[Paladin79]

Chip shortages for vehicles are really affecting my ability to buy a new one at this time. Dealers are jacking up the prices by $5,000 on some vehicles cause they have so few in stock. One dealer told me MSRP or higher and that their website was not set up to reflect the extra price they were tacking on new vehicles. They sometimes jack up the destination fees but the $5,000 is a bit more obvious.

That being said I generally set up my phone before I take off so I can listen to Tidal, Audible books etc. I do enjoy such features as back up cameras, and blind spot monitors and lane drift indicators. My vehicle's ability to stop itself if something passes behind it can be nice at times. Directing the heat or air conditioning or even the seat temperature can be tough to do while driving but I do have a nice large dial for turning up and down the temp on my side of the car. My wife's car is another matter and I generally try to avoid it.

 

[Ninhalem]

On the topic of the decrease in consumption of quality goods, I buy Woodpecker's woodworking tools when I can afford them: CNC milled from solid blocks of aluminum, powder coated, laser engraved, checked for accuracy with high precision metrology probes, and made in Ohio. The most common complaint I see on Woodpecker's update YouTube videos is on why the price is so high. The gall of some manufacturers and businesses that want to pay their employees a living wage and price their products accordingly.

 

[adydula]

Why should a person or company go from Win10 to 11? None, that I can really state. Why did MS introduce Win11 when Win10 was to be the last Windows version? Because Intel, AMD and computer MFGs need to sell more hardware and it is just a way to force some into upgrading their computers.

MS says they will keep Win10 and 11 on separate tracks and they will co-exist for the foreseeable future. How far into the future they foresee themselves supporting 2 platforms is the question. Win10 is more than suited for my purposes, both personally and for business.

Wonder why HP sends me notes on the PC via their comm software apps...telling me that my warranty has expired AND that my PC AIO might not be able to be repaired anymore (3 yrs) and that here is a link to buy a new system?

:>)

 

[Paladin79]

On the topic of the decrease in consumption of quality goods, I buy Woodpecker's woodworking tools when I can afford them: CNC milled from solid blocks of aluminum, powder coated, laser engraved, checked for accuracy with high precision metrology probes, and made in Ohio. The most common complaint I see on Woodpecker's update YouTube videos is on why the price is so high. The gall of some manufacturers and businesses that want to pay their employees a living wage and price their products accordingly.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Though tipped workers and some farm and seasonal workers are paid less in many states, pay for the vast majority of hourly employees in the U.S. is at least $7.25 per hour.

I cannot imagine a small family getting by on less than $25 an hour or more depending on their location. (Housing is pretty reasonable in this area.)

 

[A Jedi]

That is a massive flaw of most modern car touch screen systems. The designers must have been sleeping though their UI/UX classes.

They weren't sleeping. They are however designing the wrong product. A car is not a phone or a tablet and driving is not akin to surfing the web. The fault is only partly theirs though - the hiring managers, product managers, C levels are all at fault. Ultimately the fault lies with the CEO. An organization run by an incompetent head can't possibly function properly. But hey, the CEOs have zero incentive to be anything but morons - if they run the place into the ground, they get their golden parachute and sail off into the sunset of golf courses and fine dining.

 

[Alcophone]

The UK together with Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark etc etc have cooking cultures that would trigger defcon 1 alarms in the Mediterranean countries.

There's an entire YouTube channel dedicated towards torturing your kind.


Prost!

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

There's an entire YouTube channel dedicated towards torturing your kind.


Prost!

As someone born in Bavaria, and as someone who has spent large parts of his childhood in Italy, I have to say:
Ouch.

 

[lemp]

That is a massive flaw of most modern car touch screen systems. The designers must have been sleeping though their UI/UX classes.

Or were given a task of "design a UI for this size touchscreen" rather than "design a touchscreen UI that can safely and efficiently be used while driving."

 

[adydula]

We have wonderful techie devices that we all like and make us more productive and smile alot...

But it often goes into the deep end and in the weeds.....and often requires a junior rocket scientist to navigate thru....

Years of working in PC development, LANS, networks etc....its a real rats nest.

The end user is often a less technical person and just want the dam thing to work....

In audio I just want the dam thing to work....simple.

 

[tutetibiimperes]

I’m personally not against incremental improvements in products. When it comes to iPhones the basic structure works fine, I don’t need the wheel to be reinvented there, I’ll just want a new one every few years that’s faster with a better screen and better battery life. If something is already good sometimes it’s enough to just continually and incrementally improve on what makes it good to begin with.

I’d also think that an app for subwoofer control could be genuinely useful. If you have your bass management and room correction handled be external electronics then it’s no big deal, just let those electronics control the subwoofer. For people using two-channel gear without built-in bass management and room correction though, the ability to sit in your listening position and dial in the sub from the app seems like it would be both easier and more effective than having to walk back and forth across the room constantly adjusting levels, phase, crossover, etc, by trial and error.

My computer audio amp, and Elac Element, had an app and it’s honestly pretty great. Load it up, hold it in front of the speakers and the sub as it runs some frequency sweeps, then hold it at the listening position and it automatically adjusts everything to where it should be using the phone’s built-in microphone.

Another great audio product that’s app-driven is the Qudelix 5K. Using an app makes it much easier to handle setting up the 10-band PEQ than it would be with a tiny screen and knobs, and there’s even a provision to load in a bunch of pre-sets and fill memory slots for quick comparisons or multiple headphones. Having that kind of functionality in a desktop class product would be phenomenal (and I say that as an RME ADI-2 DAC owner which gets a lot of the same things right, but isn’t as powerful or easy to use when it comes to EQ bands and adjustment).

Then again, not everything needs to have an amp. I demoed the Cyrus OneHD and though the sound was great their decision to make volume control on it app-based was a bug usability issue. Something that you’re going to be tweaking a bunch while listening all the time shouldn’t require an app.

Then again, I did really like the simplicity of an all-in-one headphone and speaker amp, I just wanted a physical remote control (well, and a better headphone amp than the Cyrus) and that’s what eventually drove me to my first Schiit product, the Ragnarok 2, which works extremely well without an app.

Still, I think a ‘Modius PEQ Edition’ that allows 10 bands (or so) of PEQ all done in the digital domain before the DAC conversion and controller by an app to adjust the EQ profiles and save memory slots would be a pretty compelling product and offer a ton of useful features that would justify the app-entanglement.

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

I think you guys are missing the point a little…

Huge (touch) screens in cars aren't meant to not be distracting. To be distracting is their whole point to begin with.

Whether you like this or not*, self-driving cars will be the norm in a decade or two. Considering that 98% of the people I see driving around on California roads don't even know how to drive safely, I wouldn't be surprised one bit if and when human-operated cars were to be legally restricted to private properties or minor side roads before long.
Once those people are no longer required to split their attention span of a fruit fly between watching traffic and the phones they're trying to hide below the window line, they will want to be entertained in other ways – and a tiny phone screen just won't cut it. The screen-plagued cars we see today are just a precursor to what's virtually inevitable to come: entertainment centers that just happen to be motorized, filled with screens that serve you all the content you could ever long for. For an ever growing list of modest subscription fees, of course.

The screens we have today are the results of car manufacturers learning how to build those rolling entertainment centers. It is an industry caught up in the search for this fine line between catching and retaining the highest possible amount of attention, and killing their paying customers through constant distraction. It's either that, or risking to be driven off the market for having become "too boring" in a few years time.

* I, for one, loathe this thought. I love driving, it's like meditation to me. But considering that self-driving cars are already becoming safer than most drivers in most situations even today, I'm not sure which side I would really land on if I had to make a choice.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

There's an entire YouTube channel dedicated towards torturing your kind.

Nice acting. Now most Italians (including myself) break spaghetti 1x in halve.
It gets you to add the sauce more evenly but keeps it at "rolling onto the fork" length.

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

Nice acting. Now most Italians (including myself) break spaghetti 1x in halve.
It gets you to add the sauce more evenly but keeps it at "rolling onto the fork" length.

Hey, whatever works.
But cutting them with a knife, that's where I draw the line. ;p

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Hey, whatever works.
But cutting them with a knife, that's where I draw the line. ;p

You mean when they're on your plate?
You serious? Of course you're right.
People should indeed be incarcerated for that.
Re-education is the minimum punishment here.

 

[ImagesbyMurray]

@Jason Stoddard .... So URD is not going to have an app to control it and will have simple buttons? I'd jokingly say SHAME, but seriously say THANK YOU.

I agree 100% hate having to use an app. My wife bought me a light bulb that had an app (seriously). Can do 147,000 colors. I set it to one, White. Haven't used the app in 2.5 years.

IoT (Internet of Things) devices scare the crap out of me. In the case of your philips bulb, it connects to the internet via your home network's router (gateway). Let's just say that you never bothered setting up a secure username/password for that device. Let's also say that the bulb's O/S has a serious security hole (we absolutely know that the O/S is NOT bug free in any case). Assume this security issue allows a bad actor access to the bulb from the outside - he/she now has access to *all devices* on your home network........

Being a total IT geek - my home is full of this schiit...... BUT I've gone to the effort of not allowing these any access outside my home network (in other words, the default gateway of the device (ie: router internal IP address) is left blank).

Sure, I can't open my garage door, or freeze my beer from the internet -but that's what neighbors are for....