Comment Re:BMW software sucks big time. (Score 1) 83
Serious question: Am I alone in the thought that modern "infotainment" systems built into new cars are generally not useful items to have?
My own horror story involved borrowing a friend's Ford Flex to make a delivery of communications gear that wouldn't fit in my old BMW 325i: I tried, eyes-off-road, to get my then-current Droid 4 to sync with the Ford Sync, only to find that I had to stop the car first. I tried for a total of about 40 minutes. It should've just said "Hey, asshole: Stop the car and try again." Instead, we (it and I) just went through a long series of byzantine loops that had no indicators that seemed to lead toward success before I happened to fiddle with it while actually stops.
So, the stuff barely works. And I wouldn't even have cared, if Ford's POI database had the location of a Wal-Mart built in...a Wal-Mart that had been standing for over a half-decade before the vehicle was built.
And, the price: I myself can do a very elaborate custom install, or pay someone else to do a somewhat basic custom install for that sort of cash.
These days, what merit is there to automotive electronics that is not superceded by a cheap 6" tablet stuck on the dash, tethered to a cheap data plan on a wireless hotspot? Or made to automatically arise from the dash, as a theft deterrent? $3-4k buys a -lot- of 3D printed parts...and maybe the 3D printer to print them.
Plug in a big flash drive and a good DAC with USB OTG, add amplifiers and speakers (there is already room for them, if the factory stuff doesn't exist), and call it a day.
What am I missing? (other than: The rest, as they say, is only software.)