Ex-Apple VP Mike Abbott Joins General Motors as Exec Vice President, Software

https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tech-industry-innovator-mike-abbott-joins-general-motors/

by smugma • 3 years ago

95 181 3 years ago

investor.gm.com

gowings974• 3 years ago

Infotainment has been commoditized by way of Android Automotive and Carplay.

The perception that there is a subscription revenue opportunity for intotainment is misguided - the TAM is insignificant, and the net loss of prospective Customers that refuse to buy a vehicle without Android Auto or or Carplay far outweighs any potential subscription revenue.

This will go over about as well as Cadillac Cue did from 2013-2017.

Source - I work in the automotive industry, live in the Detroit suburbs, and live and breathe this stuff every day.

steveBK123• 3 years ago

Yup, this reads like they decided to "buy a guy to build GMplay" rather than just use CarPlay. unlikely to go well.

gowings974• 3 years ago

They have this misguided perception that EVs require some deep level integration via some customized build of AAOS, that can't already be solved by individual apps on a smartphone.

Namely - customizing charging times at home for off-peak rates / usage, identifying chargers on a specific route or daily commute, pre-warming or pre-cooling a car (which can be done already today because all these vehicles have LTE or 5G modems already), saving profiles that save mechanical preferences / functions like mirror / seat settings.

People want buttons and knobs to control mechanical functions like HVAC, mirrors, and seats. People don't see the value associated with the premium price of having an driver to passenger end to end full screen display, such as what was first implemented on the Mercedes EQS and is now being implemented on the (Chinese made) 2024 Lincoln Nautilus.

ghaff• 3 years ago

I wouldn't go so far as to say that lack of Carplay would be a complete deal-breaker for me but it would sure be a huge entry in the "cons" column.

tshaddox• 3 years ago

It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me if I was buying a low cost used car, although at this point it has been around for long enough that even the beater Camry rental I’m driving right now has it.

But if I’m paying big bucks for a new car I can’t imagine not having CarPlay. Ironically it’s the expensive “high-tech” brands like Tesla and Rivian that don’t support it.

glanzwulf2• 3 years ago

Having used proprietary infotainment systems in the past and currently using carplay, for me it would 100% be a complete deal-breaker. (Unless of course I'm buying a car that predates the technology)

dboreham• 3 years ago

It has the feel of the recorded music industry when Napster was in full swing.

function_seven• 3 years ago

Yup. All buyers who care about having a good infotainment setup will avoid GM, leaving them with only buyers that don't care about it as much. Are these the buyers they think will then pony up $30 a month for their store-brand version?

OnStar is dead, guys. It's not coming back. Don't destroy your actual business (cars) by trying to cosplay as a "tech company SaaS vertical"

altairprime• 3 years ago

Presumably related to:

GM plans to phase out CarPlay in EVs, with Google’s help https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35389021 (38 days ago, 377 comments)

gowings974• 3 years ago

Kind of, but not really. What GM is proposing here goes even deeper.

There are three current solutions -

- (2018 -> Today) Some existing solution that runs QNX as the base OS, that runs Android Auto / Carplay as an Application

- (2023 - > Today) A new based OS that is a skinned version of Android Automotive OS (AAOS / https://developers.google.com/cars/design/automotive-os) that runs both Android Auto Carplay and Carplay as an application, with the Automaker working with Google to incorporate customizations along with patches and updates to the base OS. Think Samsung's customized version of Android, and how they work to implement patches for major OS updates from ASOP. The infotainment used on General Motor's Global B architecture uses this.

- This proposal (2025 Model Year -> Future) - runs a customized version of AAOS that does not have Android Auto / Carplay support. My guess is that Google is throwing them a bone here and offering extra support for the Automaker (deferring the Automaker's costs) if the Automaker allows Google to retain the usage data.

r00fus2• 3 years ago

I figured it was this. I mean, my car runs Ford Sync3 that runs CarPlay/AA (built by MS) and AAOS seems to compete directly with that.

The flamebait position trumpeted by GM CEO seems to be "we won't enable the CarPlay/AA app" but that could be reversed quite quickly when they realize customers don't want the builtin AAOS or AAOS doesn't do what CarPlay/AA can do.

The alternative is that AAOS has Apple Music and other apps built in (probably not Apple Maps) - like what you see with Tesla. I wonder if Apple will concede to this.

robszumski• 3 years ago

Red Hat is also making a move here, not at the UI layer but supporting RHEL in an automotive environment. It could be interesting to make these systems accessible to more software developers and appear a bit closer to cloud/web service/AI software stacks.

hgsgm• 3 years ago

That's an amazing read. The GM guy is shamelessly going on and on about all the ways he will ruin the experience for drivers, so he can extract more money from them with hardware lock-in.

Google will cancel the project within a year after launching.

gowings974• 3 years ago

This is the one thing I would love to see Google cancel, lmao.

glanzwulf2• 3 years ago

Hope he convinces them to go back on the stupid decision that is to abandon Carplay/Android Auto.

jdelman• 3 years ago

I think it's probably the opposite -- they've probably hired him to help build their new entertainment+surveillance stack.

throw9away63• 3 years ago

Probably, I just don’t think executives can drive that kind of innovation. Especially those who are in sustaining roles in already large and successful companies.

SilasX2• 3 years ago

Then wouldn't the Apple mentality be "Touchpads ... for everything!" (and thus a steb back)?

phkahler2• 3 years ago

My understanding of GM is that they outsource almost everything. Last time I hired an embedded software engineer from them, the guy felt he was in a very tiny niche within the company and it was a fluke his group still existed to write code.

Infotainment systems may be different, but suppliers were doing most of the code several years back (I hired one of those guys too). With the desire to bring SaaS to automotive I would expect GM to bring some software development in-house, but they are a management-heavy company.

hospitalJail3• 3 years ago

I personally like having a car with these, but I'm not convinced it will be the death of GM like people predict.

GM was not affected by PRISM, so they could make claims of having a privacy oriented vehicle. That messaging does really well on HN and I imagine other communities as well.
The other thing is deeper integration. Yes it sounds like a security nightmare, but you will get additional features this way.
You also write your own future. If the tech duopoly decides to do something like forbid alternative web browser engines, you don't need to bend the knee.

Not to mention, if every car has a generic infotainment screen, it makes the car less unique. Cars are all about the marketing and if you can make someone feel like they are cool for driving your car with the infotainment screen, you can sell that car.

ericmay2• 3 years ago

GM was not affected by PRISM, so they could make claims of having a privacy oriented vehicle

I don't this this really follows. Can't you be unaffected by PRISM and then later also sell lots of customer data or whatever? Though I agree this won't be the death of GM. The worst case is they later go back and just add Carplay and Android Auto and waste a bunch of money trying to write their own stuff.

>You also write your own future. If the tech duopoly decides to do something like forbid alternative web browser engines, you don't need to bend the knee.

I just want to say that this isn't the case for any person or corporation and it never will be. You always rely on someone or something else. GM for example relies on the United States to secure oil. You, a regular person rely on (whoever) to go and mine minerals to build your laptop. It's not just a fantasy but it's a uniquely weird, and hysterical anti-social pattern that I wish would just die. It's ok to rely on someone else and in fact it's normal, acceptable, and desirable. Relying on someone else means you have to forge relationships, and not be an ass.

hedora• 3 years ago

Not affected by PRISM? Although technically true, it's mostly because PRISM predated the hardware, and because GM touts the big brother stuff as a feature of OnStar. Here are two recent articles, four years apart (though they have been doing this for much longer):

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/01/15/polic...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/04/01/these...

ubermonkey5• 3 years ago

That's just an amazingly boneheaded move, isn't it?

I absolutely will not buy another car in the foreseeable future that lacks Carplay. It's too good, and too much better than any carmaker's attempts to integrate with phones or music players that came before.

(I also won't pay EXTRA for it; looking at you, BMW.)

lbussell• 3 years ago

It's really not that good. On my Mazda, Apple CarPlay won't even let me change albums while I'm driving. Which encourages me to then pick up my phone, take my eyes off the road to unlock it with my face, and fumble around with the music app until I get to what I want. Mazda even disables the touch screen while driving, forcing you to use their navigation wheel, which is supposedly safer! So I don't understand why CarPlay still tries to keep me from doing the thing it was designed to do.

raincom2• 3 years ago

Mike Abbott was kicked out of Apple where he didn’t make any meaningful contribution. Why GM is picking him up? Another wasteful move.

eganist• 3 years ago

where he didn’t make any meaningful contribution.

Super curious about this, what more can you share?

throwaway63728• 3 years ago

Throwaway, It was chaotic, plenty of technical and leadership missteps. But at the core, he was incapable of confronting deeper issues. The proficiency of Apple does not lie in cloud or infrastructure. It's a simple truth.

spacedcowboy• 3 years ago

This is utter bullshit, as a cloud Apple employee.

Mike was an excellent leader in iCloud, championed a whole bunch of new tech, and took a failing business and made it massively profitable. I don't think anyone in Eddy's org was happy to see him go.

paganel• 3 years ago

Sure hope iCloud is “massively profitable”, they’ve been spamming me non-stop with their messages both on my phone and on my laptop ever since my cloud hardware disk space there (which I had never asked for in the first place) got “full” or such some time ago.

Otherwise great hardware products, both the Apple phone and the Apple laptop.

flounder3• 3 years ago

No, it is not bullshit. And no, he certainly was not excellent. Perhaps he managed to take credit for a few "good" things, but it's interesting to watch you defend someone who was ~so~ widely hated.

I could give you a list of 40 tenured engineers and leaders in Eddy's org [along with at least 20 in adjacent orgs] who physically celebrated his departure.

aaplnisider3• 3 years ago

I was an engineering manager in Mike's org. I liked him on a personal level but he was thrown a lot of legacy services from other orgs. Cloud services is just not Apple's forte. The internal tools/infra feels 10 years behind Google (based on friends who've worked at both). I too heard that he was pushed out.

manicennui• 3 years ago

Do you think that iCloud is excellent?

steelframe• 3 years ago

I spent a year in Apple Cloud Infrastructure (ACI) during the pandemic. From my perspective, Mike didn't invest in the infrastructure in the ways that he probably should have. I am aware of at least one very senior manager in the org who escalated on Mike for that reason.

fundad• 3 years ago

His specialty is keeping Apple tech out of cars.

LarryDarrell6• 3 years ago

The 2022 Chevy Silverado I rented died at 488 miles on the odometer. The roadside assistance mechanic said the transmission "lost data connection to the engine". Later, a tow truck had to drag it onto it's flatbed as the rear wheels were locked up.

Also, apparently the tailgate is electric now. And for some reason it stopped working when the transmission died. Also also, there is no way to turn the truck off? When it entered the error-state, the dash stayed on and the cabin motor stayed blowing, but the "Start" button wouldn't turn anything off.

I know I'm an odd case, my newest car is from 1997... but I am gobsmacked at just how terrible modern vehicles are. I know customers are dumb and are easily impressed by cheap gadgetry, but why did we have to throw the baby out with the bath water?

So when I hear that GM is going to build their own CarPlay or whatever I can't help but laugh. They can't even build a good fleet pickup truck.

bombcar2• 3 years ago

The computerization of vehicles can be done exceptionally well or exceptionally bad, and some of them are just phenomenally bad.

ubermonkey5• 3 years ago

And we see where GM stands.

mnky9800n• 3 years ago

yes i have always enjoyed every time i drive a vw id.3. i have not enjoyed so much tesla or any other american made computerized car.

usrusr2• 3 years ago

Are the bad ones exceptional though?

RandallBrown• 3 years ago

but I am gobsmacked at just how terrible modern vehicles are

CarPlay, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, automatic lights (brights, on/off, turning), cameras, remote start from my phone, and lots of other things are awesome modern additions to cars that I wouldn't want to go without anymore.

r00fus2• 3 years ago

Lane assist done poorly (seen on my latest Toyota Corolla rental) is distracting and made me want to turn it off.

Any advanced features that are rushed or poorly thought out - can turn into liabilities instead of assets.

rubidium• 3 years ago

After just moving from a 2009 to a 2023 vehicle (both Ford), I agree. I’m overall happy with the tech improvements, despite the occasional bond-headed software implementation.

I say this as someone who used to be a “stick-driving don’t put a computer if it’s not required” card carrying member. Maybe I’m just getting soft.

MikeKusold• 3 years ago

I don't have any of these on my 2013 vehicles, and the only one I truly miss is CarPlay.

I've been in nice cars with these features, and I'm happy I don't have most of these. Adaptive cruise control brakes are too late and hard for me to trust, lane assist is nice on straights but is annoying when it bounces between the sides of the lane, and automatic high-beams are infuriating with the constant on & off.

LarryDarrell6• 3 years ago

I understand. There are many consumers like you.

We are simply speaking different languages because we value different things based on what we want from a vehicle.

My perspective is one from someone that does their own car maintenance/repair and has only owned used cars. When I look at a new car or truck today, I'm looking at components that are most affected by entropy. Of the features you listed, how many are likely to still work in 2033? 2043? Will any of them create a no-start condition or poor running condition if they fail? Is there a way to bypass the automatic lights with a manual switch if some part of the automatic light system becomes unobtainable at any price? Having any part of the engine ignition process connected to a DRM'ed internet connected remote start system seems insane to me, considering how many cars have problems with non-internet connected remote start systems.

I fully admit that my perspective is the minority, and it's rare to have someone agree with me on HN. However, I do find many comrades at the junkyards.

spenczar5• 3 years ago

I know customers are dumb and are easily impressed by cheap gadgetry, but why did we have to throw the baby out with the bath water?

I don't think it's about gadgetry. I think there are a few other things going on. None are really pro-consumer, in my opinion.

- Software can be updated. Overhauling mechanical parts is way harder. This lets the manufacturer go a little quicker with development - you can "fix it in post."

- Software can be easier to reuse across models of vehicles (in theory). "We'll figure out software-based tailgates just once, and can use it everywhere."

- Software can be controlled remotely. For example, Ford filed a patent to disable cars remotely if the owner misses a payment [0].

- Software can help build a monopoly on maintenance. Electronically controlled stuff is way harder (even impossible) to diagnose if you don't have maintenance software and computers to interface with the car. So the manufacturer can control more of the maintenance chain.

---

[0] https://fortune.com/2023/03/02/ford-patent-late-payments-shu...

freedomben3• 3 years ago

One other reason I've discovered, is regulatory. The amount of mandatory "features" required nowadays by government regulation is incredible, and the only economical way to meet many of those is with software implementations. The big automakers certainly aren't complaining because it justifies higher price tags and has a major stifling effect on upstarts and other competition, and they've got the machinery (literal and figurative) to navigate the requirements. Hell they write a lot of them.

philwelch• 3 years ago

Worth pointing out that GM actually failed as a business and only survived the 2008 recession because the government briefly nationalized it as part of an economic bailout. In a free market GM wouldn’t exist.

letsdothisagain• 3 years ago

It's worth pointing out that the free market would replace it with BYD.

Economics are politics, and as such are a little more complicated than that one chart you saw in high school.

pySSK• 3 years ago

It's a moot point. In a free market, Tesla wouldn't exist either and neither would some of the biggest financial institutions, or the interstate highway system.

HWR_14• 3 years ago

I know customers are dumb and are easily impressed by cheap gadgetry, but why did we have to throw the baby out with the bath water?

Are they impressed by cheap gadgetry? Or is it just no one makes cars without it?

LarryDarrell6• 3 years ago

This is a great question and I actually go back and forth on it myself. I do tend to be harsher to consumers, because that's who I'm around. My friends who work directly at the auto makers or their suppliers like to blame "MBA's". But find me an engineer that doesn't blame it all on MBAs.

justin66• 3 years ago

I am gobsmacked at just how terrible modern vehicles are.

Okay, but in fairness to modern cars as a whole, how long has it been since Chevrolet was considered a high-quality brand by the market? Forty-five years?

greedo• 3 years ago

Even longer than that unless you're lumping Cadillac (or other GM makes) in it.

caycep2• 3 years ago

This brings to mind the CANBUS hack article on HN a few weeks ago...horrifying but fascinating to think you can steal a car by attacking it's IoT headlight..

bdcravens2• 3 years ago

Is that an issue with modern cars, or GM's quality? Overall, American cars have been seen as low quality for decades.

I've had several Toyotas, Hondas, and now a Kia. I know I'm just a dumb guy but they all had "cheap gadgetry". However, what they didn't have was any of the issues you describe.

jjav5• 3 years ago

"lost data connection to the engine"

I've been commenting on this for a while, the current cars are extremely fragile electrically given how everything is interconnected. I had a tail light go out in a BMW, a repair that should cost maybe $1 for a new bulb or in the worst case a few more dollars in new wire. On the BMW? A $1000+ proprietary control module plus access to multi-tens-of-thousands dollars of BMW factory diagnostic equipment to "pair" the new bulb with the new controller. This is all insane if viewed objectively.

The worst part is not the cost, although that stings. A few decades down the road, where is this proprietary bulb control module going to come from? It won't be available from anywhere at any cost.

I get that it's cool to see a new car with all the gadgetry but we should really be thinking longer term here. The lifetime of a car is many decades. The lifetime of electronic gadgetry is a few years, maybe a decade tops. It is perfectly reasonable to daily drive a car from the 80s, but imagine continuing to doing real work on a computer from the 80s today? The lifetimes of cars and electronics are too vastly different, they need to be decoupled.

I confidently predict that a century from now there will still be collectors driving classic cars from the 90s and before, but there will be nearly no cars from the 2020s that remain operational.

I'm sure car manufacturers aren't too unhappy to create a world where everyone throws away their car as often as they throw away their phone, but let's consider the enviromental disaster of this waste.

nyarlathotep_• 3 years ago

People also fail to realize that often dealers are the only source that can even replace these components. Bob's Tire on main is likely not going to be able to troubleshoot nor replace stuff like this when these components start to fail regularly out of warranty in the coming years.

smaccona• 3 years ago

This sort of thing is not limited to Chevy/GM. The new 2023 BMW i7 (starting price ~$120K, fully loaded ~$160K) comes with options for a massive fold-down widescreen cinema in the back seat, and the back seat can turn into a recliner for the ultimate movie experience (I am paraphrasing)[1][2]. My daughter looked at a couple of reviews and said something along the lines of "it's like they thought of every amazing thing they could put in a car, and then went and did all of them". And indeed, the video reviews look very impressive. Then I saw the one from Car Guide[3] in which he mentions that not only when the cinema screen is down in the back, the driver can't see out of the rear view mirror (obvious when you think about it), but also when the back seat is in recliner mode, it folds the front passenger seat forward, and then the passenger headrest completely obscures the passenger wing mirror, so that the driver then has no idea what's going on around the car.

It's clear how superficially impressive the car is looking at the video and from my daughter's reaction (she's a teenager, but I don't think being impressed by this stuff is limited to teenagers, and I confess to a "wow!" moment myself when watching the same video). But the car is failing at its basic functionality: being a car that's safe to drive. Like BMW or not, I don't think this sort of stuff would have happened in the past. It feels like they have lost their way.

From my own perspective, I really dislike the touch-sensitive user interfaces in new cars. Anything that distracts me from looking at the road is bad, and there is really no tactile element to these interfaces (when I rented a Jeep recently, I found myself having to examine the touchscreen when stopped at red lights to learn where the various controls were - granted this can happen in any car, where you have to learn where things are, but at least there aren't usually multiple nested levels of menus - but still having to at least glance at the screen to see where to put my finger, whereas in older cars once you learn where things are you can locate controls by touch and activate them without having to take your eyes off the road).

[1] Review from The Verge with pics of the screen https://www.theverge.com/23686915/bmw-i7-xdrive60-review-pho...

[2] Video review showing all the crazy features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwQvZaqpwDk

[3] Car Guide video review, link to discussion of screen and mirror issues: https://youtu.be/VsvrQSpl-5U?t=497

switch0072• 3 years ago

BMW lost its way when it made an SUV, at the turn of the last century.

Then horrible things like front wheel drive happened in 2004!

Then more odd numbers! 2, 4, 6…!

And then they put a turbo on the M3.

Absolute carnage after 1999 lol

iancmceachern• 3 years ago

"but I am gobsmacked at just how terrible modern vehicles are"

I have a F250 platinum with many similar features, including an electrically operated tailgate and I've had exactly zero issues in 50k miles. Obligatory knock on wood.

dopamean• 3 years ago

This is why I keep a motorcycle for most of my daily usage. I like how dumb it is.

ubermonkey5• 3 years ago

I'm stunned someone like GM could entice anyone from top-tier tech firms AT ALL, regardless of compensation.

bastawhiz• 3 years ago

Some folks really love what they do, and being given the keys to the castle to do what they love the way they want to do it is an awfully enticing opportunity.

kevstev• 3 years ago

Yeah, I mean its one thing to take a seat in a rocketship and go along for the ride, but its quite another from a challenge and career perspective to turn the rocket thats falling to earth around and pointing it in the right direction.

Generally at this stage in my career, I would probably enjoy the latter more. I was a smallish part of two turnarounds like this, and its just a real joy watching people get unshackled. Just stripping away busy work like requiring accounts to get approvals by 3 people (and why not just give everyone in the tech org a gitlab/pagerduty/whatever account and write a script that if they don't use it for a month, its automatically deactivated). Just asking why repeatedly until you finally get to the "scary" person no one wanted to confront who can't give you a good answer so you just say ok, lets just get rid of this... Removing the busy work, getting rid of bureaucracy, which I hear exists in enormous amounts at GM and other automakers... yeah taking that and just turning everything on its head can be wonderfully rewarding.

I would take a job like that again in a heartbeat. And tbh, he is a big enough deal at this point its not like its going to be career ending if he fails. And if he does fail, its likely just going to be from not being given enough authority to make the changes he wants. One kind of argument that may be very difficult to swallow for his upper management- allowing fully remote workers/teams. I am sure there are a lot of people that will want to work on something like this, but not a lot of them are going to want to move to Detroit to do so. So then you pivot to "well are you open to opening an office in the Bay area" and they reply "well that sounds expensive!" and you say... well we can also do it cheap and hire remotely, maybe even save on salaries... and then you get the "but what about [how do we know if they are working|Corporate Culture|That sounds scary" and on and on it goes until someone blinks. Anyway, getting into the weeds, but this is just a small facet of what goes into a role like this, before even getting into anything technical.

todd3834• 3 years ago

Some people like to jump into extremely difficult situations if they think they have enough power to fix them. These situations usually have amazing rewards if you succeed.

throw9away63• 3 years ago

They pay enough money they can probably pick off people that have petered our in their tier 1 company and would have been on the way out anyway

juancn• 3 years ago

He likely was promised an awful lot of power and freedom to do what he thinks it's right. Challenging situations can be fun, specially if you succeed in the end.

foobiekr2• 3 years ago

Compensation and title are basically everything once you leave the IC role. Trampolining through GM is just fine if you want to land at some other mega company after.

IMHO, most tech ICs have literally no idea what comp packages look like when you get out of the bottom and middle. Sure, they know that Pichai is making $220M a year but they recognize that's unusual. Making $10M+ a year, though, isn't that unusual in these big companies once you are an SVP or EVP plus lots of deferred comp perks and so on.

Strategically, you work at tier one companies in order to _facilitate_ these career moves. The FANG/etc.-focused crowd needs to ask themselves what their terminal goals are.

zen_12• 3 years ago

I'm a newgrad, would you mind giving me a rough overview estimate of a full career's comp growth (excluding outliers like HFT)?

What I'm seeing in my cohort is newgrad offers ranging from $100k-$300k/year (FB rockstar return intern offer), with an expected promotion/jobhop to mid level dev in 2 years and then senior in another 2-3 (assuming you do well). What happens after that?

aaplnisider3• 3 years ago

I was an engineering manager in Mike's org. I heard he was pushed out.

Also, at GM he's reporting directly to the CEO whereas at Apple he reported to Eddy Cue who reported to Tim Cook. This move puts him one level closer to the CEO spot.

olliej3• 3 years ago

The problem isn't "can GM make software" (though that is of course _a_ problem). It's "can GM continue to produce updates to a car's entertainment system for years after it was released, including matching new features from Android Auto or CarPlay". I'm not even sure it's a "will", I think it's legitimately a "can they" - the benefit of Android Auto and Car Play is that if a new feature requires improved hardware someone just needs a new phone. If GM needs new hardware for a feature they need at minimum a mechanic visit.

lallysingh3• 3 years ago

I don't see why they would do that. Outside of safety or security updates, why would they? Updated infotainment is a feature of a new car.

olliej3• 3 years ago

Updated infotainment is a feature of a new car.

The whole point of the android and iPhone car thingies is that is not the case. New features no longer require buy a new car, you just get the free software update with your phone, and get whatever new features your phone hardware supports. Maybe you eventually get to the point your phone can no longer provide all the features of the OS update, but if you really want the new features a new phone costs substantially less than a new phone (even the stupid expensive top end ones).

That's why everyone is going "wtf" about GM saying "we're punting android and iOS car APIs". It's not just that car companies don't have a good track record of software design and UI, it's that they don't have any motivation to improve any car after it has been sold.

Zigurd• 3 years ago

It's a strange hire if you focus on software in the car, which GM says is Android Automotive (not Android Auto). He would not know a lot about Android.

But it looks sensible if he is more about cloud services: Dash cam video uploads, content management, etc.

tonymet4• 3 years ago

Quick poll: who here doesn't want infotainment software in their car? How about keeping cars limited to 1990s level logic: basic ICs, fuel / emissions / safety control (abs, airbags).

Something like 1990s Mazda with a japanese-size pickup, miata & basic sedan / hatchback.

freedomben3• 3 years ago

Can't, at least in the US. Regulations won't permit making dumb cars like that anymore.

tonymet4• 3 years ago

This is a big problem, and a major reason why average car cost is ~ $40k now

MrVitaliy• 3 years ago

I don't want to go back to pre-Tesla cruise control. Not the FSD but the basic cruise control they offer that can stop in traffic, keep in the lane and automatically start moving once the car ahead moves.

bdcravens2• 3 years ago

Those features predate Tesla.

https://www.automoblog.net/brief-history-high-tech-safety-fe...

tester756• 3 years ago

Why get rid of 3 decades of security improvements?

tonymet4• 3 years ago

some are good e.g. ABS, ESP, airbags. Some are mixed like backup cameras (low res, poor field of view). Some are distractions like all the climate stuff, gps, complex radio, apps.

You could save all the great stuff and still operate the car with no software, simple firmware, and 2002-era ICs

progbits2• 3 years ago

No infotainment doesn't mean no safety.

Keep the fancy airbags and traction control, adaptive cruise control etc.

Just throw out the garbage custom navigation and radio. It never works well. The display should be simply used for carplay/android auto, and be a black rectangle otherwise.

Maybe sell an addon package to just shove a preconfigured phone into the glove box for people who don't want to tether their device.

shitlord• 3 years ago

The cameras are also helpful in the city, and not just for parking.

neogodless• 3 years ago

I don't care about "infotainment" per se.

But there is information I want, and there is entertainment I want.

I want my readily replaceable phone to be able to connect to a screen that's safe for a driver to view, to display GPS information.

I want my readily replaceable phone to be able to play music through the car's speakers, and allow me access to basic sound playback controls.

Beyond that, I don't care. So do I want no infotainment? No, I can't say that. But this was a solved problem, that is now going to go backwards or get worse depending on the people making decisions for these corporations.

tonymet4• 3 years ago

how about an iPAD mount and a midi interface into the physical keys.

jjav5• 3 years ago

who here doesn't want infotainment software in their car?

I definitely do not want the car to embed any infotainment. It's the wrong place for it.

Any infotainment built into the car is going to be obsolete before you drive out the dealer lot, and laughably so ten years later. But the lifetime of the car itself is many decades. It makes zero sense to join the two.

The car should excel and being a car and I will use a phone or tablet for the infotainment part (which I do anyway, even if the car has some).

recursv_thnkng• 3 years ago

Mike is going to be shocked when he learns the majority of GM's software talent are nearing retirement or are fresh out of college with barely any background in programming. The company isn't the best at enticing and retaining software talent.

raincom2• 3 years ago

At least he can get another $30M c-level job elsewhere. Since the size of the pool of people at his level is small, bigger and better opportunities exist elsewhere. That’s what executive hunters do these days: pedigree, but not the results.

bradlys• 3 years ago

Somehow doubt he’s unaware of this.

I’m sure this move is primarily a financial one paired with wanting a bit of change from being at Apple. He joined Apple a bit over four years ago. I’m guessing whatever his stock grant refresher is wasn’t worth the stay.

cududa• 3 years ago

It's going to utterly fail and he'll get very wealthy off of it and I'm sure he's aware of this.

He's not a product guy by any stretch of the imagination and seems to have a disdain for "all that UI fluff junk" (as he once called some of my work in a pitch meeting).

The company was building database access control tools. He was viscerally offended that we deigned to abstract technical concepts into a graphical interface.

Good luck to him on <checks notes> a graphical interface that abstracts technical concepts for cars.

rqtwteye2• 3 years ago

Reminds me of JCPenney hiring the Apple Store guy. They seem to think that a big name from a functioning organization like Apple can fix their own dysfunctional organization. And pretty much always the new guy will fail because he can’t do miracles in a bad organization.

tmpz222• 3 years ago

And pretty much always the new guy will fail because he can’t do miracles in a bad organization.

Or the individual only appeared talented as a result of the structural support from their original organization.

rqtwteye2• 3 years ago

That's exactly what I meant. They performed well because they were in a high performance environment.

VectorLock5• 3 years ago

Worked with him at Twitter. Doing software at GM seems like the right place for him.

Ex-Apple VP Mike Abbott Joins General Motors as Exec Vice President, Software

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