[mavdi]

Not surprised. I've had a few interactions with Subaru connected services dev team as an external contractor from another car company, everyone was everyone else's cousin, friend, homeboy from India. Nepotism was rampant, no one wanted to listen to advice, a strong culture of corporate antibodies had formed. I'm surprised they even got it to work at this level.

[duxup]

I love my Subaru as far as reliability, all wheel drive performance in snow and ice, and such.

But OMG it's consumer tech was dated when I bough it, and it's just full of inexplicable issues and caveats and such. Even just the limitations and the UX issues are so obvious that it sends a message that if they tried to fix them they would introduce just as many new issues. I'm at the point where despite the car being good, I'm not interested in a new one from Subaru.

I just want carplay or android auto whatever similar services a given mobile OS provides to do similar things. That's it, every time it's something else (even when offering car play) from a car maker it is so bad and so naively built that it makes me less confidant in that company.

I know, they want my data and all and that's the motivation, but man it's just such a downer with every system.... and here I am with a good car in most respects and I'm not planning on buying from them again.

[numpad0]

I suspect it has to do with slow adoption of CarPlay/Android Auto in Japan - everyone still options aftermarket infotainment at dealerships and happier about it than with phone-based experiences. From a random Google search result[1]:

  > More than three-fourths (79%) cite the built-in navigation system. However, this percentage has decreased from 81% in 2022 and 82% in 2021. Use of Android Auto/Apple CarPlay apps is increasingly the preferred system, with 7% of users citing this in 2023, compared with 5% in 2022 and 3% in 2021. 

That's like 80% CP/AA adoption by 2060.

UI/UX and especially overall experience polish had always been a major challenge for Japanese engineering. Everything is committee designed in perpetual intra-company tug of war, and it shows as a "family sized mega pack" UI consists of bunch of snippet codes each with an attention grab dialog to prove its worth. That was clearly one of major causes that led to total collapse of domestic phone industry and iPhone dominance, but I suppose it hasn't affected car infotainment, or mass market cars in general.

1: https://japan.jdpower.com/sites/japan/files/file/2023-11/202...

[scottbez1]

Hmm this is really different than my experience with a 2018 Crosstrek, so maybe things have changed? When I bought it, Subaru was among the earlier CarPlay/Android Auto adopters (we specifically ruled out a new model year Prius because it lacked it and we couldn't wait a year to replace our totaled car just for CarPlay/AA), and other than a very rare issue where the head unit screen doesn't turn on, it's been pretty rock solid with both phone OSes.

Environmental controls are all physical hardware, CarPlay/AA is integrated well, etc; I can't really complain about any UX in the car.

The only UX gripe I can think of is that Apple doesn't let you use natural touch inputs to pan/zoom a map (instead forcing you to tap to bring up on-screen d-pad, then keep tapping the tiny button targets while trying to keep an eye on the road), but that's entirely on Apple; Android Auto allows normal 2 finger pan/zoom, so it's not a Subaru problem.

[ajsnigrutin]

yep...

there was a tv ad for subaru vehicles a couple of years ago (not that long!), and during the ad, they showed the infotainment system, where the user pans the map on the navigation touchscreen, and the map moves at maybe 1fps! in an ad!

I kinda wish they standardized the car interface for tablets (like android auto, but more features), where you could just buy a tablet and insert it in (like din slots for radio, but tablet-sized), and the car would expose some non-critical interfaces to the tablet (AC,...), and you could just buy a replacement tablet if needed. Cars are made to last 10, 15, even more years, while the computers/entertainment devices move a lot faster, and that includes the connectivity (many cars on the streets today were made before 4g, and 3g is mostly dead).

[blackeyeblitzar]

Subaru infotainment is also very controlling. Want to use the keypad while you’re taking a phone call on the go? No, it won’t let you if the car is moving. You’ll need to use your phone’s UI. Other CarPlay cars don’t do this.

[Melatonic]

I purposesly bought the last Subaru without Carplay/Android Auto for this reason - I could upgrade my head unit but I like the slightly more oldschool one.

The touchscreen is slow to respond and has few options and the only way to really connect a phone is bluetooth or 3.5mm . It really just does music and calls. However long term I was a lot more confident in phones supporting backwards compatiblity for bluetooth vs Subaru keeping carplay/android auto up to date - and I plan to keep this thing for a very long time

[yesiamyourdad]

I loved mine until the transmission blew out at 96,000 miles. Could be a one-off, but then a friend bought a used one with 108,000 miles, and the dealer proudly noted that it had a new transmission just installed. I think that vaunted reliability is gone.

That aside, the one thing I haven't liked is the electronics. Many times it gets out of sync with the phone and simply can't connect, the only fix is to shut the car off, open the door so the stereo shuts off, then restart the car. The FM radio also quit working at one point, which I didn't really care about, but the dealer applied a software update and it started working again. That's just the visible stuff though, so much of the car is software controlled now, I think you have to start taking any software issues as a warning about the overall car.

[ellisd]

Subaru's in-vehicle entertainment technology has long been criticized, even before features like CarPlay became standard. Take my 2012 WRX, for example—its Bluetooth reception was the worst I've ever experienced in a Bluetooth-equipped vehicle. Audio feeds would randomly pop and drop out during podcasts, even when the phone was within a two-foot radius of the deck.

Over the years, I tried multiple iOS and Android phones, but nothing improved the situation. Ultimately, the only solution was a complete deck replacement. Now, I’m using a "Joying" Android head unit with a rip-off version of CarPlay, which has finally resolved these issues.

[spelunker]

I have a car from another Japanese manufacturer (Mazda) - their connected services app is weird and clunky and was down twice this month. And I'm expected to pay $10/month for this thing after the first year! Cmon.

[duxup]

Working across cultures is so wild.

I worked in situations where things were outsourced and yeah the Indian experience was horrific. But that also was influenced by the nature of the relationship.... they didn't work "for us" in any real way.

I worked for a company where we (a Midwestern company) were acquired by a valley company and at HQ there was a clear divide between the Indian (US citizens, not H1B) folks and the local CA team. It wasn't bad, but you could see it socially and feel the vibe and such.

I traveled there a few times and I was just friendly and ... man they were great. Very friendly, very professional, and highly capable.

Sometimes I think the business relationships also creates the informal "working culture" too.

[kccqzy]

I've heard of this claim so often that I assume it to be true, though personally I've only had the fortune to work in better environments where my Indian colleagues aren't nepotistic. I suspect this might be related to the hiring bar: if a company only hires the top talent perhaps this would not be an issue.

[fullofideas]

The linked article is about a fraud conducted by a few bad apples. I can see people colluding with others that are similar to them for criminal activities - gangs, drug smuggling, and probably other frauds too. I am not sure how you inferred caste based nepotism among *all* indians in tech from that article.

[blackeyeblitzar]

> Indians are some of the most racially nepotistic out there

I’ve heard this claim made often here but never observed it in real life. I think you and others who repeat this claim are confusing nepotism with just using one’s network to accelerate hiring. If someone happens to have a social or professional network mostly of one race, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically nepotistic when they draw from that network. Somehow this label rarely arises when white managers end up with mostly white teams. Why is that?