rashbre central: the best apps to download to the car's dashboard?

Friday 29 March 2013

the best apps to download to the car's dashboard?

offset speedometer?
I've returned the little red and black American car now and we have back the fully functioning Italian one. I'm still waiting for my own car to be fixed.

When I returned the Ypsilon, the chap in the dealership asked me what I thought of it. I politely answered that it had an interesting personality.

I could kind of tell that he wasn't that keen on it himself.

I mentioned that the speedometer was on the wrong side. He explained that more smaller cars were being designed with the console in the middle instead of on the driver side. I could understand this if they were really trying to drive down manufacturing costs - no need to change that part of a Euro car for the UK market.

I was less sure about the safety aspect although I assume that this quirky design has passed the necessary tests. I suppose it was also handy for my passenger to be able to easily keep an eye on my driving speed.

Apparently the current generation of cars are adding even more telemetry systems beyond sat-nav and active safety. This little one had a spot to add a further plug-in sat-nav, which amusingly also featured an additional speedometer. It was connected to the inside of the driver's mirror mount.

Naturally it also had speech recognition for hands free operation.

But the next set of options appear to be to do with social interaction and that somehow feels wrong to me. There's already a facebook option on some cars and now there's the ability to add new apps to the display console.

I still see people driving whilst holding cell-phones most days. It will seem even crazier if they could be on facebook or downloading apps.
driving style

3 comments:

Ellie said...

Perfect pic to go with - and, you are right ... Haven't we got enough to focus on whilst driving and talking on the phone?!

Nikki - Notes of Life said...

The new Mini seems to have the dials in the middle of the dash rather than in front of the driver... I find it rather off-putting! I want to be able to glance down, not look across for these things!

rashbre said...

Well, at least today the new BMW PRAM was announced, including the NAPPIE option for those too posh to push.