How does Microsoft manage to be both ahead and behind the curve? A decade before Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, they already were doing the same thing, and somehow blew it?
Windows CE in general blows me away how the underlying tech is fundamentally the same as modern smartphones (system is a ROM, had ARM support, goes to sleep by default) and Microsoft was still too slow to react to the iPhone. God I miss my PDA.
Ironically, my cars don't run Linux for the same reason my computers do: I'm militant about protecting my property rights and privacy, so I refuse to have any car new enough to have "infotainment" because it's all closed-source and Tivoized. It's effectively hostile, despite the Linux kernel at the bottom of it.
I'll buy a car made after the mid-2000s when I can re-flash the whole thing with non-DRM'd community-supported software, and not a minute before.
I mean; there's nothing stopping you from using a car from an earlier era; and bodging in an Android Tablet into your dashboard as an infotainment system.
The thing doesn't need to be concerned with your climate controls or anything else on your CAN bus for security reasons anyways. So you can leave those controls as they are and just let the tablet replace your Radio effectively for 100% DRM free media enjoyment with your favorite fully rooted and flashed tablet running whatever FLOSS version of Android firmware you like.
I’m in the same boat. So much that I just paid a bunch to replace the transmission of my 2012.. I could probably have not done that and invested in something newer, but I don’t… want that…
I’ll stick with just getting more of this exact car when this one isn’t repairable anymore (it has telemetry, but it can’t be accessed without plugging in directly, which isn’t typically a huge concern I have) Or when they can be flashed, as you say. Like I’d love to have an EV because I rarely drive far, but I absolutely won’t buy a spymobile to get one.
SYNC 4 is QNX, the next gen units like the one in the new Lincoln Nautilis is QNX + Android with some Linux on other ECUs. MS is firmly gone from Ford vehicles.
Are you even a Linux user if you don't randomly wonder what operating system the person in front of you in traffic prefers? It's a good thing that this person says "wonder no more."
I'll have to get linux stickers for my bike instead. Maybe I should install a hub dynamo and boot a pi zero with my pedal power every time I ride. Linux on my Linux bike.
Not gonna lie, the extent to which the motor, controller, etc. are proprietary is an important consideration for me when buying an e-bike. For example, I would rather have one that can't connect to my phone etc. at all than one that can but requires a proprietary app.
(I also care about things like weird proprietary headset and bottom bracket hardware, on e-bikes and regular bikes alike.)
I wonder if they have been a user since 1991. If so that's pretty impressive. Given that would be the same year Linus send his infamous newsgroup email announcing his work to port Minix.
I deliberately said Windows instead of Mac, because all the apple users I know are the type of people who will never, ever try linux in the first place.