1st issue is personal preference, I simply hate that 12" ipad in the middle of my dash. Its distracting to me, I dont like it's operation and Yesterday while driving with the heat on and the fan on 3, it suddenly went into full blast AC and turned on the front and rear defroster. I could go back and forth between menus but could not shut of the AC..it finally shut off after a few minutes of me pushing the off button. Only to do the exact same thing a few minutes later before again hitting the off button for 5 minutes and it finally turning off. And No nothing was set on Auto.
What it sounds like your main complaint is about the stability of the electronics. I've had this issue with all newer vehicles ... and the issues always seem to be more prevalent right after you start the vehicle. Being an old IT tech, I just do what I always told everyone else to do before I would work on their computer, turn it off then turn it back on. This typically resolves any issue ... even those that crop up during the drive. The bad thing is it typically means pulling over somewhere to turn off the vehicle and restart.
Personally, I don't find it the 12" screen distracting ... more helpful because buttons and such are a decent size and labeled better. Vehicles were becoming too cluttered with buttons that nobody could figure out because there was no standard on icons used so every time you drove a different vehicle everything was different ... and if you needed to turn something on because of driving conditions you had to remember what button turned that feature on for each vehicle you drove. I've actually had to pull over and stop just to look for the button when using my wife's car. What I don't appreciate is the move away from standards and all vehicle manufacturers are guilty of it. Basically, they used the rapidly changing technology as an excuse to move back to proprietary electronics. They were simply loosing too much money selling their high end entertainment units. People were buying whatever was standard at no additional cost from the factory because third party vendors (i.e. Kenwood, Pioneer, etc) were offering far superior products at lower cost. The other thing wrong with all this is there is no way I can ever upgrade an older vehicle. I was able to install a Pioneer unit in my 2016 Ram 2500 that gave me wireless CarPlay. It wasn't until 2022 that Ram finally put it in the truck from the factory. There isn't any reason they couldn't have expanded the Din standard to include more sizes.
The lack of standards in the auto industry for the electrical and electronics systems is becoming a real issue. Most features are intrinsically fairly simple at the interface level (i.e. on/off, open/closed, etc). Some have need of level (i.e. like fuel) or step (i.e. like high medium or low). Sensors are typically tied to the system itself so wouldn't need to be part of the standard interface. So one standard for connectivity to communicate with each component system. Second a standard for connectivity to main computer/entertainment system to include the connector and how the computer communicates with the individual systems. This sort of movement has already happened in the home automation area with the Matter standard that allows components from various manufacturers to talk to one another. In addition, as a vehicle aged, you would be able to more easily upgrade it.
Lastly on my rant regarding the standards ... look at towing. Ram did pretty well with the connector designed for the trailer surround video ... but there are a bunch of unused pins on that connector. So why do they have a totally separate connector for the rear view camera? The hard wired camera is much more reliable than wireless ... particularly with long trailers. And speaking of long trailers ... how about the reliability of those TPMS sensors. Think how much better it would be if they would simply have come up with a "connectivity box" that simply provided connections for ALL trailer options. The box would be inexpensive to make ... all it's doing is providing a connector to each wire on the cable. They could have then made the surround video, rear view camera and yes even the TPMS sensor all options you could buy separately as your needs dictate ... and there would only be one additional cable beside the 7-way instead of two and the TPMS receiver could be mounted for best reception of the TPMS sensors. Now ... let's take that one additional step ... the manufacturers all use the same 11 pin "trailer electronics" interface cable and standardize the signal/communications for each pin. If they were to do that, what would happen is the trailer manufacturers would start including that box on their trailers. As many have probably found out, it doesn't do any good to offer trailer surround video when there is no way to route the cables to the optimum locations on the trailer for it to work ... and most dealers refuse to install it because of that and the Ram dealer won't either you basically that expensive upgrade sits in a box. It really is way over priced for four cameras, some cable and an oversized interface box that I'm sure is pretty much empty inside. I'm pretty sure there is no electronics in it and that all it does is provide electrical connectivity to the cameras. At most, all it might do is boost the signal for each camera to cover cable loss.
The automotive industry really needs to get on board with meaningful standards for the electrical and electronic components. It would also reduce cost with some of their suppliers. Currently, I believe is you get a Bose or other name brand sound system what you are getting is a system customized by those companies for the auto manufacturer. It would be cheaper if it were a mass produced unit. Anyway, my issue is primarily with the lack of standards that means living with whatever came with your vehicle when you bought it until you sell it.
