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Spotify is going to break every Car Thing gadget it ever sold (www.theverge.com)

submitted 5 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] simplejack@lemmy.world 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

To be fair, next to no one bought this. And the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

This is basically a dumb android device with one app - an auto friendly version of Spotify. To use it, you need to pair it to your phone via Bluetooth. So, yeah, it assumes you have a phone in your car with Spotify on it.

Also it costs about as much as a cheap externally mounted CarPlay or Android auto screen. So, yeah. Not great.

If you want to put auto friendly app UIs in an older car, go get a cheap CarPlay or AA display. Those are platforms that have been around for a decade, and Apple & Google have long partnership agreements with automakers that are likely to ensure those platforms will be supported for years to come. Hell, Apple is still supporting ancient iPod connection protocols 20+ years later.

This thing was the Rabbit R1, but for a music streaming app.

[–] mPony@lemmy.world 41 points 5 months ago (1 children)

the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer

maybe, but even stupid people should be protected from being taken advantage of.
They should at least get a refund of 50% of the purchase price.

[–] Hexarei@programming.dev 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Honestly this thing solved a very specific problem for me: My car has no good way to mount a phone for car usage so I've always kept it in the center console. Car Thing just put a remote on my dash for that with buttons for presets and easy song skipping.

I only got it for $10 though, and that was two years ago. It has convinced me to get a new head unit with Android Auto support on it for sure