BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards • Hacker News Board

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#221

Post by ak217 » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #121

city41 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my 2016 BMW, CarPlay was so incredibly buggy. Unsure who's at fault on that, but the thought of paying a subscription for it makes me chuckle.

Interesting. In my Mazda it works really well. The only thing that bothers me is that the car has a no-phone system that is the default, and you always have to switch to Car Play. But Car Play is much, much better, so it would be nice if I could just make it always be on.

Press and hold Home to switch to CarPlay quickly on Mazda.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#222

Post by ahartmetz » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

petre wrote: post #210

moooo99 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now they’re just clueless assholes. I’ve seen it in their IT systems, their design teams are either on crack or got outsourced to 4 year olds and their product/sales gurus are a mix of bean counters incapable of producing an original idea and a bunch of lifers running on nepotism. Can confirm. BMW used to be quite innovative, at least on the scale of German automakers, with their connect services. We have a fairly…

The new front grill is atrocious. I saw their new electric model. An unispired SUV on steroids with a butt ugly grill.

If that isn't for the Chinese market, I am completely baffled about their so-called design. What we really don't need is more cars that look like angry predators or "gaming" PC cases.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#223

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #139

durnygbur wrote: post #14

I remember reading an interview with BMW designer that the obnoxiously huge front grills are a nod to the Chinese customers. Chinese customers wanted the drivers in front of them to feel intimidated, as if the car and driver behind wanted to eat them. Other premium brands like Lexus followed with this trend.

I've never understood this intimidation strategy/mentality. "ooh big/mean/fast/close car behind me - I had better speed up/get out of the way or..." or what, precisely? Ram me off of the road? Crash into the back of me? Try and eat me? I don't know what things are like in China, but there is a saying in the UK: "all mouth and no trousers".

Whatever it is it works.

I swapped a front clip on an old shitbox because the meaner looking newer front clip was cheaper than shipping a replacement bumper cover and it reduced the number of people who camp in the left lane in front of me by a solid 10% (pulling that number out of my ass but whatever it is it's a noticeable amount).

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#224

Post by Lammy » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

Police are doing this silently all the time. If anything I think we need more of this to finally wake people up to the reality of what’s possible so they’ll care to fight back.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#225

Post by tartoran » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #136

xwdv wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m tired of trashy Chinese tastes gaining so much influence in the world.

So basically everything is Chinese' fault, oh how important we are...

Not at all Chinese fault other than China being a huge market and companies tailoring one size fits all in order to profit more. This is a bad strategy and will likely please neither market in the end

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#226

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

It is oddly amusing. I do not own one, but few of my friends do and the refrain seems to be, it is fine to own 'as long as it has warranty'. It is nice to see BMW leadership recognizing this.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#227

Post by FourthProtocol » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

andylynch wrote: post #144

FourthProtocol wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is possible now that Brexit has happened. Whether the UK will need to comply with GDPR or not is dependent on the deal Boris strikes with the EU, if indeed he ever does.

Not quite - GDPR has been onshored into UK law and in effect little changes. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-at-the-...

Note I said "possible". Your link specifically states "During the transition period the GDPR will continue to apply in the UK".

That said, apparently they've just reached a deal, and the transition period ends in 7 days, so lets see what they decided about with data protection.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#228

Post by TomVDB » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

dhbanes wrote: post #216

moooo99 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now they’re just clueless assholes. I’ve seen it in their IT systems, their design teams are either on crack or got outsourced to 4 year olds and their product/sales gurus are a mix of bean counters incapable of producing an original idea and a bunch of lifers running on nepotism. Can confirm. BMW used to be quite innovative, at least on the scale of German automakers, with their connect services. We have a fairly…

CarPlay is no longer a subscription. They are also one of the few automakers to implement wireless CarPlay and it works flawlessly.

As much as I prefer CarPlay over the default UI of most cars, I had to disable it on my 2019 i3 because it was an unusable disaster.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#229

Post by gruez » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

Lammy wrote: post #224

Police are doing this silently all the time. If anything I think we need more of this to finally wake people up to the reality of what’s possible so they’ll care to fight back.

Explain? Are you talking about ANPRs in general or are they setting up billboards to shame people?

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#230

Post by hhh » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

ahartmetz wrote: post #222

petre wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new front grill is atrocious. I saw their new electric model. An unispired SUV on steroids with a butt ugly grill.

If that isn't for the Chinese market, I am completely baffled about their so-called design. What we really don't need is more cars that look like angry predators or "gaming" PC cases.

This is the illuminated one, yeah? They look decent in person, I saw a few of the pre-prod grills at $WORK. I don't think it was worth how much went into making them though. A lot of individual components in that grille, and an absolute astonishing amount of development had to be done by suppliers.