Last week, I shared with you my visions of the car audio system of the future and got a lot of good feedback. You get it, I get it--let's just hope the car audio companies start getting it because basically, today's gear is heavily reworked versions of the same receiver/speaker model that bloomed during the golden age of the car stereo in the 1970s. Sure, we've added CD players, amps, and even video, but the premise is the same: Build a little kingdom of media in your car, and be satisfied that it doesn't work with--or like--any other media in your life, at least not without some kludgy patchwork such as the parade of unsatisfying iPod adapters that are making some companies wealthy for their failure to anticipate technology as well as their customers.

But what about in-car navigation systems? They're brand-new, without baggage from a long-past golden era, yet they don't quite click for me. Sure, they're an amazing improvement over paper maps, but with my vision of the ultimate car audio system in mind, here's how I would rework navigation systems.

First, start with the display: Make it actually look good. With every car we've tested that has a built-in nav system, regardless of price, we've found that the image quality can't hold a candle to that of the cheapest PC running in VGA mode. Frankly, we're being charitable when we say an in-car system looks good. We're comparing them to other cars; if we were to compare them to PCs or even PDAs, we'd give the car display a 3.0 rating, not a 7.0 or an 8.0. Why is the consumer expected to be happy sitting in the most expensive technology purchase they will ever make, staring at a display that looks like a screen capture from a Mattel Activision game? Hey carmakers, log onto this thing called the World Wide Web and see what maps look like on Google or even Yahoo. They don't take any particular processing power to render, and if your car's current single-DVD drive isn't large enough to hold such high-resolution maps, then design a compact six-disc DVD changer as the data server--you did it for CDs years ago.

Second, make it portable in some way. And I don't mean a system with suction cups and gangly wires to plug into the cigarette lighter. I'm a grown man who may have just spent $60,000 on a car, in no small part because I think it's gorgeous, so don't expect me to litter it with an add-on device. The model I envision is the introduction of portable Bluetooth GPS receivers as offered by companies such as TomTom and its Navigator product for PDAs. Adapt that to the car by making it the vehicle's GPS receiver via a hot-pluggable slot in the dash, sort of like a server hard drive. At any time, I should be able to pull this small module out of its slot and have it automatically connect with my PDA. Then I can exit the car and continue my navigation seamlessly on foot or on a bus, a taxi, and so forth. Again, all the gear exists. We just need some smart thinking and a little open-source code sharing between makers of car navigation systems and PDA/smart phones. Mr. Denso, meet Ms. PalmOne. Bosch, meet Pocket PC. Now we're going to lock you in this nice room and not let you out until you've agreed on a new Bluetooth spec that makes this happen.

Third, unlock the damned system. Every current production car we've driven has barred anyone from entering a new destination address unless the car is at a dead stop. Thanks for treating me like a child. The radio doesn't lock itself out and neither do climate controls. It seems they were grandfathered into the "dangerous distraction" tent, while navigation and in-car video are part of the new era of equipment that gets slapped with a digital condom. That's sheer hypocrisy. Carmakers aren't concerned for your safety but only about balancing safeguards that would erode car sales with steps that manage their liability insurance premiums. If they really cared about you, they would lock down all nonessential systems once you put the car in drive and install cell phone-jamming circuits that allow only 911 calls from inside the car (but since those are all but useless on the cellular networks, they may as well jam those, too).

OK, rant aside, I would set up the navigation system to allow data entry when a passenger is detected in the right front seat. This is the same logic that already is installed in current production cars to enable the passenger-side air bag, and it could also be used to switch on data entry for the navigation system. The assumption is that the passenger is the one doing the data entry, giving human beings a little credit for common sense and self-preservation. Sure, some drivers will carry around 80-pound sacks of dirt to plop in the passenger seat and fool the system, but I suspect they're in the minority. And besides, that would give lawmakers the opportunity to create an entirely new section of their state vehicle codes making it illegal to transport large amounts of potting soil, bricks, or any similarly weighty home improvement materials in the right-front seat of any vehicle whilst underway. Don't laugh, they would.

Oh, and by the way, get rid of the nag screen that pops up whenever I start the car, the one that gives me a stern, Mennonite-like admonishment that using any part of this car's onscreen interface while driving can result in the decimation of the human race. It doesn't carry much weight when it automatically sneers back at me every single time I turn the key. Everyone becomes habituated to it, and clicking past it is merely a matter of muscle memory, not conscious acknowledgement of a danger. Talk to the folks who write EULAs for software, and they'll tell you how much thought goes into clicking the I Agree button. If you must treat me like a moron who challenges your CFO's target number for insurance premiums this fiscal year, at least change up the nag screen message in some kind of rotation, maybe even downloading new ones to cars that have satellite radio or OnStar channels.