I recently had the idea of taking the FireStick 4K Max that I bought ~1year ago for the living room smart OLED TV which is getting a little older, I had gotten ready to take it on a few trips I'm doing this year, thought I was being clever, unfortunately it died a literal week after the warranty, boot looping constantly.
I won't buy another Firestick again, it was atrociously add-riddled and often showing things inappropriate for the kids in the middle of the day, but if generic Android TV stick like that was available with good performance and all the necessary DRM levels, I'd probably use that.
For now, I will just carry an HDMI cable and use my laptop.
Unlike the sibling, I've never encountered a hotel with all ports blocked. But I have encountered hotels where there is no way to choose other ports. In that case, I've just unplugged their STB and plugged my FS in.
This was a bummer just the other day where my iPhone somehow (and I still don't know how) auto-signed into an amazingly fast wifi AP managed by my cell provider, but I was stuck working on crappy guest wifi on my laptop and could not get the laptop onto the better wifi.
No, they are not. When you press "Home" button on your car where does it go? In some cars it goes to CarPlay main screen, in others it goes to car's built-in system main screen. When you press back what happens? When you press Nav/Maps button where does it go? Again, some cars will launch built-in navigation while others will go in whatever last nav app you used in car play. Mazda disables touch screen when car play is enabled (which is good and I like it)
> One interesting use case I saw was a couple where one used a left-to-right interface and the other a right-to-left UI.
That depends on if car was originally made for left-hand or right-hand traffic, some cars allow you to change that (in my BMW it required messing with obd port)
Car makers make money selling cars. Which buyers happily pay five figure suns for. An executive can add to the bottom line by raising sales prices/volumes with a more competitive product, or lowering component costs.
This isn’t some weird social media business with non-paying users and a reliance on ad money.
Getting all my information - calendar, maps history, music, contacts, etc. on a rental car without syncing that info to it is absolutely great.
It's also part of the safety rating of Euro NCAP, and AFAIK China mandated physical buttons for important functions as well.
Yes, you can open the AC screen by tapping the AC button but then you still need use the touch screen for any actual AC adjustments.
It’s a joke that that’s legal. Looking at my phone is illegal, yet it’s many times faster.
Also, the Jaguar F Pace was a big screen with the only knob being the vents, so they did take the majority away.
Also some of their brands had physical buttons all along. I think Skoda never removed them in the Elroq or Enyak.
R.I.P. Anton Yelchin, who brought us joy with his portrayal of Chekov in the Star Trek films, before losing his life at only 27, from a switch poorly masquerading as a brake lever.
(I stick with a manual for my vehicles, so fortunately I'm mostly immunized against the madness.)
https://esv6hz7yeij.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/b...
I wonder which it is.
I have the same car, those are the previous/next buttons.
We're literally talking about a car wheel, how do you get off on it so much?
There's no Play button on the whole wheel? That roller, doesn't it also play/pause when pressed?
This is what set me off:
> Like it's been a case for like 40 years or so?
Am I missing something?
Still, if you are very used to the UI, you can say the music app is one item down from the map, and the phone is two, so you can count presses. I was able to SMS people with a Nokia phone with a hand on the steering wheel and one on the phone (back when it was not forbidden).
Did cars get cheaper when they took all of those out? I certainly didn't notice.
If all it takes to be a good person is spam low-effort high attention virtue signals that's great I will do more of that.
I'm sorry, but I do not buy the "people talk like that" argument. It's anecdotal evidence for me, sure, but I'm waiting for facts.