> <i>6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.</i><p>I've always felt that cars are already like this. I don't know much about cars, but I know that there's a wide range of conditions that can cause the "check engine" light to be lit, all of varying degrees of severity. If computers were like cars, instead of an error dialog with a googlable error code, a single "check computer" light would appear on your keyboard, and you'd need a $100 hardware debugger to find out what actually happened.<p>God forbid your computer suffers a second error while the "check computer" light is on. You'd never know because there's only one light.
Not all, but definitely some of it rings to a Tesla :-I<p>Autopilot - A thing that is advertised to "fully drive itself", but keep your hands on the wheel and pretend you are driving and take over a fraction of a second before you crash....<p>Buttons? - oh we replaced it all with this one Giant screen - take a look at this glorious screen instead of focusing on the road. Tactile buttons? oh they are so old - we are the disruptors. Even better, lets just change the round steering wheel to a yoke - why? because we want to disrupt!!<p>Your car is predictable and you know what it is doing? Let us give you over the air updates to the critical parts of the car. You better hope that we didn't change any behaviour, or that you didn't miss that change in your terms and conditions...<p>I am big fan of all the engineering successes that Tesla brought to the table. But, they also made some non sensible choices along the way, that I'd rather not risk it....
> Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.<p>Now I wonder how much that would apply early cars. <i>Did</i> you have to re-learn all the controls before? I'm sure they were not standardized from the beginning. In that sense, Windows is an early car and cannot really be blamed for trying new things (most likely they are referring to the 3.x -> 95 UI revamp).
I drive a 2004 Lexus LS 430 and I just purchased a 2008 Ford F150 XL. I also use a flip phone, and listen to music on vinyl and my 5 disc CD changer. The more I have gone into the deep end on tech from a career standpoint, the more I crave the simple things. Or at least a simpler way to live my life that doesn't involve a screen.
This is so tame, 20 years later.<p>11. Fuel door button is shipped with a big warning "in a future update button will be moved to a new home." that takes up more space than the button itself.<p>12. Restarts are forced.<p>13. Time is correct, but weather is from a faraway place.