Also with an aging population a phone screen is just too small for many.
BTW, to parent's point VW has been trying different approaches with a top mounted GPS/infotainment unit that can be omitted on cheaper trims.
Entering Japanese addresses IS tricky, though; here, custom-built Japanese solutions outshine. There are (mainly) no street names; instead, you specify your location by filtering down from Prefecture (Tokyo), City (Ota-ku), Commune (Kugahara), District (1-Chome), Block (26), House Number (1).
Japanese systems allow you to enter it this way - with Google (or, even worse, Apple Maps), it's a bit hacky. You would specify it as Kugahara 1-26-1 and hope for the best.
On one side, it can't route through a bunch of valid paths. I first assumed it could be because of residents asking Google to cut traffic, but sometimes it's not even through residential areas. I see routes on the map that are avoided in favor of bigger loops, and when trying the shorter routes they're perfectly fine. Or perhaps it's the vehicle size and they optimize for SUVs ?
On the other side it will happily route you through paths that are restricted to specific categories of cars. It's up to the driver to carefully avoid them, but it really wants you to go through and reroutes you there when you deviate, so it's a huge PITA in areas you don't know and try to navigate while ignoring the navigation instructions. Cops seem to have noticed it, We've got fined the first time we fucked up, and now that I'm aware of the issue I see the cops in many of these spots basically waiting for the jackpot.
At this point at google, I wouldn't be surprised if they were selling your route to advertizers to "optimize your driving experience."
https://web.archive.org/web/20230129231747/https://www.waze....
The weird part is Maps will accept them for search, but not display the plus code except when looking at POI (randomly selecting a point on the map doesn't show it for me, I only could get that from the /pluscodes/ map)
This seems genuinely useful, but as usual we're having the chicken and egg problem to get it adopted ?
But yeah, nobody uses it in the real World. If I need to share a point with someone else I'll just send them the Google Maps share URL instead, which has its own shortcode
https://www.daihatsu.co.jp/lineup/move_canbus/03_exterior_in...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-Zenith_Satellite_System
> The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), also known as Michibiki (みちびき), is a four-satellite regional satellite navigation system and a satellite-based augmentation system developed by the Japanese government to enhance the United States-operated Global Positioning System (GPS) in the Asia-Oceania regions, with a focus on Japan.
...
> The primary purpose of QZSS is to increase the availability of GPS in Japan's numerous urban canyons, where only satellites at very high elevation can be seen. A secondary function is performance enhancement, increasing the accuracy and reliability of GPS derived navigation solutions. The Quasi-Zenith Satellites transmit signals compatible with the GPS L1C/A signal, as well as the modernized GPS L1C, L2C signal and L5 signals. This minimizes changes to existing GPS receivers.
Its got a neat orbit that does a figure 8 with the apogee over Japan (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra_orbit )
(CarPlay can provide car GPS to the phone though.)
Like waaaaaay better and more accurate
As someone who used to help out with Waze maps, raw GPS tracks from phones can be WAAAY off from actual roads and other GPS tracks.
Your phone looks for the most likely road for you to be on and snaps you to that road. Your car does a similar thing but has much higher GPS resolution than your phone so it is more likely to be right.
It’s a play on the quote “Life is a series of choices and reactions” from “Before The Fall”
google maps does weird things but gaia just uses the raw GPS data from the phone and doesn't snap, however when you are plugged into carplay the phone seems to always consider the car/trucks data more accurate even when its clearly not.
this could very well my specific truck (dealer has refused to look and i don't have another to compare to) or a general tacoma thing but it both smooths the GPS data to make "nicer" looking lines and often introduces drift over time as likely some processing it does compounds an error
(i also realize i said the wrong phone, iphone 14 not 12 but even with the 12 it was notably better then the truck but the 14 pro has a much improved GPS and it shows)
> If your vehicle has wireless CarPlay, the iPhone's GPS chip is completely ignored.
> If your vehicle has wired CarPlay, the iPhone's GPS chip may be ignored, depending upon what the head unit tells the phone to do.
this happens when near roads or not. the truck is doing something weird and wrong with the GPS data and forcing the phone to use it
Cars can theoretically have better GPS antennae, and can do better dead reckoning using wheel position and wheel rotation speed. But do they? I haven’t seen any evidence that any car actually does better than a modern phone.
Especially inside a dense city, WiFi location can be much more precise than GPS.
Japan has local satellites to help with this (QZSS) and local cars may handle that better than global phones.
With back up cameras being mandated in the US (and other jurisdictions?):
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/02/backup-cameras-now-required-...
There needs to be a screen: I'm not sure what the incremental cost is of it being touch-sensitive. And I think a lot of designers (or cost cutters) may have figured that since they have to have software anyway, it may easier/cheaper to deal with software buttons than with moving parts like physical buttons and dials.
Some stuff can be managed from steering wheel, but instead of putting there things like AC there are voice controls, while we all know very well this increases danger on the roads and calls shouldn't be made while driving.
That being said, I choose (used) cars based on many metrics, and this is just one of them and not the most important one. So its sort of self-inflicted move to worse.
None of which some up on a spreadsheet in the manufacturer's accounting department.
Similarly: open concept offices with hot desking lowers the amount of rent (per employee) that shows up on an expense report, but the productivity drop of open offices does not.
IF that's the case, and that's one big if, debating touchscreen vs buttons might not be meaningful, because touchscreen MIGHT be a requirement that cannot be removed. With un-eliminable touchscreen, buttons becomes just added cost, rather than being a resilt of cost calculations between all-touch vs all-buttons.
Touchscreen will probably run atop whatever OS powers infotainment system. In theory touch events CAN be handled on the same 8-bit uC, but converting click coordinates to button-press messages requires knowing what is visible on the screen, which either hinders expressiveness of touch interface (fixed islands for controls) or complicates implementation (constant updating of element-coordinate maps). The moment safety-critical control runs along with non-safety software huge validation challenges arise - the performance characteristics of the whole system, including UI, must become at the very least bounded.
Hard button solution can be internally commoditized, whereas soft button solution requires constant babysitting throughout development lifecycle. One is much more expensive than the other, however, once the move is made incremental cost drops dramatically.
What Japan lacks are addresses that can be found easily without using a map. Apart from Kyoto, roads in Japanese cities don't have names (or number), so addresses within cities are not "{number} {name of street}". Cities are cut in areas smaller and smaller all the way down to a block. The last number will be the house on that block. So addresses within cities are "{name of area} {sub-area number} {block number} {house number}", with some variations from city to city.
An address might be "Nantokacho 11-16-8", which means the 8th house around the 16th block of the 11th sub-area of the Nantoka area. Good luck figuring that out without a map!
Reminds me the Township & Range system in the US, which is still used in public land management: https://web.gccaz.edu/~lynrw95071/Township%20Range%20Explana...
Japanese road network is a disorganized weighted node graph and absolutely not a grid, and a bulletproof navigation unit has been a must for a car in Japan since its inception around 1990. It is also preferred that they are 2DIN compatible so it can be later upgraded. AFAIK, those are not high priority checkbox items elsewhere, but all cars nevertheless follow the Japanese manufacturer layout because of manufacturers' collective dominance. Cars before 2DIN navigation units seem to have had 1DIN AM/FM radio units with radio buttons[1], by the way.
That dominance leaves a 4:3 8" diagonal hole in immediate view of driver for all cars globally that must be filled with something of value. That doesn't have to be a touchscreen but usually are, and it ends up being a navigation-audio combo unit, and it's outsourced to the lowest bidder. It is not the primary interaction point for cars by overwhelming global demands or principles of automotive product design. That leads to jarring subpar experience that appear to be but are perhaps not intended to be part of core UX of the whole car. I think.
1: https://www.alamy.com/1956-mercedes-benz-190-sl-steering-whe...