Looked into the Automatic Sound Leveliser feature, and the manual says it's only for detecting the noise level inside the vehicle. I thought it might be the same as the Automatic Volume Adjustment feature discussed in this
technical paper by the same manufacturer. But nope, apparently our unit is too cheap/old for that feature even if it was, in all likelihood, going to further deteriorate the mediocre sound quality.
So, all the real-world driver distraction safety issues I described earlier persist. This, despite the wonderfully annoying power-on "safety first" caution screen informing you not to use the unit whilst the vehicle is in motion and forcing you to wait umpteen seconds before being able to control the unit (thereby increasing your likelihood of already being on the move before using it!). So yes, of course TMCA have all their safety regulations covered off. But I don't care about what some half-assed regulators might want (as a society we're far too eager to overly regulate and far too accepting of crap design).
An ergonomic time/motion study of drivers of this car
using connected smartphones and 3rd party audio and nav apps wouldn't cast a positive glow on Toyota. And given how much better the features in those 3rd party apps are than the OEM device along with their consumer-oriented pricing, I expect such a usage scenario to become more and more commonplace. I hope this issue doesn't result in some drivers hurting themselves. I also hope it doesn't contribute to increasing my insurance costs. But I expect both. And all this for the sake of an option to have a few buttons on a steering wheel. If the root cause was for "masculine identity branding", what a very sad indictment on us all. If it was because of project management, I get it, but please rush replacement wheels with controls out as soon as possible! Either way, the local marketing department should be ashamed for trying to turn this situation into a feature. But they're just "doing their job", right? And some folk here even agree. Sigh.