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0 pointsnumpad01y ago0 comments

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...

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duxup1y ago

>UI/UX and especially overall experience polish had always been a major challenge for Japanese engineering.

I can believe it. The whole issue of "Japanese video game companies don't understand the internet" to some extent still feels like it is an issue at times.

For a while it felt like we got late 1990s solutions in the mid 2010s... it's gotten better-ish in the land of video games, but man it's so bad at times still.

grogenaut1y ago

sony fixed this with the ps4 by saying eff it "harware is done in japan where we're good at it, you brits and yanks can have the software"

numpad0OP1y ago

Weird part is it doesn't seem to be working out as a business. They've completely lost mystique doing that.

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