JSpira

Car communication computer

JSpira

I didn't think you were implying that anyone would use those OSs. What I am saying is that the device makers you cited have experience in making certain not very complex devices.

The UI is a result of the complexity and it will take a few iterations to shake it out.

I spent a week driving a Lexus - talk about poor UI. It starts with the very long sentence that the car speaks every time you press the Voice Command button telling you that you should speak an instruction after the sentence. It got much worse from there.

uglybear

iDrive is not a complex UI. There much more complex application which nevertheless much simpler to use. How many functions total are there in iDrive anyway? What's that complex in settings, radio and nav? iDrive reminds me about early TV remote controls where on/off, volume and channel buttons were same size and color as 37 others. Does one really need to check car info every day as opposed to climate controls? Why then they have equal priority on screen? Why only 4 initial choices? Why can't I customize it to my taste and place controls I want on the first page (my stupid phone can do it)? Oh, and don't let me started on six shortcut buttons in the 2008 model. Hardware buttons! Smartfully named 1-6. How intuitive! Apple design department will quite right away after observing that piece of art in industrial design :-)

Oh, yes Japanese cars are even worse. Their controls look exactly like those atrocious TV remotes in the first place - tons and tons of buttons, all look the same.

uglybear

iDrive designers should read and .

narvselius

Here's next stupid question - How do I know if my 5er has a CCC/"Car Communication Computer"?

JSpira

If you have satnav pro, you have it. Otherwise not.

JSpira

You are confusing the UI with the functionality below, which I keep trying to turn the conversation back to. As I said, the UI is a result of the complexity of multiple vehicle systems.

The functions you see in iDrive are not all of the car's functions. iDrive is merely allowing access to some functions but the iDrive system and the CCC are dependent on and communicate with a lot of other modules in the car.

You are right re the analogy of remote control design. Of course today many companies STILL get that easy concept wrong.

uglybear

BMW should have used two separate computers then. One to run the car and another for settings, radio, nav and all the fancy UI they want. Think client/server or, in modern terms client computer/browser and a Web service. UI computer would then send whatever information needed to the real time controller box and retrieve whatever data it needs to show to the user via some standard protocol. Data processing/gathering machine does not have to be the same as machine which present data to the user and gets user input back.

JSpira

What you suggest would probably add another layer of complexity and slow down the system at this point, not speed it up. You can't think Web services when you are in a MOST environment.

uglybear

Adding smart terminal (ie dedicated UI processing module) speeds up system since it offloads UI tasks to another module. You PC CPU does do graphics - GPU does. CPU does not perform IO - disk or network controller does. Distribution of tasks is a good thing since distributed systems are, in fact, often less complex, more reliable and easier to maintain provided they are correctly designed. That's why Internet is working so well as opposed to cental processing mainframe with remote VT 220 terminals. One system gathers and displays data, another does processing - standard pattern since advent of client/server architectures.