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Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

media.volvocars.com

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Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#41

Post by [deleted] »

Dwolb wrote: post #32
nimish wrote: post #13

Finally a car manufacturer realizes it can't out-compete a software company at making good software. The reason infotainment sucks so hard is that car companies want to "own the experience" and also want to cut costs, so they underinvest and create poor experiences.

Nope. There's a current mismatch between automotive hardware life cycles and consumer software life cycles. This Volvo hardware is going to be a minimum of 3 years old before it ships and will have to function for 10 years+. How good is your 10 year old phone? How does it match up to the average consumer experience today? How's the speakers, camera, audio, OTA software, and display compare to what's available today?…

[deleted]

Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#42

Post by Roritharr »

saagarjha wrote: post #33
0x4f3759df wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a larger story, which I'll explain through a personal anecdote. I purchased the Samsung Gear 3 LTE smartwatch because I've always hated how mobile phones get in the way of personal interaction, but then was very disappointed to find out it ran Tizen and not Android Wear, which means no Google Assistant. So one the one hand you have Google Assistant: great voice recognition and queries against the Goog…

Do you really think Google has a stake in the wearables market? Last I heard they were ready to pull out with most of the market going to Apple.

It was mostly attributed to Qualcomm who left them hanging dry until this February.

Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#43

Post by bravo22 »

Dwolb wrote: post #32
nimish wrote: post #13

Finally a car manufacturer realizes it can't out-compete a software company at making good software. The reason infotainment sucks so hard is that car companies want to "own the experience" and also want to cut costs, so they underinvest and create poor experiences.

Nope. There's a current mismatch between automotive hardware life cycles and consumer software life cycles. This Volvo hardware is going to be a minimum of 3 years old before it ships and will have to function for 10 years+. How good is your 10 year old phone? How does it match up to the average consumer experience today? How's the speakers, camera, audio, OTA software, and display compare to what's available today?…

You are absolutely correct. But there is an upshot to this -- modular infotaiment system that you can upgrade every few years.

Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#45

Post by DannyBee »

sorokod wrote: post #10
mistrial9 wrote: post #2

Why can I trust a multi-national company to track movements and locations over time of a personal vehicle ?

You must mean two multinational companies. One of them can cross-reference against a wast body of data.

Err, both of them can in practice, the only difference is whether the data is bought or self-collected.

In practice Volvo would probably just sell the data to others (i'm pretty sure they already do sell it to everyone from insurance carriers to you name it), and Google would probably just keep it.

Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#46

Post by dawnerd »

saagarjha wrote: post #34
dawnerd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

already solved for, just support android auto or carplay and let the consumer decide.

Or both, or maybe even allow the consumer to run their own custom infotainment software…

Hah I actually meant to write "android auto and carplay"

As long as the screens are dumb and the interface documented I don't see why that couldn't happen.

Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#47

Post by dawnerd »

mantas wrote: post #36
dawnerd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

already solved for, just support android auto or carplay and let the consumer decide.

Hopefully either of those will still work with latest gadgets 10 years from today. Think of all the car owners with iPod connectivity crying in their new 5 years old cars all over the world. By the way, today's iPhones do not support iPod connectivity. And I'm talking about protocol, not about hardware port. Which is a hassle to replace in quite a few vehicles too.

True, but same can be said about built in google maps. What happens when volvo stops paying the license? I think right now android auto/carplay/mirrorlink are the best we got

Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#49

Post by semi-extrinsic »

bravo22 wrote: post #43
Dwolb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. There's a current mismatch between automotive hardware life cycles and consumer software life cycles. This Volvo hardware is going to be a minimum of 3 years old before it ships and will have to function for 10 years+. How good is your 10 year old phone? How does it match up to the average consumer experience today? How's the speakers, camera, audio, OTA software, and display compare to what's available today?…

You are absolutely correct. But there is an upshot to this -- modular infotaiment system that you can upgrade every few years.

Which used to be the case also for cars -- we even have a standard, ISO 7736 (aka DIN mount), for car stereos that can be swapped when the consumer wants to upgrade.

So in my 2002 el cheapo car, I can buy and install in ~ 15 minutes a 2018 infotainment system with a 7" IPS touch screen, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Waze, Spotify Connect, all the bells and whistles you can imagine.

But of course car manufacturers realized this was costing them sales, both in form of less incentive to buy a new car, and less incentive to spend $2k on the "upgrade" option for the stereo when a better aftermarket unit is <$1k, so they moved away from this standard.

Re: Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

#50

Post by lgleason »

Dwolb wrote: post #32
nimish wrote: post #13

Finally a car manufacturer realizes it can't out-compete a software company at making good software. The reason infotainment sucks so hard is that car companies want to "own the experience" and also want to cut costs, so they underinvest and create poor experiences.

Nope. There's a current mismatch between automotive hardware life cycles and consumer software life cycles. This Volvo hardware is going to be a minimum of 3 years old before it ships and will have to function for 10 years+. How good is your 10 year old phone? How does it match up to the average consumer experience today? How's the speakers, camera, audio, OTA software, and display compare to what's available today?…

This, Android things, for example, is only offering guaranteed updates for 3 years which is not nearly enough support time... and people usually Volvos for 15-20+ years... Even Microsoft understands this better.
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