Audi, your car machine is really sorry for the "luxury brand"!

Audi MIB3, just released and lost!

Author: Xiong Ruifeng

After doing so many periods of intelligent cockpit reviews, the rapid development of the car and machine makes me feel as if I have returned to the original era of mobile phone "change", and the continuous product upgrade is like leaping from a functional machine to a smart machine.

Writing that this will definitely have netizens say, who drives will play with car machines, what is the use of smart car machines? But in fact, today's intelligent cockpit has developed to the point of no longer simply meeting functional needs, the traditional passive interaction (initiated by people) is moving towards active interaction (machines can be actively initiated according to user needs), and more natural and emotional functions are quietly changing our car habits.

As an old driver of car "IT", I have tested no less than a hundred smart car machines, but I never expected that the final "clown" was my own car - Audi A4 (2021 model / B9.5)!

Here to state first, I am not for black and black (after all, this is still my own car), but after doing so many cars and machines, I hope to share the most real intelligent cockpit evaluation experience with everyone!

How deeply you love, how deep you hate

For Audi, I still remember its advertising slogan "breakthrough technology, enlighten the future", indeed in the era of the first Q7, A4 (B7-B8), Audi MMI system whether experience or function does give people an unprecedented experience of science and technology, especially the central MMI physical knob, the click-and-click rotation texture can even make people play all day long.

As we all know, Audi MIB3 is the first batch of Qualcomm 820A processor car platform, its hardware is fully in line with the current mainstream level; and the system part is based on the original MMI, in the sandbox mode external An Android module (H25/H26), that is to say, under MIB3, the MMI system and the Android system belong to a parallel relationship, and the two run in the background at the same time.

Obviously the hardware is not bad!

Normally speaking, the smooth operation of daily cockpit interactions at the Qualcomm 820A hardware level is completely out of the question, but in fact, it may be because of the complex logic of the mib3 dual-system parallel, which allows the processor to take on more complicated operations, resulting in a series of poor user experiences.

The biggest problem is that the MIB3 system is seriously stuck. In fact, audi MIB3 from the earliest 3274 version to the current 3393 version, the system stutter problem has not been completely solved (the 3393 version will be slightly better, but the stutter is still stuttering), such as: in the normal home menu sliding process can obviously feel the system dropped frame stutter; and when clicking on the application, the response of more than two seconds is even more maddening.

In addition, due to the particularity of the suspension screen of Audi A4, A5 and other models, the MIB3 equipped with it cancels the vibration touch screen feedback of the same model as A6 and A8, and only retains the sound feedback, which further amplifies the system caton defect, and the daily feedback sound after clicking on the screen is not immediately emitted, but needs to react for a period of time (which makes me collapse with obsessive-compulsive disorder).

For a smart cockpit must be necessary for the "OTA online upgrade" function, MIB3 is not supported in the entire series, most users can only upgrade by returning to the 4S store after-sales upgrade, and for users with strong hands-on ability, they can copy the installation package like the mobile phone in the same year and enter the brush mode to manually upgrade.

App in addition to looking at the amount of oil, there is nothing good to use!

In addition, on the remote control module, the experience of MIB3 is even more difficult to say, and can only realize the functions of remote oil viewing, locking car status, vehicle location, etc., and does not support more practical remote car ventilation and remote start.

They are all about forgetting that the app market exists

In the third-party application development, Audi MIB3 does have a small advantage in the number of applications compared to the almost naked Mercedes-Benz MBUX, but it is not known that the development time is too hurried, and the only third-party application for MMI does not carry out UI visual unification, but the car version of the interface is copied up, resulting in confusion in the interaction logic of various APP applications, and the learning cost increases sharply.

At the same time, many applications often encounter the problem of no return key, can only click the Home button in the left column to return to the home page, and then re-enter the application to be used normally (such logic, I am afraid that hundreds of yuan of Android large-screen car machine can not do).

Perennial application is not updated, it is a decoration

What's more disturbing is that although the Audi MIB3 comes with third-party applications such as AutoNavi Map and Baidu Map in the self-contained application market, it has never been updated since I bought the car for a year, and the word "updatable" on the side is particularly glaring.

For example: the current official version of the AutoNavi map car machine version is V6.1.0, and most of the versions equipped with the car machine are at least above the V5.0.0 version, and the Gaode equipped with MIB3 is only V3.0, which is even if Audi's car suppliers have forgotten the existence of the application market, and the V3 version of the rider's various feedback Caton, can not be connected, drop GPS signal and other BUG problems make people simply unusable.

I think there will definitely be users who say at this time, don't be afraid of Carplay! But in fact, Audi's tuning of wireless Carplay is far from BMW, you can imagine carplay piloting on the high speed, but often inexplicably black screen disconnection, only to restart the car to return to normal, this feeling is heartbreaking (in order to eliminate the problem of mobile phones, tried to replace multiple iPhones, but the problem is still the same).

What a voice system that can't do

If you think the above problems can actually be understood, then the next machine problem can definitely resonate with every Audi owner.

At present, with the emergence of various new forces players, intelligent voice technology has been iteratively updated throughout the year, so that now the car voice system has become an indispensable function of the intelligent cockpit, and Audi from the first generation of MMI, the intelligent voice system seems to be not easy to use, especially to today's MIB3, once the defect is further amplified by comparison.

It is understood that the intelligent voice system equipped with MIB3 is jointly provided by Nuance Nuance and Volkswagen Q&A, and the relationship between the two is like the above MMI and Android are parallel relationships, and the problem comes from this. Although the MIB3 voice wake-up speed has an excellent level, but the actual dialogue response ability is unexpectedly slow, such as the user input a voice command, the system actually needs to run in the background of both the New ons and the public to ask both sides at the same time, and then the feedback information of the two is unified, and finally presented to the user, and this logic also leads to the voice response is surprisingly slow, the user waiting time of more than 10 seconds.

Poor support features

At the same time, the MIB3 speech system also has serious flaws in its understanding of "natural dialogue", and cannot recognize the semantic judgment supported by a series of normal speech systems such as "I am cold" and "I am hot", and the reply given is only "please say it again".

Since natural dialogue can't be done, let alone higher-order voice windowing, air conditioning adjustment, music search, etc., this cannot be achieved anyway.

What's more worth mentioning is that voice navigation can only support MMI with its own map, and can't support AutoNavi/Baidu maps (I can't understand, so why do you have to set the default map option of MMI/AutoNavi/Baidu); and the self-contained AutoNavi and Baidu maps do not support mapping on the full LCD dashboard, not to mention the Carplay Apple Maps dashboard/head-up display dual mapping function that BMW has long owned.

Write at the end

To be honest, I wrote this article with tears in my eyes, because I am an Audi fan myself, and I have no less than 4 Audi models, which is enough to prove that I have a strong brand love for Audi.

Although the release of Audi MIB3 can see that Audi is indeed actively embracing intelligence and introducing more third-party functions, it has not been repaired and improved after the release, which seems to let us see that Audi still can't let go of the "pride" of luxury brands.

Not too much to say, this series of problems Audi did not show as a luxury brand should be after-sales attitude, to know that the above problems have appeared in a span of more than 1 year, while in the forums, car friends and platforms, car friends after-sales feedback and suggestions have not stopped, but Audi official did not make any reply.

My heartfelt hope: Audi, please don't live up to the fans' belief in your brand.

In addition, in the next issue, I will test the FAW-Volkswagen model, which is also based on MIB3, to see if FAW-Volkswagen can surprise us!