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My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

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Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#191

Post by cindyllm »

ethbr1 wrote: post #190
denkmoon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end? Pleasing a few nerds? Nerds that are just as likely to have ripped out the OTA modem or not be using a car like that.

To the end that they exist at all . One of the biggest organizational anti-patterns of the modern SaaS world is the move away from release notes. It's a question of whether a company has a competent enough change control process to be able to generate a list of changes for a given release. If a tech product company can't meet the low bar of documenting its changes, then it probably shouldn't be trusted? Release notes…

[dead]

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#192

Post by roysting »

wongarsu wrote: post #35
roysting wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not exactly the same. You don’t get to have a car for free with basic driving functionality and then pay for additional features once you realize the car is useful and the people do made it deserve to be paid for their work, which they were willing to meet you have for free in its basic form. This is something far more heinous, you bought a thing for a lot of money and just in order to extort even more money f…

So more like enterprise software

Since you mention it, yes, in many more ways than may immediately be apparent to most people

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#193

Post by throw0101d »

denkmoon wrote: post #107
lifeisgood99 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be very simple to write out details but make them harder to access. Motivated users will find them.

To what end? Pleasing a few nerds? Nerds that are just as likely to have ripped out the OTA modem or not be using a car like that.

> To what end? Pleasing a few nerds?

It's the nerds that the non-nerds/normies go to for advice on tech-y things. If you can generally make the nerds happy, and earn a good reputation among them, you'll have a customer base from which to expand from.

Or as Tim O'Reilly recommended back in the day, "Watching the Alpha Geeks":

* https://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/081119-stanfo...

* https://web.archive.org/web/20130000000000*/http://origin.co...

* https://www.oreilly.com/tim/archives/apple_wwdc2002.pdf

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#194

Post by m4rtink »

gmueckl wrote: post #99
odysseus wrote: post #87

Kia just did this with their EV9 update - it broke CarPlay with a blank screen a few minutes into driving, which then reverted itself a minute later. Another OTA mostly resolved it. Neither of these updates explained what happened or what the fix was.

Let me be a devil's advocate here: you have essentially two options. 1. You write release notes thet contain technical details. Less than 1% of your customers understand them. More than 90% probably won't even care, let alone understand the document. And then there are the folks who get confused or scared and reach out to customer support with weird questions. This generates extra workload. 2. You explain nothing. Th…

Looks like some regulation is in order to prevent companies releasing dubious software updates with no release notes.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#195

Post by throw0101d »

hahn-kev wrote: post #105
michaelje wrote: post #12

Once upon a time, physically shipping faulty software had real costs borne by the organization - production, redistribution and transportation of a physical disc. Today there’s no disc, no recall - that cost to shipping broken software is gone. We the users pay the price.

You act like there's no benefit to the user either, plenty of software gets better because of updates shipped after the fact.

> You act like there's no benefit to the user either, plenty of software gets better because of updates shipped after the fact.

There is a "release early, release often" line of thinking.

But I also think there is a risk of "fixing it in post(-production)" thinking: that lack of preparation and care can be patched over after-the-fact.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#196

Post by mindfulmark »

loveiswork wrote: post #47
hparadiz wrote: post #41

Auto manufacturers need to realize that one bad software experience means lost sales of entire cars. Fail to provide a good experience at the cost of your brand for years to come.

We just sold our 2025 Subaru Outback specifically because the software experience was bad. To exit a climate control modal on the screen you have to find and tap a tiny red "X" box in the furthest corner of the screen from the steering wheel.

Last year I was trying out cars for a new purchase and was excited to try out the Subaru Outback. After one drive I decided I would never buy a Subaru because of their software. Lots of annoying noises, ugly, and no physical buttons. It was terrible.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#197

Post by prmph »

acheron wrote: post #89
prmph wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it should be. You'd prefer they get nothing for the effort they put into developing the software?

I’d prefer to pay up front to buy the product, the way everything was sold up until around 2012, and not have a “subscription” scam.

The vendor of a piece of software decides how best they'd like to be paid.

A subscriptions approach allows them to avoid demanding a big payment upfront, and allows them to continue improving the software without you having to pay substantial sums to get new licensed versions. It has pros and cons vs licensing, but is a legitimate monetization strategy.

That the bits already exist on your machine is irrelevant. Your entitlement to use the bits is what is at issue here. Being already in possession of stolen goods does not entitle you to use them.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#198

Post by vel0city »

SoftTalker wrote: post #152
itake wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember my parents needing to buy very expensive map DVD disks in order to update the car’s navigation system to update their car’s navigation computer. The disks were very expensive and if you didn’t update them it wouldn’t know about new roads (slower trip, missed turns, etc).

Did those updates ever break the navigation software?

I've had map update packages brick head units before, yes. Largely because they also shipped some software updates in that map update package.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#199

Post by vel0city »

prmph wrote: post #197
acheron wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d prefer to pay up front to buy the product, the way everything was sold up until around 2012, and not have a “subscription” scam.

The vendor of a piece of software decides how best they'd like to be paid. A subscriptions approach allows them to avoid demanding a big payment upfront, and allows them to continue improving the software without you having to pay substantial sums to get new licensed versions. It has pros and cons vs licensing, but is a legitimate monetization strategy. That the bits already exist on your machine is irrelevant. Your…

It's a car. There's already a big payment upfront. You're already shelling out $40,000+ on average in the US these days. Is that not already a big upfront payment?

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#200

Post by slumberlust »

hahn-kev wrote: post #105
michaelje wrote: post #12

Once upon a time, physically shipping faulty software had real costs borne by the organization - production, redistribution and transportation of a physical disc. Today there’s no disc, no recall - that cost to shipping broken software is gone. We the users pay the price.

You act like there's no benefit to the user either, plenty of software gets better because of updates shipped after the fact.

You act like all the updates benefit the user.
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