Petition to demand "camera on top, media player on bottom" be retained in UI

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

look, I get why people are upset.

they feel like something was taken away from them. that can be a bitter pill to swallow.

all i'm saying is that there is a reason for the streamlining of the interface in V9.

for me, V8 had features I did not need. was it easy for me to ignore them/not use them?

sure.

are people upset b/c Tesla is dictating how the UI should be used?

sure.

but the manufacturer has a right to manipulate the user experience of their product.

you don't like it?

get another product.

I thought that the maps on all the time was added drain on the processor, causing the music to stutter and also making the touchscreen slower to respond? If Version 9 doesn't have those issues I could probably live with it. I'll still probably wait till they add a feature that makes it worth the risk of possible disappointment. I'm very happy with my current UI.

 

[Galve2000]

I thought that the maps on all the time was added drain on the processor, causing the music to stutter and also making the touchscreen slower to respond?

I don't think this is an accurate statement.

it's funny -- most of the car's I have driven in the past 15 years have included in car Nav. they share this screen with Media controls and other functions but I -- and I believe all the members of my immediate family -- have kept the Nav always on regardless.

I just don't understand why people can't see that Tesla is mimicking how people traditionally use their cars.

If you don't use your rear camera on top I feel you are not using your car to it's potential (properly)

I tried this back in the day and I found the camera always on was distracting, and what's more, it made me dizzy. I applaud the rest of you who think it makes the car safer to look at the rear camera while driving the car forward, but I humbly urge you to keep your eyes on the road in front of you while you are driving.

 

[trm2]

it's funny -- most of the car's I have driven in the past 15 years have included in car Nav. they share this screen with Media controls and other functions but I -- and I believe all the members of my immediate family -- have kept the Nav always on regardless.

I just don't understand why people can't see that Tesla is mimicking how people traditionally use their cars.

Most of the cars I've had also had nav and I only use nav about 1% of the time - when going somewhere I'm not familiar with. I don't know anyone that has nav up when not using it - ever. To me, Tesla isn't mimicking how people traditionally use their cars.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

This is getting absurd! You like the rear camera up all the time so everyone must do so or they aren't driving correctly? How about those of us who learned to drive using correctly adjusted mirrors?

I don't even have multi-lane roads where I live so blind spots aren't an issue. Why would I want to watch the cars behind me beyond what I can see in my mirrors? Because you deem it "using your car to it's potential (properly)"? What rubbish!


Regardless, Tesla fixed the rear camera-on-top concern months ago, in a rather rapid response to the complaints of owners, such as those in this thread. The concern now is that one can't select which apps are displayed where, and the maps are always in the background. Also, the custom HVAC controls are less useful and harder to select than in V8. Valid concerns IMO. I can understand why Tesla is making the software more like the Model 3 but I don't much like it, even though I always drove with navigation up anyway.

rubbish...lol
I knew it was a somewhat absurd comment (Not!)...got to try and get some disagrees..
My mirrors are adjusted properly. I have no blind spots with them. The Camera is in a quicker position to glance at in some situations..And, here it the big difference - Rear camera shows the position of the front end of cars in relation to the rear of my car. Does you mirror do that? NO
this allows for potential emergency maneuvers although I always try to keep between gaps in cars on each side of me + rarely drive in areas with much traffic.
Of course I agree that 'camera on top' is not for everyone. It could be a distraction to some. It makes my wife carsick. I love it
just wish the camera had a wiper

I did send a request to exec, and yes they did improve V9 a bit. just not enough

 

[kavyboy]

I thought that the maps on all the time was added drain on the processor, causing the music to stutter and also making the touchscreen slower to respond?

I don't think this is an accurate statement.

There were confirmed reports that bringing up the drawing Easter egg (which suppresses the map background) would cause the stuttering and lag to stop. Also, after some distance and time, dismissing the drawing app caused the nav arrow to be incorrect, and it would slowly migrate on the map to the current location. This indicates that the Easter egg app is, indeed, keeping the nav from updating, suggesting that the nav is the cause of the stutter.

 

[f-stop]

There were confirmed reports that bringing up the drawing Easter egg (which suppresses the map background) would cause the stuttering and lag to stop. Also, after some distance and time, dismissing the drawing app caused the nav arrow to be incorrect, and it would slowly migrate on the map to the current location. This indicates that the Easter egg app is, indeed, keeping the nav from updating, suggesting that the nav is the cause of the stutter.

I confirm that in my case (70D w/ MCU1, v9 2018.48.12.1) I can still hear occasional stuttering/audio glitches in Slacker streaming audio if the map is in the background partially visible behind the music player and rear camera near the top. This only started for me with v9 - it seems improved slightly since initial v9 versions I had, but still not 100% fixed.

OTOH, I have yet to EVER notice the same audio glitches if I have the easter egg sketchpad obscurring the map (likewise in the background with music player and camera on top), even if I drive for days with the map hidden. I have tested the two cases a lot (map visible vs hidden with sketchpad)

Also, while I did originally have some severe touchscreen lagginess in some specific USB music player screens starting with v9 2018.40, that problem went away with 48.12.1 update. So I can't otherwise speak about any other touchscreen lag in current v9 version. There does however remain random font corruption and occasional screen lockup for me with 48.12.1

The Slacker audio glitches are brief and you might miss them if not listening carefully (or have a tin ear), but they're there, as I said, ever since v9.

My car was recently in for service for a couple other unrelated things. I asked Service to look into the Slacker audio glitches, but they "could not reproduce" the problem, even though I let them keep the car an extra day so the technician could take it on a drive overnight to/from work. They instead claimed it was perhaps due to LTE signal briefly dropping out, and suggested they need additional data - asked me to log the date/time of future occurences and issue a voice bug report. For the record I've noted the LTE signal icon at times of the audio glitches and the problem occurs whether 1 bar or at 3 or 4 bars so I doubt signal strength is the real cause - and anyhow it doesn't explain how the problem goes away when you obscure the useless map. (btw I've never noticed the nav arrow doesn't get updated while the map is hidden with sketchpad... I'll check that later.)

after picking up my car from service, almost immediately experienced the audio glitches again - and recorded several voice bug reports to mark when they occurred, followed up with email to service with time/date of the glitches. But as expected, just crickets - no followup response from Service - that's been my usual experience trying to report various UI or music player bugs over the past 3 years...

I listen to music 100% of the time while driving, so I wish they'd fix this and many other several-year-old bugs in the USB music player - meanwhile I certainly don't need or want maps visible 100% of the time, nor do I need the amusing but otherwise mostly useless easter eggs (with exception of the sketchpad, which fixes the Slacker glitches!!)

 

[P100D_Me]

Also, while I did originally have some severe touchscreen lagginess in some specific USB music player screens starting with v9 2018.40, that problem went away with 48.12.1 update.

FWIW, the 48.12.1 update in my car and many others broke Spotify logins (again), the USB audio was so glitchy it was unusable. And when I say glitchy it was like the mp3 decoder or buffer could not keep up and a song would just skip a few seconds ahead with a horrible digital glitch sound. Tune-in radio thankfully kept working (unless the car did a WiFi - 3G handover then it would stop, eg leaving home).
So all in all I'm still wondering how they managed to do a mass roll out of such a bad update, I found myself at times just listening to FM because any of the other options were too frustrating or distracting to deal with.

 

[tccartier]

There were confirmed reports that bringing up the drawing Easter egg (which suppresses the map background) would cause the stuttering and lag to stop. Also, after some distance and time, dismissing the drawing app caused the nav arrow to be incorrect, and it would slowly migrate on the map to the current location. This indicates that the Easter egg app is, indeed, keeping the nav from updating, suggesting that the nav is the cause of the stutter.

Spot on! I saw that behavior (slow moving NAV arrow) making it's way to the car's location. Didn't connect the dots at the time.

 

[f-stop]

There were confirmed reports that bringing up the drawing Easter egg (which suppresses the map background) would cause the stuttering and lag to stop. Also, after some distance and time, dismissing the drawing app caused the nav arrow to be incorrect, and it would slowly migrate on the map to the current location. This indicates that the Easter egg app is, indeed, keeping the nav from updating, suggesting that the nav is the cause of the stutter.

I just tested this and confirm the 2nd half of your statement above (underlined) is also true - hiding the map with the sketchpad does indeed prevent updates of the nav arrow location until quite a few seconds after you dismiss the sketchpad and allow the map to reappear behind the music/camera windows. I had not noticed that before you mentioned it.

BTW while testing this, a short while after I dismissed the sketchpad I started hearing more Slacker audio glitches - this after having the sketchpad hiding the map for several days continuously and hearing zero glitches. That can't just be a coincidence or bad luck...

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Too bad Elon didn't mention fixing this during the earnings report. Hopefully this falls under customer service improvements
.

 

[f-stop]

BTW here's one other thing that seems not quite right, after original v9 first took away the any-two-apps-anwhere-on-the-screen, then kinda brought a crippled version of that back with subsequent v9 update (e.g. 2018.48.12.1 which my car is on):

So let's say you have v9 set up with rear camera stacked on top of the music player, normally visible all the time when driving.

If at any time you bring up the charging screen, the stacked music player + rear camera view slide down all the way and temporarily disapppear (a gratuitous UI animation, if you ask me). When you dismiss the charging screen the stacked music player + camera slide back up into view. No problem there, in itself...

...but let's additionally say you're parked, and then bring up the charging screen to check it, but then put the car into Reverse with charging screen still up - the rear camera view does NOT come on the screen at all in this case.

So you can drive in Reverse all you want but you'll never get the rear camera IF the charging screen is visible and you were normally using rear camera stacked above music player. It's as if in this state the screen assumes the rear camera is already up (in fairness the camera video stream is still probably busy/open even though its window isn't visible after sliding down to hide). Of course dismissing the charging screen brings the stacked music+camera back up into view. BTW if you have any 2nd app OTHER than the camera stacked above the music player, putting the car into Reverse always brings up the rear camera while backing up.

I stumbled upon this a few times after v9 update and at first didn't realize why the rear camera sometimes wasn't coming on while backing up the car.

Of course I can't verify now that I'm on v9, but I don't recall ever seeing a situation in v8 or v7 where the rear camera view was not on screen while the car was in Reverse. Can anyone still on v8 or earlier confirm there's similar effect with the camera and charging screen?

 

[thecloud]

Can anyone still on v8 or earlier confirm there's similar effect with the camera and charging screen?

Confirmed; the behavior on v8 is essentially what you described.
1. Started with the rear camera on top and music player on bottom.
2. Brought up the charging screen by pressing the lightning-bolt icon.
3. Put the car into Reverse.
Result: charging screen did not go away, nor did the camera appear in front of it.
4. Dismissed the charging screen.
Result: camera app remained in top half of screen, but now has an icon of a traffic cone (which will expand to show the parking sensor view).

 

[f-stop]

Confirmed; the behavior on v8 is essentially what you described.
1. Started with the rear camera on top and music player on bottom.
2. Brought up the charging screen by pressing the lightning-bolt icon.
3. Put the car into Reverse.
Result: charging screen did not go away, nor did the camera appear in front of it.
4. Dismissed the charging screen.
Result: camera app remained in top half of screen, but now has an icon of a traffic cone (which will expand to show the parking sensor view).

ok thanks for confirming. so false alarm, my apologies this isn't new behviour introduced with v9.
With v8 I also used to keep camera on top with music on bottom, but somehow never ran into camera not being visible while backing up.

back to the other usual rants about v9

 

[Galve2000]

reminds me of the FaceTime snooping bug that's been making the rounds in the news lately...

if you do a FaceTime group call, and then invite a 3rd into the group chat, and then rub your nose with you left hand while simultaneously rubbing your belly with your right, and hit the sleep button on the iPhone.. then the phone will connect and snoop and you won't be the wizer..

how do people discover these things??

 

[f-stop]

as for the easter egg trick to get rid of v9 Slacker audio glitches, I learned about that elsewhere on TMC, I was merely confirming the workaround. Tesla service meanwhile doesn't acknowledge the problem exists.

but re: the rear camera behaviour I noted above, the answer how I discovered it is easy

I stumbled onto this by

a) backing out of my garage one morning immediately after checking the charging screen, and then wondering why the heck isn't the rear camera on the screen while the car is reversing

but more importantly...

b) paying more attention (apparently) than Tesla software engineers on how the driver and touchscreen UI interact in the car ... not just on paper or developer's PC screen --- which is kinda the point of this whole thread

 

[P100D_Me]

b) paying more attention (apparently) than Tesla software engineers on how the driver and touchscreen UI interact in the car ... not just on paper or developer's PC screen

You should join the public pre-release software beta team for Tesla...oh wait, we are all beta testers by default.

 

[aesculus]

So you can drive in Reverse all you want but you'll never get the rear camera IF the charging screen is visible and you were normally using rear camera stacked above music player. It's as if in this state the screen assumes the rear camera is already up (in fairness the camera video stream is still probably busy/open even though its window isn't visible after sliding down to hide). Of course dismissing the charging screen brings the stacked music+camera back up into view. BTW if you have any 2nd app OTHER than the camera stacked above the music player, putting the car into Reverse always brings up the rear camera while backing up.

I stumbled upon this a few times after v9 update and at first didn't realize why the rear camera sometimes wasn't coming on while backing up the car.

I reported this to Tesla a few weeks ago as a safety issue. This was their reply:

Thank you for writing in about the reverse camera. This is something that our techs will look into. We do want our customers to be safe and the back up camera is important for that.

We appreciate the feedback.

 

[P100D_Me]

I reported this to Tesla a few weeks ago as a safety issue.

Nice that you got a response, did you just Email them? If so what address?

 

[f-stop]

I reported this to Tesla a few weeks ago as a safety issue. This was their reply:

Good to hear.

Just curious, where did you report this that you were able to get a response?
[edit - oops I see P100D_Me beat me to the same question before I clicked "post", apologies for the duplicate question....]

I’ve reported a few bugs over past few years to [email protected], and never ever got a response, not even a polite robo-message saying they got my mail. I’m convinced their email is usually connected to >/dev/null

 

[aesculus]

Nice that you got a response, did you just Email them? If so what address?

Just [email protected]

It took them about 10 days to respond but they did.