App Display in 8.0

[PeteP]

While I am hopeful that some of the shortfalls in 8.0 will soon be fixed by Tesla (especially the problems with the Media Player), I am most bothered by the new display protocol for apps which appears to be fully intentional. Before 8.0, when you hit an app button the app appeared in the top half of the screen replacing the app that was currently displayed there. The app in the lower half did not change. For 3 years, this worked great for me as I would keep the map displayed in the lower half and toggle between phone and music in the top half. The new rule is that most apps will display in the bottom half except for maps and the camera. I know that you can manually move them once they are displayed, but that is frustrating and very distracting which is not what you want when you are actually driving the car. Not sure why they could not leave this one alone. Was anyone really complaining about this? Seems like change for the sake of change. That is not a good thing.

 

[hmmm]

I am with you on that...it almost looks like they tried to add as many as many required extra touches/swipes as possible to do things vs. 7.x. You have a good example, add the lack of scrolling, the auto hide of the app menu at the top, removing ways to use the left-hand scroll on the wheel...and I am sure I am missing some.

A bit of Friday morning sarcasm here, but barely

ps: I still think that 8.0 is an improvement overall though.

 

[Xminus6]

I found the change in behavior odd too. Not that this is a solution to that change, but you can tell the app which half of the screen to open into by pressing and holding the button. It brings up a dialogue button with the screen divided horizontally and you can drag the app to which half of the screen you'd like to use. Just in case you never invoked that behavior before.

 

[Gizmotoy]

Yeah, anybody preferring maps/camera on the bottom half of the screen probably isn't happy about this. It doesn't really affect me because I fall within Tesla's use case, but I do think breaking consistency for certain apps is a poor UI decision. It's not intuitive that maps and camera behave differently than the others.

 

[msnow]

Report it to Tesla

 

[SomeJoe7777]

If you click-hold on an icon, you will get a choice of which half of the screen to drop that application in.

 

[Max*]

You can also drag it to the preferred location.

 

[cschock]

I think his point was that the behavior is different and not ideal for some use cases, not that you can't (eventually) make the interface do what you want. I noticed this too today and was annoyed by it. Could not understand why apps were not showing where I wanted them (I was used to single taps to get apps in the top frame, and leaving the bottom frame for the media player, that no longer works and takes me longer and more work with the screen to get what I want.)

 

[RAW84]

While I am hopeful that some of the shortfalls in 8.0 will soon be fixed by Tesla (especially the problems with the Media Player), I am most bothered by the new display protocol for apps which appears to be fully intentional. Before 8.0, when you hit an app button the app appeared in the top half of the screen replacing the app that was currently displayed there. The app in the lower half did not change. For 3 years, this worked great for me as I would keep the map displayed in the lower half and toggle between phone and music in the top half. The new rule is that most apps will display in the bottom half except for maps and the camera. I know that you can manually move them once they are displayed, but that is frustrating and very distracting which is not what you want when you are actually driving the car. Not sure why they could not leave this one alone. Was anyone really complaining about this? Seems like change for the sake of change. That is not a good thing.

I wasn't complaining about this, because it's not that big of a deal, but I'm the opposite of you. I keep the rear view camera on the top screen and like toggle the bottom half, so I love the change. I just wish it worked the nav too.

 

[Ebony Star]

Yeah, anybody preferring maps/camera on the bottom half of the screen probably isn't happy about this. It doesn't really affect me because I fall within Tesla's use case, but I do think breaking consistency for certain apps is a poor UI decision. It's not intuitive that maps and camera behave differently than the others.

Agree, It's not intuitive that maps and camera behave differently than the others.

 

[MSR]

I prefer the change because I like to keep nav on the top screen and toggle the bottom half. IMO, the new behavior makes more sense.

It wasn't change for the sake of change. Having the two apps (nav & rear view camera) closer to the drivers view of the road makes for safer, less distracted driving. Better to change the behavior now than after several hundred thousand Model 3's have been delivered....

 

[bob_p]

The auto-hide feature has created multiple problems. Status information at the top of the display is hidden or hard to see. An extra screen touch is required before doing any screen interactions. And some of the map functionality has been lost. Plus the nav UI changes have made it so some elements are hard to see (the light gray text is difficult to see in some lighting conditions, especially when wearing sunglasses) and the traffic lines can also be difficult to see.

And the media player UI is a mess in multiple areas.

It's pretty clear there isn't anyone who is knowledgeable about user interface usability involved either in the software development or among the beta testers. A good user interface is much more than just making it look pretty - it also needs to be intuitive and minimize the number of screen interactions - especially when used by someone who is also driving the car at the same time!

 

[jcaspar]

I like the change too. It puts the Nav on top so easier to see when driving and takes advantage of the new larger screen with the Apps hidden. I can always drag then to another location if needed. Definitely an improvement for me.

 

[Max*]

And some of the map functionality has been lost.

What has been lost?