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Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

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Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#61

Post by gangstead »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #15

Why does the automobile industry insist on keeping these things in-house when they are clearly terrible at them? I recall an interview with a Ford manager a few years back where they were asked something about adopting Car Play and the response was something like “we have people that can write software for us, so we won’t be using that.”

It seems like they go through phases of we-can-do-this-in-house followed by let's-just-buy-something-that-works. MB seems to be in the in-house part of the cycle.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#65

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

kensai wrote: post #40

Software is what legacy car manufacturers have been lacking so it’s a move to the right direction indeed. Curious also about the future OSes of BMW and VW Group.

Car is an appliance, like a fridge. I don't want to have an internet connected display showing me ads and "upgrades" on a fridge, nor a car, nor a TV.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#66

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

drewg123 wrote: post #19
badRNG wrote: post #2

> The company is confident that this strategic approach to software and hardware development will be the basis for lifetime revenues as well as additional contributions. Already in 2022, Mercedes-Benz generated more than 1 billion euro in software-enabled revenues with products and services such as navigation, Live Traffic or online map updates. Get ready to pay a monthly subscription to use features that come stock…

What's the legality of hacking these things, assuming you own the car? For example, BMW charges $18/mo to turn on heated seats you already own. Am I legally allowed to hack their software to enable heated seats w/o paying? How about installing a wire and switch and running them manually?

Of course you are, otherwise jailbreaking would be a crime.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#67

Post by cududa »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #24
whalesalad wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Sometimes you need to invent things yourself. Mercedes is an absolutely massive company with many subsidiary brands. This is not an automatic bad move.

But they are not a software company at the core. They need to be to pull this off.

I mean their self driving tech seems to be the most impressive out there

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#68

Post by rad_gruchalski »

orbifold wrote: post #42
ElijahLynn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not a software company at the core. They need to be to pull this off.

Both Mercedes and Volkswagen have absolutely massive software divisions, easily 10k+ people. They pay really well for German standards and have access to a large talent pool of people that would like to live in Germany.

Big and well paid doesn’t equal quality. The fiasco of id3 is the best example. Or the whole Audi/VW drama. It doesn’t change the fact that their management just doesn’t get software. Pouring more money over that and hiring more “talent” isn’t going to change that.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#69

Post by kevinventullo »

haliskerbas wrote: post #29

The best car OS so far (even better than Tesla IMO) has been Apple CarPlay. Just be dumb and let my phone handle it, and make the touch screen decent. Bonus points if you implement the multi screen CarPlay concept! Just give up!

Right. I don’t trust Mercedes to build an OS any more than I trust Apple to build a car. They should focus on their strengths.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#70

Post by ASalazarMX »

qrohlf wrote: post #5

I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience. It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because th…

> couldn't always be solved by power cycling the vehicle.

Made me remember when I turned on my new (dumb) TV and it did a startup sound. I knew it would get worse in the future.

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