Technology

Fuck yeah, I love tactical controls. There's just something nice about something physical you can feel and manipulate.

Never liked them. Modern smartphone is convenient , but a keyboard would be nicer

No I wouldn't say touchscreens are out, I would say augmenting them with physical buttons is about to get popular.

Plotnick, an associate professor of cinema and media studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, is the leading expert on buttons and how people interact with them.

I like that being a leading expert on buttons is a profession that exists in this world. You go Rachel Plotnick.

They are more safe since people can feel the buttons without taking their eyes off of the road. I don't understand why they thought it was a good idea to use touchscreens.

Touchscreens can stay, but only for non-essential tasks like changing settings or entering addresses. Climate, media, and all other controls you usually use while driving should be tactile by mandate.

Touch screens are shit tor buttons. They can be hacked. They can be unresponsive.

There's a load of other reasons, but either or both are enough to realise that a physical button is much safer. Perfect example of safety being lost in technology. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

Can we address headlights that are brighter than the sun now?

What about extreme violations of privacy? Let me know when that is "out", too.

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/

Should be illegal to have touchscreen controls in a car, it requires you to look at it to effectively control it, which means the car forces you to ignore the road to do anything.

Also, bring back gauges, instead of idiot-lights. It's nice to know when a problem is beginning (overheating, etc) before it becomes a crisis when you have no choice but to pull over.

Cool, now bring back single cab light trucks with full length beds.

I'm so glad I kept my car and weathered through this shitty phase of car manufacturing.

If only there was hope for weathering through the data collection, subscription-based features and the death of sedans though...

Touchscreens were never popular with customers. Manufacturers kept cramming touchscreens in cars and using them to control everything becuase they were being stupid with new tech.

Edit: I guess I should have been clearer. I was talking about as a replacement for tactile controlls in a car like the article is talking about. Reverse cameras and other things that are good to have a touch screen for make perfect sense but using your touch screen to control your Air conditioning in a way that you have to divert your attention from the road to operate sliders and buttons on a touch screen is dumb as hell.

Thank god! Touch screens on the stuff in cars are a huge pain in the ass if you have hands as big as mine and the icons are all tiny

The answer is tactile buttons with displays behind them. Not sure why nobody is doing this in cars...

Back in the 80s, Don Norman popularized the term affordance. Humans need something to push, pull, turn or otherwise interact with. We are physical beings in a physical world.

Driving vehicles is potentially life-endangering. Just because the technology is there and cheaper does not mean that humans can push aside their physiological limitations in a critical situation.

Take the emergency blinker. You know where it is, you see it all the time - it's right there in front of you! But when a real emergency happens, you'll be fumbling for the button, concentrating on the situation at hand. Now imagine that button on a touchscreen.

Yay, I never left having physical controls for things like HVAC controls and volume.

Touchscreens are great for context-sensitive controls, but less so for things that should be accessible at all times and usable without looking.

Especially EV car makers need to take note.

I just want to say that I think this is the dash from my old car a Toyota Yaris.

I miss you ole' buddy. I'm sorry you got rear ended and totaled. You were a great car.

I just want a coffee table book with pictures of these stupid executive's faces who approved the original all touchscreen versions that were becoming ubiquitous.

Yes please.

I don't know how much longer my button & dialled up 2012 shitbox is going to last. Being able to buy new without the crap is something to look forward to.

Then again, there's the whole 'car phones home/connected services' thing to consider as well. I like my car safe, but dumb as rocks otherwise.