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Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)

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31–34 of 34 posts

Re: Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)

#31
post #9

Everyone who can afford a car with an infotainment system also has a high-end smart phone that they replace several times over the life of the car. It's not quite as bad an idea as putting a tablet in your refrigerator door, but the product lifespan mismatch is of the same nature. To handle the case where the customer would prefer not to think about interfacing their phone or tablet to their car, a branded compatible…

Right, but there's a mismatch in priorities between when I'm driving and when I'm walking around. I would rather not lug around a big-ass phone when I'm out and about. My iphone is already too big as it is. But when driving, its screen should be way larger.

So while I'm fine with having to connect my phone to my car to get useful functionality, I'd like the car to provide something, too. I don't need it to be "smart" in any way, just a big, well-placed dumb screen that displays whatever the phone sends over.

This is already what I do when I drive a car, so I couldn't care less about whatever infotainment system is provided by the car. The only thing I use, because my phone isn't always practical for that, is the radio (as in listening to actual radio broadcasts).

Re: Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)

#32
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW has a talent in that space. Over engineered modules with terrible software. I recently drove a Toyota rental and they seem to have hired some former BMW software people as well. I don't need 120hz Apple-like design, but it's crazy how they can't even keep a basic 30fps UI running smooth. And they still try to throw in more and more bad running animations.

Those UIs are made by embedded software engineers that have been in the automotive sector for 40 years. They have no clue how to make a modern functioning UI. The company then hires a UX expert that draws out a full plan. The software engineers implement it, it looks identical to the UX specification… but occasionally drops to 10FPS. Probably because an important message passed by on the CAN-bus and that got a bit mo…

> Those UIs are made by embedded software engineers that have been in the automotive sector for 40 years. They have no clue how to make a modern functioning UI.

Compared with UIs made by Microsoft, Google or Apple which also "have no clue how to make a modern functioning UI".

At least those "embedded software engineers that have been in the automotive sector for 40 years" don't need 16 GB of RAM for a chat programm

Re: Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)

#33
post #9

Everyone who can afford a car with an infotainment system also has a high-end smart phone that they replace several times over the life of the car. It's not quite as bad an idea as putting a tablet in your refrigerator door, but the product lifespan mismatch is of the same nature. To handle the case where the customer would prefer not to think about interfacing their phone or tablet to their car, a branded compatible…

Right, but there's a mismatch in priorities between when I'm driving and when I'm walking around. I would rather not lug around a big-ass phone when I'm out and about. My iphone is already too big as it is. But when driving, its screen should be way larger. So while I'm fine with having to connect my phone to my car to get useful functionality, I'd like the car to provide something, too. I don't need it to be "smart"…

> I'd like the car to provide something, too. I don't need it to be "smart" in any way, just a big, well-placed dumb screen that displays whatever the phone sends over.

Me too. But Google said: No. Yes, i tried the cr*p named Android Auto. No, it doesn't work.

Re: Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)

#34
post #20
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s obsolete anyway. If the board is analysing video for safety purposes it’s a core part of the car.

Not to mention rendering the driver’s display (gauge cluster)

Depends on the car. Mine uses a different computer for that. If the infotainment system goes down it doesn't affect the gauge cluster screen.
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