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Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

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Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#152

Generally speaking the horrifying quality of Ford's electronics have been enough to keep me away from even considering purchasing one. Absolutely nothing works right and certainly nothing works well. It may or may not be able to connect bluetooth, it may or may not acknowledge a USB device, it may or may not start blaring whatever FM station was last tuned in for no reason on startup, or start playing the first album…

>Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are okay-ish, but frankly I find the experience of just having the phone on a mount and using that as the display to be far superior in almost every way. That's super confusing to me. How is that superior to the larger presentation of (e.g.) CarPlay that has (a) bigger touch targets and (b) an automatically filtered presentation of apps relevant to driving? I find CarPlay to be so good…

I can understand the large screen, but really, it should just be a normal external screen your phone can output to.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#153
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volvo and Ford Edge use touchscreens to adjust AC and there is no steering wheel control for it.

Changing the AC, even with physical controls, is a distraction from driving. I don't get why anyone drives without it being on auto climate as you're inviting more distractions. If its on auto climate why are you making adjustments while you drive?

Maybe because its burning hot out and people need high AC to cool down. Or the opposite in cold weather. Or to defrost windshield/rear window.

Climate control is a great feature. But it's not perfect, and there are instances where you need to manually override. Just because you don't run into them doesn't mean they don't exist.

EDIT: BTW on cars with physical controls all of these things are either button press or dial turn away. I've never had to look at the controls to do these things.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#154
post #38

Cars OEMs know (in general, more or less) how to build cars. In electronics tend to be crappy at best in IT terms they are like classic dumb users, except they actually design crapware. It's not much Ford, it's ANY OEMs I know of...

(except Tesla who actually has their own hardware, software, dev team and frequently pushes updates for years)

And doesn't support basic functionality like CarPlay or Android Auto, which is supported by almost every other manufacturer even on their base model cheap cars.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#155
post #92

> but also a stopgap as Ford resets its entire software strategy around Android in partnership with Google. This doesn’t seem like a good idea because there are Android people and iOS people. Alienating a large swath of customers is not a good idea. That and I don’t want Google monitoring all my car data. One of the big reasons I don’t have a Tesla is their data policy. But I’d rather Tesla have my data than Google b…

What's not to like about Tesla's data policy? I mean, for one thing, they don't have any of your data unless you opt in, and they don't resort to any tricks or pressure to get you to opt in. And even if you do opt in, it is not linked to any identifier for you or your car. How do you perceive that as a bad thing? Or were you just mistaken about their policy?

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea with the touchscreen controls is that the driver shouldn't really be using the touchscreen at all while driving except as a quick reference to the map. You're not supposed to be using the screen to adjust your media while driving, there's steering wheel and voice controls. You're not supposed to be adjusting the climate controls while moving, auto climate should just handle it. Why would I want to be distrac…

If you’re distracted by adjusting the temperature you shouldn’t be driving at all.

as soon as you're taking your eyes off the road or your hands off the wheel to look at or touch anything else you are distracted by definition, half a second is the difference between breaking fast enough to not kill someone in an accident.

The only people who shouldn't be driving are the people not aware of that fact.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What good is tactile feedback when you have no idea what you're adjusting without staring at the screen? This is what people don't understand about touchscreen vs dial-based UIs. One is not safer than the other if they both require you to take your eyes off the road and look at a screen! If car makers want to have a button control a feature, then they should simply make a button that controls that feature. Cars wor…

I can operate basically anything by touch in the car other than the touchscreen.

This is what people don't seem to get...with a set of physical buttons, you can find what you're looking for just by feel, glance down briefly when it's safe to do so to make sure it's the button you want, then press it.

With a touchscreen, in contrast, you have to hover over approximately the location you think you want to press, and either hope you don't hit a bump before you have a chance to look down and make sure it's the right spot or look down immediately.

I put a touchscreen head unit in my car in 2016. If I drove more often I'd dump the touchscreen in a heartbeat.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#159
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing the AC, even with physical controls, is a distraction from driving. I don't get why anyone drives without it being on auto climate as you're inviting more distractions. If its on auto climate why are you making adjustments while you drive?

Maybe because its burning hot out and people need high AC to cool down. Or the opposite in cold weather. Or to defrost windshield/rear window. Climate control is a great feature. But it's not perfect, and there are instances where you need to manually override. Just because you don't run into them doesn't mean they don't exist. EDIT: BTW on cars with physical controls all of these things are either button press or di…

So here's an example. It's over 100F outside, my car is probably 115F inside it at the moment.

Setting my car to 70F inside instead of it's current 72F won't make it cool any faster. Even setting it to it's "LO" setting won't make it cool any faster. The AC compressor is either on or off. The car will set the fan speed to it's best possible speed to cool the car as fast as it can regardless of it being 72 or 70 or 68. Me adjusting things manually won't make the compressor work harder or make the car cool faster.

There's zero benefit for me to touch the AC controls. The car knows it's hot. The car knows how I want it. It will do what it can to get it to that target temp. Me doing anything will just result in more distraction away from actually driving the car.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#160
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know two couples who both started out with small efficient cars. And then had to upgrade because they could not fit a stroller in the back. It feels like car companies just want to have skews that are intentionally compromised to push people into the next tier. When most people just need a compact sedan.

I can fit a stroller in the back of my subcompact. Granted I'm not able to go grocery shopping at the same time..

You're also not able to visibly broadcast that you're "doing parenting right" to all the other rich parents when you drop your crotch-fruit off at summer camp and that's the key feature that a hell of a lot of people are buying for.
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