My wife and I listen to XM more often than other sources and we are both really frustrated with the 8.0 Media Player. I posted these observations in another thread, so apologies for this (way too long) re-run, but here's what I've found (I sent this to Tesla, but considering all the complaints that both the Media Player and Nav have generated over the years, I'm not very hopeful that any of this will be addressed in a timely manner.)
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I’d like to provide some feedback on the updated Media Player on 8.0, which my wife and I received on our Model S this week.
My hope is that you can share this feedback with the software team responsible for updating the Media Player, which has the potential (thanks to the 17 inch display) to be a fantastic piece of software with an industry-leading interface.
As it currently exists, the 8.0 media player is a really frustrating user experience. It's simply not designed to be seriously used by someone while operating a car, and seems primary geared towards those who listen to streaming media, rather than those who listen to music via other sources (terrestrial and non-terrestrial radio or via USB).
I can't comment on the frustration that other drivers have had with listening to music on USB devices, as we primarily use the media player to listen to the radio -- a mixture of AM, FM, and XM channels.
So here's what I've discovered using the Media Player to listen to the radio:
1. While we finally have the ability to store more than 6 'favorite' channels, it's impossible to re-organize any of these "favorites" in anything but the order that they were entered. (They do automatically self-sort into 4 categories, presented in this order: AM, FM, XM, and Streaming. So I guess that's a victory for the lone AM traffic-and-news station I listen to on occasion, which will always be presented as my #1 "favorite" channel.)
But it's impossible to reorganize any of these channels (within their specific category) after you've made them a 'favorite'.
I'd love the ability to just press and drag each "favorite" channel icon to reorganize our favorites, and create a mixture of different sources (rather than presenting them in separate categories).
One of the reasons I want this ability is because my wife and I have different tastes in music, and without the ability to tie in these favorites to an individual driver profile (my #1 feature request -- it would be so great if media and nav preferences were stored in driver profiles!), I just want to be able to "swipe" across a list of my wife's favorite channels to get to my "favorites" list.
My workaround was to carefully "favorite" each channel we wanted (in reverse order, because the last channel I entered would show up as our #1 favorite on the list).
But I dread the day we want to 'add' a channel favorite, which means if I want to keep it organized, I'd have to wipe out all of our favorites in that category and start entering "favorites" again from scratch.
I can't believe our magical electrical supercar is this dumb when it comes to creating a list of favorite channels, as using channel favorites is the fastest (and therefore safest) method of selecting what you want to listen to on the radio when driving the car.
Perhaps software resources are stretched thin due to all the care that Autopilot and other systems are receiving (and I love Autopilot), but while I only use Autopilot on occasion, I’m *always* using to the Media Player when I drive. I think it could just be so much better — something else I can show off in the car that would really help add to the driving experience.
2. As so many other drivers have noted, the XM channels are unlabeled on our favorites list (all you see is the channel number), so you only get the title of the channel when the channel itself is selected and playing. (For most radio sources, terrestrial and non-terrestrial, the artwork that gets assigned to the small “icons” we now see is often mixed up, also adding to the confusion).
There's also, as far as I know, no easily available screen that shows a "master list" of labeled XM stations. Instead, the channels seem to be organized in an index that's based on categories (to find a list of rock stations, for example, you have to hunt for the "rock" category, tap, and then make your selection. All of this takes your eyes off the road for way too long.)
But if I have a specific station number that I want to get to that I had never listened to before (for example, XM Channel 117), the only way to navigate to this channel without going through categories is to tap an arrow 117 times to get to this channel.
I do remember a moment where I was swiping around (this interface is all about swiping around) and found a list of XM channels that were displayed as icons -- one that would require a lot of swiping to get through -- but the system, in my opinion, would be so much easier to browse using a simple master list that shows channel number, channel name, channel category, and currently playing (for example: 20, E Street Radio, Rock, "Thunder Road”).
I also have been unable to find the current "icon list" XM stations a 2nd time, which only demonstrates how incredibly difficult it is to find intuitively. Trying to find, read, and choose from this list of stations while safely driving is just impossible.
3. Media source selection missing from instrument cluster -- this function, which we had when we purchased the car on 7.0, needs to be brought brought back with the next update.
It's simply so much easier and, more importantly, *safer* to make this change from the steering wheel, while keeping your eyes forward, rather than averting your eyes to the 17" display if you want to switch from AM to XM or whatever-to-whatever. I have to believe this feature was dropped as part of a bug, because otherwise why remove such a useful feature?
Thanks so much for reading (and apologies for such a lengthy message). As both a Tesla driver and a Tesla investor, I believe that your company is devoted to always making improvements, and I'd be happy to answer any related questions you might have regarding my user experience with 8.0.