Perhaps we've lost the plot of both vehicles and computers.
When I was a child, computers were office-based machines, and it seemed, at least, that computers ("bicycles for the mind", "paperless office", "You Will... AT&T") were going to make life simpler, efficient, and leisurely as they took over our menial labor.
But computers came into homes, and just tended to be a plaything where games and pointless activities could be concentrated into your Residential Swiss Army Knife. It seemed promising for awhile, when word processing and spreadsheets and databases could be had. But they really just needed to upskill the everyman--->
If you're productive at this point, it's in spite of these computers, with the complexity and crossed purposes and support difficulties. I could probably just do 16 hour days reading Privacy Policies and paying an attorney to translate them.
I think one end-goal of ubiquitous computing was to offload all those secretarial, clerking, office assistant functions onto the consumer. It's mind-blowing to this guy that ordinary folks could get anything done with paper, a copper pair, and snail mail???
My father would joke at the store: "if they ask people at checkout whether they found everything ok, say yes, because otherwise they'll rearrange the store!" and it rings true with app development and obsolescence, because the drive to innovate and "improve" gives people job security, and produces patents, and press releases to pump your stock. And when the whole chain of tools/components is working this way, nobody can fight anymore. The App Stores seem to gloat when they've updated 23 apps to ratchet up the "let me relearn this from scratch as I simultaneously need a critical-path task to get finished on time"
So what are critical paths on a vehicle? It seems like so many "cushy first class" add-ons that increase the value-add and profit propositions. Perhaps it just maintains dopamine levels enough to cope with a car-based urban wasteland where you only park where you sleep.
I've used so many OS. So many apps. But leveraged tiny fractions of them because the learning curves are insurmountable. What's the average Joe do with malfunctioning computers: consult a 12-year-old STEM student or go to Geek Squad. Eventually high school will just mandate the MCSE/Apple tracks because, computer literacy not being optional anymore, it's not clear how far an 18-year-old can get initiated into the mystery cults and obscure arcana as a Cyberspace Sorceror.
So these in-vehicle computers are maximizing complexity and recapitulating Emacs->Operating System->Reads Mail->MMORPG in meatspace. When I can summon a robot to drive me around. But the edu-info-tainment systems in ordinary cars is nearly getting in our face to make the commute like another 4 hours in the office. Wow!
