Spotify refuses to fix a bad driving hazard, calls it a feature instead.

[Drak3]

Just now, Otto_iii said:

clearly the app promotes such behavior when plugged in

No, it doesn't.

 

To state otherwise is to come from a position void of personal responsibility or forethought.

[Kisai]

9 hours ago, Sypran said:

I absolutely hate "features" like this.

Because they always assume you are the driver. Because your phone is the one connected to the car. No I am the passenger and as the passenger, I am the one who controls what songs we listen to, I am the one responsible to inputting the new destination into the GPS exc.

 

That sometimes means though, I am using the drivers phone to do so. Cause setting up a new blutooth connection on a car is annoying... or flat out disabled while moving because again its assuming the driver is doing it and NOT the passenger.

Sure the car can't tell who is trying to operate the touch screen, but it can tell that someone is in the passenger seat because it will have an alarm if they unbuckle their seatbelt.

 

This is what makes the "face ID" on apple phones actually pretty good, since the driver can't activate it, but a passenger using their phone in the passenger seat can. 

 

Now, certainly features can be modified to adapt here.

 

 

Option 1 - Car activity

A) When the phone is moving faster than running speed, dim, then lock the screen.

B) A user who is in the passenger seat, or in the back seat, or on a seat on a bus/train etc, would then just respond to the screen dimming the first time, and display a message indicating current travel speed, and input will be locked out unless the device is plugged in to the car.

C) If the device is plugged into the car, it defaults to "car controls".  The vehicle will notify the phone if it's in gear and not allow the phone to be unlocked unless it's in park or the parking brake is pulled. If the device is not plugged into the car while moving, then it assumes that it's being handled dangerously and locks until movement stops.

 

Option 2 - Transit activity

A) When a phone is moving faster than running speed, subject to a geofence, dim, then lock the screen until the device has come to a complete stop

B) When the vehicle selected is "transit", (eg a taxi, bus/train or airplane check-in event is registered), the phone will operate as normal until the check-out event.

C) When you arrive at saved Geofence locations, the phone will return to normal once the telemetry says you've stopped moving, even if a check-out is missed.

 

The operational difference here, is that if you're not on transit, the phone would lock once speed is greater than running speed outside the home/work/school geofence. Check-in events are easily registered by transit fare cards, or pre-paid fares on credit cards, or even having the transit operator have a scheduling app so it knows what train you're on.

 

Option 3: edge case activity

A) When the phone computes the telemetry every 30 seconds while moving, if the device sees that you're on the road/sidewalk, it will lock the screen to prevent both distracted driving AND distracted walking/running unless you've moved less than 3 ft in the last 30 seconds. If the phone sees you are not outside, it allows more leeway before locking (such as elevator's vertical movement)

B) Apple Whitelists applications (eg Spotify, Apple Music, etc) that are permitted to show controls while moving and locked, but don't unlock the screen while in motion. Handsfree/bluetooth controls are permitted to access the same controls (typically volume and track skip.)

 

In the grand scheme of things, people would just not take risks with their phones and put them away when in the drivers seat, or walking/running. You may want to listen to music, but then you have people who text and take calls, and so forth.

 

Which brings me to the final, easiest Option:

A) If the phone is moving, lockout just the keyboard so the user can't fiddle/text with it. Spotify, and such should have the track skip on the lockscreen, and that's it.

B) If a phone call or text message comes in, pipe the audio to the connected carkit/bluetooth kit, but not allow "speakerphone" or "handset" mode.

[Otto_iii]

1 hour ago, Drak3 said:

To state otherwise is to come from a position void of personal responsibility or forethought.

It comes from a place of understanding reality of human psychology rather then some ideal of a dystopian cyberpunk future where one would never submit to their instincts whether as a accident or not, one that denies the fact human want always outweighs 100% responsibility 

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, Otto_iii said:

It comes from a place of understanding reality of human psychology rather then some ideal

It REALLY doesn't.

[Otto_iii]

1 hour ago, Drak3 said:

It REALLY doesn't.

heavy must be the crown of righteousness 

[Drak3]

Just now, Otto_iii said:

heavy must be the crown of righteousness 

Your statement doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It outright denies most of the history of Human civilization.

 

At the end of the day, Spotify is avoiding enabling a reckless and selfish action. If the user circumvents that, and dies or kills someone else as a result, it is solely their fault. Spotify bears no fault, no burden, no responsibility.

[Zodiark1593]

28 minutes ago, Kisai said:

This is what makes the "face ID" on apple phones actually pretty good, since the driver can't activate it, but a passenger using their phone in the passenger seat can. 

 

Now, certainly features can be modified to adapt here.

 

 

Option 1 - Car activity

A) When the phone is moving faster than running speed, dim, then lock the screen.

B) A user who is in the passenger seat, or in the back seat, or on a seat on a bus/train etc, would then just respond to the screen dimming the first time, and display a message indicating current travel speed, and input will be locked out unless the device is plugged in to the car.

C) If the device is plugged into the car, it defaults to "car controls".  The vehicle will notify the phone if it's in gear and not allow the phone to be unlocked unless it's in park or the parking brake is pulled. If the device is not plugged into the car while moving, then it assumes that it's being handled dangerously and locks until movement stops.

 

Option 2 - Transit activity

A) When a phone is moving faster than running speed, subject to a geofence, dim, then lock the screen until the device has come to a complete stop

B) When the vehicle selected is "transit", (eg a taxi, bus/train or airplane check-in event is registered), the phone will operate as normal until the check-out event.

C) When you arrive at saved Geofence locations, the phone will return to normal once the telemetry says you've stopped moving, even if a check-out is missed.

 

The operational difference here, is that if you're not on transit, the phone would lock once speed is greater than running speed outside the home/work/school geofence. Check-in events are easily registered by transit fare cards, or pre-paid fares on credit cards, or even having the transit operator have a scheduling app so it knows what train you're on.

 

Option 3: edge case activity

A) When the phone computes the telemetry every 30 seconds while moving, if the device sees that you're on the road/sidewalk, it will lock the screen to prevent both distracted driving AND distracted walking/running unless you've moved less than 3 ft in the last 30 seconds. If the phone sees you are not outside, it allows more leeway before locking (such as elevator's vertical movement)

B) Apple Whitelists applications (eg Spotify, Apple Music, etc) that are permitted to show controls while moving and locked, but don't unlock the screen while in motion. Handsfree/bluetooth controls are permitted to access the same controls (typically volume and track skip.)

 

In the grand scheme of things, people would just not take risks with their phones and put them away when in the drivers seat, or walking/running. You may want to listen to music, but then you have people who text and take calls, and so forth.

 

Which brings me to the final, easiest Option:

A) If the phone is moving, lockout just the keyboard so the user can't fiddle/text with it. Spotify, and such should have the track skip on the lockscreen, and that's it.

B) If a phone call or text message comes in, pipe the audio to the connected carkit/bluetooth kit, but not allow "speakerphone" or "handset" mode.

Couldn't this all be bypassed by restricting or disabling GPS outright? Surely, most commuters probably aren't using Maps anyway. GPS is disabled 99% of the time on my own device (because Google Services sometimes use it, and I'd prefer to avoid the battery drain running GPS incurs).

 

Also, the way the above options are worded, there is little distinguishing passanger from driver. Pretty much if you're in motion, in control or not, the phone is a paperweights. Am I close?

[Kisai]

11 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Couldn't this all be bypassed by restricting or disabling GPS outright? Surely, most commuters probably aren't using Maps anyway. GPS is disabled 99% of the time on my own device (because Google Services sometimes use it, and I'd prefer to avoid the battery drain running GPS incurs).

 

Also, the way the above options are worded, there is little distinguishing passanger from driver. Pretty much if you're in motion, in control or not, the phone is a paperweights. Am I close?

 

If you turn the GPS off, the phone still has the inertial sensors from the accelerometers (that's how it knows you've made so many steps per day) , stop-and-go traffic can still be identified without GPS, WiFi or Bluetooth turned on via the accelerometer but it would probably fall back to the 3G/LTE/WiFi telemetry instead since you need that for Spotify and Apple Music to work. At least for streaming. The actual GPS hardware is rarely invoked on a smartphone unless there is less than three towers within range. GPS needs at least 5 of 12 data points to function, and that still only works outside. Thus that's how the phone can tell if you're inside or outside, as the GPS signal will be absent indoors.

 

Mind you the goal in distracted driving laws to to prevent you from fiddling with the device and hence taking your eyes off the road. Simply having the phone not permanently attached to the car, or out of your reach is enough to get a fine. My mom leaves her phone in her purse in the back seat while the BT connection to the car tells her if someone calls/texts. Which she can listen to the text on the car's system (Siri style voice.)

 

Anyhow, if you're a passenger in a car, the fact that you can unlock the phone easily is enough to identify the passenger from the driver, particularly faceID.

 

If you're a passenger on transit, you'd want the transit ride (eg connecting to the free WiFi) to notify the phone that you're riding, not driving. Sure that could probably be spoofed, but a cop could also check for that too.

 

The Ford vehicles disable the keyboard input while the vehicle is in motion, this is the simplest solution and targets the worst known behaviors (texting) but it's also annoying because the passenger can't enter/change the GPS destination. There are multiple places in the Ford system that disables text-entry, or even some menu options while the vehicle is moving (though still in gear.)

 

Like just having de-facto WiFi beacons in cars and transit would be enough for phones to be able to tell if they are in a car or transit vehicle. eg "TRANSLINK" as a Free WiFI name in Metro Vancouver and then having it one-time authorize the phone like it would with the ShawOpen access point. So if the phone is connected to that AP, it could have a "get vehicle and gps" ping that the bus/train would respond with. Where as when connected to  your car, your car can't make that distinction. Likewise for the Seabus/BC Ferries/Airplanes and so forth. Connecting to the Free WiFi tells the phone you're a passenger if it responds to the vehicle type and gps request. Unless you're driving the bus itself (Which, we will leave that question to the "why would you endanger people when driving a bus")

 

At the end of the day, still, the simplest solution is to just disable the keyboard while moving, doesn't matter if you're driving or the passenger, the goal is to discourage dangerous behavior, not turn it into a game.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Otto_iii said:

Never thought i'd see the day where a music-player would potentially cause risk of life and limb. 

Gonna have to agree with @Drak3 here.

If you are driving a car and decide to fiddle with your phone rather than pay attention to the road, then it's not the app's fault if an accident occurs. It's your fault. You as the driver is the one causing risk of life and limb when you decide to shift focus away from the road and onto something else.

Imagine if we applied the same standards to other apps.

"Yes your honor. I know I mowed down 3 people but it's not my fault. I was sending a text message to a friend so clearly it's the messaging app's fault it happened. It's human nature to text and drive so therefore I bear no responsibility. Blame the message app developers or my carrier instead".

 

In fact, I'd even go as far as to say that if you genuinely believe you are not responsible for an accident caused by using a phone instead of paying attention on the road, then you are unfit to have a drivers license.

[Otto_iii]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Gonna have to agree with @Drak3 here.

If you are driving a car and decide to fiddle with your phone rather than pay attention to the road, then it's not the app's fault if an accident occurs. 

it is if the app is setup so it encourages you to fiddle with it

[LAwLz]

6 minutes ago, Otto_iii said:

it is if the app is setup so it encourages you to fiddle with it

Can you please explain to me how it is "setup to encourage fiddling with it while driving"? In what way is Spotify different from let's say Facebook Messanger, which also turns the screen of if you don't touch it for a while. Is Facebook Messanger also "encouraging fiddling with it while driving"?

[Otto_iii]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Can you please explain to me how it is "setup to encourage fiddling with it while driving"? In what way is Spotify different from let's say Facebook Messanger, which also turns the screen of if you don't touch it for a while. Is Facebook Messanger also "encouraging fiddling with it"?

because people are going to try to use it as if it was a radio regardless, because people are used to using the radio, cds, or what have you.  If it locks the screen during plug-in that just encourages people to fiddle with it more assuming they plug it in, which often would be the case.

I don't use it personally but it just sounds as if its tempting people to find more ways to distract themselves given their own nature (unpluggin and plugging it back in between playlists/songs etc) 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, Otto_iii said:

because people are going to try to use it as if it was a radio regardless, because people are used to using the radio, cds, or what have you.  If it locks the screen during plug-in that just encourages people to fiddle with it more assuming they plug it in, which often would be the case.

I don't use it personally but it just sounds as if its tempting people to find more ways to distract themselves given their own nature (unpluggin and plugging it back in between playlists/songs etc) 

Then we might as well blame Facebook if people text and drive, because "people are going to use messanger instead of calling". 

 

It is still the responsibility of the driver to pay attention to the road. That sound be their top priority. If you as a driver decide to stop paying attention on the road because you want to do something on your phone, then it is YOUR responsibility, not the app you decided to use. 

 

 

I don't think you understand what the word "encourage" means. Spotify is not encouraging people to fiddle with their phones while driving. "make a Playlist while driving and we'll give you a month of premium for free" would be encouraging people to fiddle with their phones. 

Just having the screen lock because the OS settings says the screen should lock is not "encouragement". 

 

I think it's quite frankly absurd that we're even having this discuss. It makes about as much sense as blaming a crash on your car fm radio. 

"yeah, Toyota enouceaged me to not pay attention to the road because my radio has buttons for changing station. Having this button encouraged me to look and click on it instead of paying attention to where I was driving. I'm not at fault here. Toyota is." 

 

People who think they aren't responsible for how they drive should not be allowed to drive. Plain and simple. It is the driver's decision to look away from the road and on their phone and therefore it is their responsibility what happens. 

[schwellmo92]

Can’t you skip from the lock screen anyway?

[Fnige]

On 8/20/2019 at 7:01 PM, mr moose said:

then use those apps.

Can we just... place the same logic here to the whole EGS vs Steam debate that gets very heated

 

”I wanna play Metro Exodus but it’s on a different store”

”Then just use that store”

[Levent]

6 minutes ago, schwellmo92 said:

Can’t you skip from the lock screen anyway?

you can, that feature has been there since android 4.0 and probably has been there a lot earlier for iOS, plus you can always use siri/google assistant to skip or even select a specific song.

[Zodiark1593]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Gonna have to agree with @Drak3 here.

If you are driving a car and decide to fiddle with your phone rather than pay attention to the road, then it's not the app's fault if an accident occurs. It's your fault. You as the driver is the one causing risk of life and limb when you decide to shift focus away from the road and onto something else.

Imagine if we applied the same standards to other apps.

"Yes your honor. I know I mowed down 3 people but it's not my fault. I was sending a text message to a friend so clearly it's the messaging app's fault it happened. It's human nature to text and drive so therefore I bear no responsibility. Blame the message app developers or my carrier instead".

 

In fact, I'd even go as far as to say that if you genuinely believe you are not responsible for an accident caused by using a phone instead of paying attention on the road, then you are unfit to have a drivers license.

I'm trying to imagine a world where developers are held responsible for any accidents that occur as a result of a distracted user using said app. Quite a scary one indeed. In the event of such an unfortunate precedent, the suggesting of simply disabling phones while in motion would make sense.

[suits]

Get an Android, or use any other service. Done.

[CarlBar]

11 hours ago, Otto_iii said:

heavy must be the crown of righteousness 

 

 

Here in the Uk it is flat out illegal to mess with your phone while driving. Theoretically if Spotify where held to be encouraging use of your mobile while driving via their app they could be pulled in front of the courts. I'm not sure they'd lose such a case but they would certainly get raked over the coals over it. And the law is enforced.

[mr moose]

10 hours ago, SlimyPython said:

Can we just... place the same logic here to the whole EGS vs Steam debate that gets very heated

 

”I wanna play Metro Exodus but it’s on a different store”

”Then just use that store”

I see no reason why not. It's not like we don't already have multiple store accounts (MS store, apple store, google play, steam, ebay, amazon etc) with many on a single device.

 

The thing is with spotify v apple music v whatever app  is that they all have access to the same music. so if one app does it better then support that app and drop spotify. I really don;t see the problem, I stopped using pandora because it was crap.

[Arika]

I mean... It is a feature. You shouldn't be touching your phone while driving. 

 

Thought it was fairly simple. 

[IAmSandor]

Car manufacturers are adding controls onto the steering wheel or in easy reach.

Why - to remove the need to take hand off steering wheel.  aka safety/convenience

Do we 'need' it?  Not really. Do we like it.  Obviously.

 

Car manufacturers are adding colourful displays in line of sight  (HUD) or just off to side (middle console).  Displays that show maps, temperature, music information, phone information (during calls) etc. I can legally use the button on streering wheel to scroll through music track names, or contacts to phone cause they are projected off my windscreen.

Why - to keep the person informed, to give them a way to do things safely that they would otherwise do anyway.

Do we 'need' it?  Not really. Do we like it.  Obviously.

 

Nothing is stopping us from playing with the radio, or looking at a street map sitting on passenger seat (remember those days?).  And yet, these new features are there so we dont have to do that and to make things easier, safer and to sell more cars.  No one is arguing about removing them because they are better.  They make things easier.

 

Spotify made a decision that goes against this.  All these arguments about not using phone while driving are correct, obvious and common sense.. and NOT the issue at hand. The issue is bigger than that.  

 

Yes there is a statement for personal responsibility, yet we put guards on machinery, handrails on stairs, walkways and balconies etc.  We do these things to prevent injury.  So, your arguments are moot and go against everything that society is trying to implement.  And if you still argue that Spotify are in the right, then we might as well remove all these other safety things as well ... cause people should know not to put their hand in an industrial machine and not to walk off a balcony etc.  

[Drak3]

2 hours ago, IAmSandor said:

yet we put guards on machinery, handrails on stairs, walkways and balconies etc.  We do these things to prevent injury. 

False equivalence. Those scenarios are not always due to personal responsibility.

 

You being on your phone while driving, for ANY reason, is exclusively due to personal responsibility.

2 hours ago, IAmSandor said:

All these arguments about not using phone while driving are correct, obvious and common sense.. and NOT the issue at hand. The issue is bigger than that.  

No, that is the exact issue at hand.

[IAmSandor]

11 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

No, that is the exact issue at hand.

Actually it isn't no matter how much you want it to be.  The issue is about a software company making change to their app that increases the risk of injury from it ... it is a comparison between what was there before and what is there after the change.  The manner in which the app is used is irrelevant.  If the change requires that there are more steps in using the app and more frequently, then ergo, it requires your attention more frequently.  Driving, or any other activity that requires your attention is made safer by reducing this frequency.  Whether you are stupid enough to use it while driving is a different matter altogether.  Some people will do it.  Yes, they are stupid.  But those stupid irresponsible people, when they crash may do so into one of us who are not stupid and irresponsible.  Anything that reduces their distraction is a benefit to the rest of us.  Spotify's change has made this risky for everyone ... regardless of which side of the 'phone use while driving' debate you are on.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, IAmSandor said:

The issue is about a software company making change to their app that increases the risk of injury from it

No, it's not.

 

There is no increased risk. You not paying attention to the road because you're a selfish asshole playing with your phone is extremely reckless. You only need to not pay attention for a fraction of a second to kill someone.

4 minutes ago, IAmSandor said:

Spotify's change has made this risky for everyone

It really hasn't. Selfish pricks playing with their phones have been making driving a larger risk for everyone for years.