/Kardon one in my Kia do this right. They just work and are future-proof as long as those two standards stick around. Hell, a couple weeks ago, my Android Auto app updated and started utilizing split screen options! It was like getting a new HU, and I didn't have to do a thing!
FWIW, my wife's 2021 Subaru has a pretty decent infotainment system.
I found it interesting that in the review of the new Hyundai Ionic 6, they made a big deal about keeping buttons and knobs. Seems to me that if you have to scroll through screens to find something that could otherwise be in exactly the same place everytime, that's a step backwards in terms of the driver being allowed to do what he's supposed to be doing - driving the car.
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