WasserGKuehlt
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2022
- Threads
- 5
- Messages
- 1,694
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- 1,905
- Location
- WA
- Vehicles
- 4CT, 996C2, MacanS
In a previous lifetime, I worked for a small (German) company which was subcontracted by the provider of infotainment systems to Daimler; we were asked to provide the multimedia stack for the then-upcoming W221 S-Klasse. I had been around/working with technical PMs before and after, but the MB people were in a klasse (heh) of their own: they knew and formalized precisely what they wanted in terms of features, quality metrics/tolerances, useability _and_ had a good understanding of the technology we were peddling. It was quite an eye-opener (for me) into the differences between automotive software and "retail" (even business-oriented). That's not to say everyone develops/produces automotive software the same way MB does..The software in the Mercedes seems to be developed by programmers who spent some time with focus groups getting input from consumers. Whereas, the Porsche software seems to have been written by people who have never driven a car.
As for Porsche's, it's unclear (to me) how much of the new system was forced-adoption of Cariad, and what/if any comes from their own development centers (in Ro). The older/classic version in my gen 1 Macan seems to be the same QT-based, Harman-provided system also used by BMW - which is quite decent. (And the software in my 996 is just sophisticated enough to display a clock, and let you adjust it. Definitely written by drivers. ;-))
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