From "feature phones" to the era of smart Internet, let's talk about the past and present of in-vehicle interactive systems

Last week I wrote an article about the design development of China's independent automobile brands, "From Geely ICON to Changan UNI-T, independent brands are changing from followers to leaders." We are pleased to see that in terms of automobile design, independent brands have gradually grown from learners to innovators with the ability to lead the development of world automobile design. This is also worthy of our pride.

In fact, not only in car design, but also in many other fields, domestic brands are showing stronger and stronger innovation capabilities and becoming global leaders in their respective fields, such as car computer systems. In a narrow sense, car computer systems refer to the multimedia playback system on the interior center console, but with the development of technology, almost all function settings of the entire car can be controlled through a display screen, which has become a car computer system in a broad sense.

Do you still remember what the car system you first came into contact with was like? Was it just a radio and a cassette player? In those days, most car systems didn't even have a display screen. Only luxury cars had a small, thin green screen. Today, almost everything you can do on your phone can be achieved with an intelligent car system. So today we will briefly talk about the development of car systems and the impact of our own brands on the world's automotive industry.

The era of "feature phones" in early car computers

Nowadays, the mobile phones that are indispensable to our lives and work are basically smartphones equipped with iOS or Android systems. In the era when Nokia was popular, in addition to smartphones, there was also a type of mobile phone called "feature phone". There is little difference between smartphones and feature phones in terms of conventional functions, except that feature phones are relatively simpler in terms of systems, while smartphones have operating systems similar to computers, and have inherent advantages in terms of functional scalability, and the same is true for car computer systems.

In the early days, the car computer system, multimedia entertainment and air conditioning operation, as well as the vehicle's onboard computer settings were all independent of each other, and no system could control various in-car functions at the same time. The early car computer system was also relatively simple in configuration. For example, the radio was the most common configuration, and a tape player was also equipped, while higher-end models would be equipped with a CD player. Higher-end luxury cars such as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class or BMW 7 Series would have a display similar to a small color TV in the front center console, which could play video content from VCDs or DVDs.

With the rapid development of electronic technology, the functions inside the car are increasing. However, in the era without unified integrated operating systems and touch screen technology, the only way to operate functions is by buttons and knobs. Therefore, many high-end models have densely packed buttons and knobs on the center console. Although the car looks very high-end at first glance, it is not intuitive for daily use. For older people, such complex buttons will inevitably lead to misoperation, causing unnecessary trouble.

The car computer system has entered the "stand-alone" era

The fourth-generation BMW 7 Series is the first to feature iDrive

More and more car companies have also realized the problems of early car-machine systems. If a new function is added, a new set of buttons must be added. In the future, the number of buttons on the car center console will even be more than that in the cockpit of an airplane. At this time, luxury car companies from Germany took the lead in launching intelligent car-machine interaction systems, and the pioneer was BMW's iDrive. At the 1999 Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW first proposed the concept of an integrated car-machine interaction system and took the lead in using the iDrive operating system on the fourth-generation 7 Series.

BMW's first generation iDrive system interface

The name of the iDrive operating system comes from the abbreviation of intelligent drive system. This system was jointly developed by BMW and Microsoft Corporation of the United States. The system is based on the VxWorks embedded operating system of Wind River Corporation of the United States. The navigation computer is based on the in-vehicle Windows CE system. In that era, the map package of the in-vehicle navigation had to be read through a CD, so map updates were extremely inconvenient. But even so, this system was already a very revolutionary product at the time. Only a mouse-like knob was needed to control the multi-level menus and hundreds of function options under 8 main menus, greatly simplifying the operation panel on the center console.

Audi MMI operating system control panel

Consumers who are used to intuitive operation buttons are somewhat uncomfortable with operating all functions through a knob at once. So in 2002, Audi released the MMI operating system. Compared with BMW's iDrive system, MMI is not only more intuitive in terms of menu logic, but also has shortcut keys for major functional areas arranged around the knob. The more convenient design also made the MMI system a benchmark for global vehicle-machine interaction systems at the time. Starting with the second-generation iDrive, BMW also learned from Audi's MMI and designed shortcut keys around the knob. Until today's seventh-generation iDrive system and the COMMAND operating system before the Mercedes-Benz MBUX system, they all use a combination of knob + function shortcut keys. Of course, BMW's iDrive system has also added a touch screen design since the fourth generation, combined with traditional physical buttons and knobs, and the operation form is more diversified.

However, the biggest drawback of the operating system of that era was that, like feature phones, it had a single function and could not be expanded. Most car operating systems could not access the Internet. Even though a few systems added online services such as news and weather forecasts in the later period, they still could not expand their functions and could not download new applications. Even now, many car systems seem to be the product of the last era and have not yet achieved the intelligent interactive capabilities of smartphones or tablets.

The car system has entered the "intelligent network era"

Nowadays, it is becoming more and more popular to adopt a new generation of intelligent networked car-machine systems. Although it is difficult to trace which car this networked intelligent car-machine system started from, Tesla is one of the pioneers of this round of car-machine system changes. At first, on Tesla's Model S, all function controls were integrated into the central control screen in an interactive way with an ultra-large touch screen. Simplifying is indeed an art, and it has also changed the operation method and scenario of the car-machine interaction system.

The in-car interactive systems of domestic brands are similar to Apple's Siri voice assistant, which uses voice control as an interactive form to avoid distractions caused by operating functions while driving and improve driving safety. When the owner wants to listen to music, make calls, navigate, check the weather, etc., they can directly control the car computer through voice commands. The intelligent voice assistant can even be like an all-round butler who is always on call.

In order to save time and cost of system development, many domestic car companies directly use the Android operating system for their car systems, just like a tablet computer. Although it lacks some personalization, due to the powerful App ecosystem of the Android system, it is also extremely functional, which is more advantageous than Tesla's use of the Linux system.

The trend of intelligent car systems brought about by Tesla and domestic brands has forced traditional overseas car companies that were once high and mighty to join in. For example, Mercedes-Benz released a new generation of MBUX operating system at the 2018 CES to replace the previously criticized COMMAND system, and added a voice assistant service that is very popular in domestic brand models. The menu interface is also more youthful and lively, which is a world of difference from the previous old-fashioned and conservative COMMAND system. Although Audi is the "founder" of the "knob + shortcut key" operation method, it is the first brand among BBA to withdraw from this operation form and instead adopt a full-touch MMI operating system. The overall operation method is closer to the operation logic of tablets and smartphones. With the addition of Apple CarPlay and Internet apps such as Android Auto or Baidu Carlife, now is also the starting point for the transformation of the next generation of in-vehicle interactive systems.

Final Thoughts

From the development history of in-vehicle interactive systems, it is not difficult to see that with the development of science and technology and the rapid changes in consumer electronics, major car companies are updating their car systems as much as exploring the "three major components" technology. In short, the development and progress of automotive technology is to make our driving life more convenient and considerate, isn't it?