My phone is faster than my car...

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, and as ever, didn’t want to simply moan about what was wrong, but to suggest what could be done about it. What prompted me to pen this has been the Detroit Auto Show and CES, and the myriad of press releases and blogs about the convergence of cons tech and in car controls.

Perhaps the one that tipped me over the edge was a short blog by the esteemed Helen Walters, see her blog here. She, and many others, make the point that this convergence is going to throw up some real challenges.

I bought a Ford just over a year ago. I bought it because I wanted a car that would have the 'entertainment' that would make my regular 3 hr commute more bearable (1.5 hrs each way). – I didn’t need performance as most of my driving is essentially a fast moving queue. I chose Ford as it offered all the automation & connectivity I needed – (supposedly).

The truth is far from that. Sure, it has multiple colour screens, and a LOT of buttons (16 on the steering wheel alone, with a further 45 on the radio / air con console). This is where I should have walked away – those numbers alone shout “unresolved”, but no. Like a Blackbird I saw shiny things, and dove straight in.

Some simple examples of this unresolved interface are that I have cancelled cruise control when meaning to turn the volume down, and turned the volume up when I wanted to slow down cruise control… Neither good outcomes.

What really got my goat was the iPod connectivity – Bluetooth integration ranges from patchy to non-functioning. My address book, recent calls etc are rarely shown on screen, and I needed to buy a ‘Ford iPod connector’ to play music in my car. This is a triumph of stupidity, seen below.

Fords’ Flux Capacitor

It’s only when you actually plug it in do you realise how silly it is.

upside down reading skills required

The fact that I have to have my phone in my glovebox is annoying. I cant read texts or emails without having to first unplug it. Who thought that a wire that is too long to fit comfortably into the glovebox, but too short to actually extend to the seat is a good outcome ??

My solution is to use the iPad, as it seems to be a little more stable than my iPhone (classy, I know). The really bad thing is that once plugged in, I cannot control my music from the device. Instead I have to go through the Ford UI…..

Living the convergence dream

The Ford UI only lets me listen to the current playlist, so if I am listening to a particular podcast, I can only listen to that – no others, no music, no choice.

Why would a company believe that the best way to integrate with a device lauded for its UI is to disable such a function ? I am sure that someone at Ford can provide a reasonable, logical reason for this, but still…

For example, I can understand people citing the varying product development lifecycles –cars take about 5 years or so to move from concept to market launch. (Although next week marks 5 years since Apple first announced the iPhone). As others have pointed out, the increase in processing speed, screen resolution and functionality of smartphones has outpaced almost every other industry, so in car interaction is not alone in being behind the curve.

so what can we do about this ?
All comms / entertainment interaction in a car is a distinctly secondary consideration. The overriding objective is safety, which is interpreted as minimising distractions (generally keeping your eyes and mind on the road).

Clearly voice control is the best option, but what can we use until we crack voice control ?

The decision to develop auto touchscreen interfaces seems to have been driven by some kind of tech gravity (“everyone else is doing this, therefore it must be good for us..”). Yet even the most cursory use of any touchscreen device shows us that they require more visual attention than physical / hard buttons. Touchscreens aren’t really the natural platform for cars.

I remember a mobile phone project completed for Nokia Japan back in the 90’s where a key insight was that students were able to text in their pocket using a standard alpha-numeric keypad, you can’t do this on a touchscreen device (have a go, its worthwhile).

This is a big problem – mobiles aren’t really mobile anymore. We developed the Fuse concept with Synaptics and others in response to this challenge. The key insight was that people had to stop walking and had to concentrate on the screen to use the device. Which prompted the question why is touch so focused on screens ?

I think the car is perhaps the least developed element of my connected life, and it should be central – it is the common link between home and elsewhere.

In fact, convergence is the reason for both the causes and the resolution to this problem. Convergence has highlighted the lack of innovation within the auto industry, yet convergence has also shown how standards, and a more open form of innovation can drive innovation at an industry level.

Here’s the rub – the auto industry pioneered this stuff. It used standards (gear change, pedal positions) to drive market growth. It also created highly integrated value chains with key partner organisations – a kind of open innovation. So it’s not as if this is a foreign concept to them. I think what caught them out is the increasing speed of innovation. Our interconnectedness (in part driven by the auto industry !) means adoption of innovations happens at a hugely increased rate, and they haven’t sped up.

We’ve had companies from missile manufacturers to professional telecoms asking us to help them to launch products that can sit alongside the latest smartphone / tablet. These devices have become a key element of our personality, the question is when they will replace the car as the key artefact we use to embody the ego, and that has dramatic implications on pricing and branding the vehicles of the future.