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Citroen and sibling brands Peugeot, DS to move away from native user interface systems
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by Mike Duff
1 min read
17 May 2019
Peugeot, Citroën and DS will devote far less time and effort working on the user interface systems of future models, focusing instead on the ease of integrating with smartphones.
“We’re not running 100 screens or bigger screens,” Citroën design boss Pierre Leclercq told Autocar. “You will use your phone to start the car and to do everything.
“That is the future – it has to be simple, but it has to be intuitive as well.”
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Agreeing that many buyers have been frustrated by clunky native user interface systems, Leclercq said that future Citroëns will be far simpler.
“Five years ago, we could not assume everybody would have a smartphone,” he said. “Now, when we design cars, we assume that in a couple of years everybody will own a device like this. Then the question is: ‘Does it work with my car?’”
Citroën is also set to follow the lead of upmarket manufacturers into smartphone-based car security, moving away from conventional keys, or at least offering the option to unlock and start vehicles with smart devices.
“It is all about making things easier; that is the most important thing now,” said Leclercq.
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Mike Duff
Title: Contributing editor
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Mike has been writing about cars for more than 25 years, having defected from radio journalism to follow his passion. He has been a contributor to Autocar since 2004, and is a former editor of the Autocar website.
Mike joined Autocar full-time in 2007, first as features editor before taking the reins at autocar.co.uk. Being in charge of the video strategy at the time saw him create our long running “will it drift?” series. For which he apologies.
He specialises in adventurous drive stories, many in unlikely places. He once drove to Serbia to visit the Zastava factory, took a £1500 Mercedes W124 E-Class to Berlin to meet some of its taxi siblings and did Scotland’s North Coast 500 in a Porsche Boxster during a winter storm. He also seems to be a hypercar magnet, having driven such exotics as the Koenigsegg One:1, Lamborghini SCV12, Lotus Evija and Pagani Huayra R.
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scotty5 17 May 2019
Intuitif
"Peugeot, Citroën and DS will devote far less time and effort working on the user interface systems of future models, focusing instead on the ease of integrating with smartphones".
Not having driven a Peugeot for a number of years I can't comment, but in respect of the Citroen rental cars I've had the unfortunate pleasure of driving over the past few years, the most surprising thing to learn here is they time and effort devoted to their infotainment user interface.
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scrap 17 May 2019
The flawed security of
The flawed security of keyless systems is a sick joke. Car makers simply have to do better.
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vava1 17 May 2019
Hardly 'buried' - just press
Hardly 'buried' - just press the 'fan' symbol on the screen!
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Mini2 17 May 2019
Disagree.
vava1 wrote:
Hardly 'buried' - just press the 'fan' symbol on the screen!
That's one more (unnecessary) prod than if you just had them visible in the first place. There's a reason why Apple and Google only allow a certain number of presses to reach different functions in CarPlay and Android Auto.
Mazda are onto a good thing with keeping their climate controls separate, and using a rich display that's controlled by the rotary wheel.
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