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The word 'Infotainment' makes me want to barf.
I haven't driven this particular car, but if it's anything like any other infotainment system I've seen, I'm really hoping they're able get a profiler running on there to determine the technique they use to get massive frame drops on hardware they fully control.
BMW has a talent in that space. Over engineered modules with terrible software. I recently drove a Toyota rental and they seem to have hired some former BMW software people as well.

I don't need 120hz Apple-like design, but it's crazy how they can't even keep a basic 30fps UI running smooth. And they still try to throw in more and more bad running animations.

Toyota is using Flutter I believe.
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A friend had a nice job of driving BMWs for a manufacturer of such a system (it was early 2000s and the system was more embedded than Android/Linux). One test was setting a calendar alarm (because yeah of course the BMW needs an on-board calendar), and while cruising down the highway, wait for the alarm to go off, and then open a door. He said a colleague did this and the system crashed and went dark...

I suppose even driving 20kmh should trigger the "door open!" alarm.

> ... to determine the technique they use to get massive frame drops on hardware they fully control

I understand that's really lame but... who the heck gives a flying f--k about framerate in a car?

Are we talking about videos lagging for people sitting at the back (like kids)?

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> good devs are hard to find and expensive

> company contracts offshore agency

> devs costs drop by 20-40%

> offshore agency grabs any warm body off the street, JS-adjacent experience and minimum English is only requirement

> keeps 40% of the money

> "how many story points for the 360° camera React component, guys?"

Everyone who can afford a car with an infotainment system also has a high-end smart phone that they replace several times over the life of the car. It's not quite as bad an idea as putting a tablet in your refrigerator door, but the product lifespan mismatch is of the same nature.

To handle the case where the customer would prefer not to think about interfacing their phone or tablet to their car, a branded compatible tablet should be a dealer option, or at least the tablet-like part of infotainment should be replaceable.

Right, but there's a mismatch in priorities between when I'm driving and when I'm walking around. I would rather not lug around a big-ass phone when I'm out and about. My iphone is already too big as it is. But when driving, its screen should be way larger.

So while I'm fine with having to connect my phone to my car to get useful functionality, I'd like the car to provide something, too. I don't need it to be "smart" in any way, just a big, well-placed dumb screen that displays whatever the phone sends over.

This is already what I do when I drive a car, so I couldn't care less about whatever infotainment system is provided by the car. The only thing I use, because my phone isn't always practical for that, is the radio (as in listening to actual radio broadcasts).

16 GB of RAM for a car infotainment system!!

(Maybe it's one of those that supports split outputs for multiple screens for all passenger positions? - i.e. kids in the back? That might be a bit more understandable.)

It’s rendering the driver’s display (i.e. the gauge cluster), the driver HUD, the central display, watching a driver-facing camera for fatigue alerting, handling Bluetooth, WiFi, navigation. Calling it an “infotainment” system is underselling a bit
I had no idea Garmin made stuff like this.
Garmin makes so many things, from dome radars to bicycle lights, to car audio and golf gear, and everything in-between. All of the stuff I've bought with Garmin also manages to be really high quality and long-lasting. Not affiliated, guess I'm just a happy customer.