Chevrolets to get 'Eyes Free' mode for driving with Apple Siri Cars controlled by Apple's voice assistant Siri will be on the road from early 2013, a General Motors exec announced today at the Los Angeles International Auto Show. New models of Chevrolet's smaller models - Spark and the Sonic LTZ and RS - will pack an interface that's compatible with whimsical iPhone voice assistant Siri. …
And of course it will never get any updates, meaning that only two of the features will ever work properly, you'll be forced to choose whether to upgrade your iOS or keep it compatible with your car, and it will never work at all with iPhone 6+.
Embedding tech in cars is incredibly short-sighted. Surely the industry would make more money (by selling far more of the option kits) by standardising on a set of steering-wheel multifunction buttons and a little 2-line display, offloading the actual functionality to any handset? Where's the Bluetooth profile for that?
Indeed. That car will still be on the road in 10 years time, and quite possibly in 15 years time. How many iphone 4s will be around then?
It always amazes me how it takes 10 years or so for a car manufacturer to actually spot technology that consumers would find useful, then fall over themsleves in a desparate rush to implement it in the most locked-down user unfriendly way possible.
In car CD players were a good example - it took most manufacturers from 1982 to around 2000 to fit them. And by the time they were standard, CD's were obsoleted by MP3 Cd's which again took ages for manufacturers to cotton on to. And I have never found a (prefitted) car CD player that recognises CD text for track names, despite it being around since the mid 90's or earlier. It took another lifetime for manufacturers to figure out that fitting an aux audio jack was a good idea (I used to modify car stereos back around 1988 to take external "discman" CD players). And why is it now, ten years or more after Bluetooth evolved,that all cars do not have Bluetooth handsfree as standard? It would cost mere pennies to integrate with the radio/audio system on all factory models and make a hiue difference in the number of idiots fumbling with phones whilst _trying_ to drive.
And why is it now, ten years or more after Bluetooth evolved,that all cars do not have Bluetooth handsfree as standard?
Well the easy way around that is to fit one of the Parrot systems that plumbs into the cars existing system. It'll almost certainly be a damned sight better than any functional abortion (Toyota? I'm looking at you..) that the manufacturer might fit as standard. Hint: If the manual mentions BlueTooth PBAP, run away, as it's been designed by CV-enhancing tossers rather than people who give a monkey's about usability.
Piggybacks straight on to the standard ISO plugs behind the existing unit, which is where another standards problem has a nasty habit of creeping in. Many manufacturers (GM are particularly famous for this[1]) eschew fitting standard ISOs and an auxiliary plug to handle their proprietary connections for steering wheel controls et. al. in favour of some home-brewed integrated plug. Fortunately adaptor harnesses for most of the weird and wonderful systems out there are available.
[1] So the fact that it's them tying themselves to Apple's proprietary and patented-so-nobody-else-can-use-them interfaces is not a surprise.
I agree with standards, and my car must follow them as I just brought a new car, it integrates nicely with my Android phone over bluetooth, Bluetooth for making calls & listening to music, displays my address book & track information etc.. Works great...
One thing is for certain, its a hell of alot easier to use on steering wheel controls to choose a contact to call from my phones address book with a display between the Rev counter and Speedo, than fiddling with a phone when doing near 80Mph... (not that I would ever do that of course)
So yes the bluetooth profile for what your saying does pretty much exist it seems... since I use it on every trip...
Although I am yet to play around with playing music using it, it does do that it seems
Oh noes! A Linux geek on a tech site claims he'd never buy one! We're doomed! DOOMED I say!
American cars have gotten better over the last decade, just as Japanese trucks have. Seriously, when GM and Toyota were running the NUMMI plant in California, they made cars that got to the end of the assembly line and either got a Toyota badge or a Chevy badge at the end. It was the same damn car. A former coworker who had the Toyota version claimed you had to be an idiot to buy an American car ... thus somehow inadvertently proving his own point.
A question: if you support Android, which version? Which app? Which hardware?
Apple may have a falling market share, but the market they have is generally more willing to spend money and has a more consistent/easier-to-discover/smaller-range-of-uncertainties set of hardware and software.
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