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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

#151

Post by sieabahlpark »

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…

[dead]

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#152

Post by SoftTalker »

itake wrote: post #135
wyager wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The averaged-over-usage-lifetime software quality for things like cars or video games is worse today than it was before OTA updates Arguably the peak quality after a few months/years of fixes is better, but that doesn't really matter because usage is front-loaded

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?

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#153

Post by tomhow »

dmitrygr wrote: post #9
maxdo wrote: post #3

that's a symptom of a bigger problem. Someone in auto industry decided that plugging device, and dependency on core functionality of the car to 3rd party device, that might be lost, have battery died, used for something else, etc is a good way to save money and not do proper software. It's even more bizare now, mid 2026, when software is solved with AI. It's good that there are some companies, that ban android/apple…

[flagged]

Please don't act like a jerk on HN. We can disagree without belittling and jeering, and this style of comment doesn't make your position seem strong, at all. You've been here long enough to know that this is not what HN is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#154

Post by mook »

10000truths wrote: post #76
strawhatguy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much this. The less software on the car, the fewer problems. It's practically impossible to test every permutation of code against every system. Maybe AI can help, but practically it'll just mean the software gets more complicated, with more features. And to top it all off, more and more features get regulated , so they have to be there. The rear-view camera requirement in particular, since you need a screen t…

It all comes down to cost. At scale, testing hardware is appreciably more expensive than testing software. The former requires specialized machinery that costs the soul of your firstborn, and the logistics overhead for each do-over means long iteration times. The latter can be done with a CI pipeline for pennies worth of compute in a fraction of a working day.

At scale, testing software is appreciably more expensive than using hardware. That's why at most people test a tiny slice of it, and ships out broken software in the hopes of fixing it later. Testing hardware is expensive because nobody thinks it can be fixed cheaply afterwards.

See also: the article linked to this thread.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#156

Post by maxdo »

maxdo wrote: post #146
cyberax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are companies with amazing software experience, Rivian, Tesla, Nio, Lucid Are you fucking serious? Tesla's head unit software is barely passable. It's shit. Nearly half of the screen is taken by useless toy car depictions, and navigation can't even render the full street names because the width of the input field is fixed.

huh? it's not half, and it has speed, speed limit and other items in the same area. Car is usable, i use it to open trunk frunk and check the status the door/trunk. I'll tell you more , that type of visualisation exists in almost every single modern car. their navigation is just the best not sure what problem are you talking, it's FSD knows better where to turn vs myself in unfamiliar area. I do have less miss exists…

you can swipe left to show full map if you in the navigation and open it almost in full screen. even in default mode that screen is bigger than 95% of the navigation screens of other brands. Really fake concern.

you can pin your Bluetooth app with drag-n drop , never used car link so not sure if that's an app or an icon.

glovebox is the real annoying item i can confirm is a 100% weird design choice. I still love pin in valet mode so that my items are not stolen.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#157

Post by cyberax »

maxdo wrote: post #156
maxdo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

huh? it's not half, and it has speed, speed limit and other items in the same area. Car is usable, i use it to open trunk frunk and check the status the door/trunk. I'll tell you more , that type of visualisation exists in almost every single modern car. their navigation is just the best not sure what problem are you talking, it's FSD knows better where to turn vs myself in unfamiliar area. I do have less miss exists…

you can swipe left to show full map if you in the navigation and open it almost in full screen. even in default mode that screen is bigger than 95% of the navigation screens of other brands. Really fake concern. you can pin your Bluetooth app with drag-n drop , never used car link so not sure if that's an app or an icon. glovebox is the real annoying item i can confirm is a 100% weird design choice. I still love pin…

> you can swipe left to show full map if you in the navigation and open it almost in full screen. even in default mode that screen is bigger than 95% of the navigation screens of other brands. Really fake concern.

Would you mind uploading a picture of this "almost full screen"?

> even in default mode that screen is bigger than 95% of the navigation screens of other brands.

Yeah, sure. "We removed about 40% of the screen, but don't worry, you still have a lot of screen left!"

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#158

Post by cyberax »

maxdo wrote: post #150
cyberax wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TLDR; answer to all your problems is: "Just use a freaking USB cable". I rent tons of cars and my experience with the wired AndroidAuto is: 1. Plug it in. 2. That's it. It just works. No ToS or any other crap. 3. The same cable also supplies power! Some cars _may_ need me to press something on the screen to switch to AA mode, but it's rare. And it works perfectly with _everything_ on my phone. A navigator properl…

for rental it honestly probably make sense, since this is not your car. Why on earth everytime i sit in the car i have to neurotically plug the cable. I had situations i forgot and in the middle of the ride i started to look for cable or try to wire car play, simply because i figure out i don't know where to go . This type of crap is not convenient and simply dangerous. what proper car should offer: keyless enter; ke…

Sorry, but you're getting confused. First you want to give car to somebody else, and somehow having built-in shitty navigation (that they don't know how to use) makes it better.

Now you're offended by Android Auto making it easy for people to just plug in the phone and start driving?

It's clear that you have not used AA/CarPlay, but they _also_ offer wireless pairing. If you're using the car constantly, you can just pair it with your phone. There are even retrofit adapters available, so even a 10-year-old car can be wirelessly connected.

> what proper car should offer: keyless enter; keyless profile adjustment including seats, heat, music profiles, etc wheel etc; keyless start and go;

Nope. Cars should offer one thing only: Android Auto/CarPlay. That's it. Nothing else is needed.

Can your car play audiobooks and pause them when the navigator makes a voice announcement? Can it play a Youtube podcast that you started listening on your computer?

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#159

Post by xmprt »

BeetleB wrote: post #20
JoshTriplett wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone in auto industry decided that plugging device, and dependency on core functionality of the car to 3rd party device, that might be lost, have battery died, used for something else, etc is a good way to save money and not do proper software. On the contrary, having cars stop trying to provide a bespoke more-proprietary outdated piece of software you have less control over, probably have surreptitious telemetr…

> On the contrary, having cars stop trying to provide a bespoke more-proprietary outdated piece of software you have less control over, probably have surreptitious telemetry reporting back from, and might have to pay a subscription fee for, and instead just delegate to the smartphone you already have, is a huge and surprising win. I'd agree if it worked. Android Auto sucks. And I don't like that my auto manufacturer…

Android Auto sucks but I guarantee that any software that those car companies would have made in house would be many times worse.
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