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Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

discuss.grapheneos.org

71–80 of 497 posts

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is not that they didn't test on alternative distributions of Android, the issue is that they went out of their way to prevent anything but the officially blessed distributions.

[flagged]

Except for the fact that the car is sold as is with the features advertised (i.e. working with an Android app with no additional qualifiers as to which kind of android) AND that users are paying for these connective services

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#72

This is sadly not even the full extent of it. What they did is, they locked their api entirely for anything that is not play protect certified. That means, all the cool stuff that was doable via community-driven projects is now dead in the water. The "app" they provide is 60% advertisement, 30% features, and I unironically preferred using a Home Assistant connection instead of of it for everything. Even for automatio…

I feel you. From my side I try to complain / rate / review every time, even if it's a low effort action, to cost them time and in the case of the regulated companies, to slightly worsen their complaint stats. There's enough of users to start making a difference. Really, even a low effort action raising valid concerns (security theater, a lie, google's monopolistic position, anti-competitive, etc), keywords that will…

Things like this can actually be a good way to nudge a company in the right direction sometimes. Nobody uses those internal review systems, and sometimes their stats are actually important. A handful of users might make up a really big chunk of the reviews.

In a similar vein, I once met a woman who told me how she would enter every single one of those stupid contests that you'd see printed on cereal boxes and ice cream containers because literally five people enter into those things, so you're odds of winning are surprisingly high. Apparently she won a bunch of them, but her favorite was when got a week long vacation that included going on a fishing trip with Ben and Jerry of "Ben and Jerry's".

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#73

VW blocking third party to access their servers is one thing, the thing that I find shocking is that you need to access VW servers to obtain your charging data while this should be directly available locally from the car.

The historical data is aggregated in some "cloud" rather than in the car, but if you want to collect and aggregate the data locally, you can still, for now at least. Car Scanner Pro and ABRP (A Better Route Planner) are both really popular for EVs for this exact use case, and both support VW EVs; they read battery charge state / voltage / temperature and operating states (speed, consumption, etc) using both standard OBD and proprietary manufacturer diagnostic IDs over the OBD port and then redo the aggregation and math that VW are doing on their end.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#75
post #36

Driving a rental car in Germany almost makes me cheer for the ongoing bankruptcy of their auto industry. It really needs a full reset at this point. Sad thing is EU law mandates for a modem in the car as well as intrusive driving aids that actually make driving less safe by constantly driving your attention away from the road[1]. So there is no hope to get a minimally decent car in Europe in the near future, unless a…

Whoever came up with the idea that the car should beep loudly even close to the speed limit has clearly never driven a car. The best way to silence it is to constantly be over the speed limit or well below.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#76

Google Play has been a huge drag on innovation and security in the mobile ecosystem. I'm actually looking forward to the time when AI kills the mobile app ecosystem so that every phone manufacturer can bundle their own "vibe-code-your-own-app" system with their devices, and the Google Play monopoly is broken.

Let's rewind 15 years ago when everyone was jumping and praising mobile Eco-systems. Did no one ever see this happening or were most too gullible with Facebook hugs and pokes

> everyone was jumping and praising mobile Eco-systems.

Literally who?

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#77
post #70

It is amazing how Volkswagen keeps messing up. I am currently in the market for a new car, an EV specifically. Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons, among them the excellent driving assist implementation. I got an offer from a dealer three weeks ago and was going to order the car, then the API for the community integration got turned off. I decided to hold back and see what comes from it. Now…

VW is obviously not thinking that any noticable portion of the userbase uses Graphene, and someone (somewhere) is going to get a promo by making VW infra adhere to "standards" or something

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#78
post #70

It is amazing how Volkswagen keeps messing up. I am currently in the market for a new car, an EV specifically. Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons, among them the excellent driving assist implementation. I got an offer from a dealer three weeks ago and was going to order the car, then the API for the community integration got turned off. I decided to hold back and see what comes from it. Now…

> Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons

You should definitely reevaluate how you constructed your list. VW has a history of being scummy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal) and their ICE cars are notorious for being unreliable compared to the Japanese car-makers. To be fair, EVs do change the equation a bit, but given their scandal plagued past, there's no way I would put them at the top of any list.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#79
post #36

Driving a rental car in Germany almost makes me cheer for the ongoing bankruptcy of their auto industry. It really needs a full reset at this point. Sad thing is EU law mandates for a modem in the car as well as intrusive driving aids that actually make driving less safe by constantly driving your attention away from the road[1]. So there is no hope to get a minimally decent car in Europe in the near future, unless a…

Whoever came up with the idea that the car should beep loudly even close to the speed limit has clearly never driven a car. The best way to silence it is to constantly be over the speed limit or well below.

This thing makes me crazy. But I can somehow ignore my Skoda’s whining. The other car was bought months before this regulation happened and I will keep it as long as I can.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not. Use any car's heads up display and you can configure an enormous number of things. Even if there was somehow a pure separation, things such as "playing video while the car is moving" are regulated in many jurisdictions and would land firmly in the "UI" layer.

You can detect the car is in motion or not without talking to the engine computer. Just like my phone can tell I'm in motion without connecting to the car at all. You're trying to justify a bad design with bad reasoning

People watch videos on their phone while drive and will continue to do so no matter what infotainment OSes allow or don't allow.
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