11 ms·

I'm curious how different it would be if you could control Android auto with physical buttons. I'm not sure why touchscreens are allowed in cars at all. you can

I'm curious how different it would be if you could control Android auto with physical buttons. I'm not sure why touchscreens are allowed in cars at all. you can't use them without looking directly at them. even voice can be distracting when you have to repeat variations of the same command five times and keep checking whether it actually works. I hope this kind of thing doesn't get banned entirely. when it works, I find that having a good navigation system allows me to pay more attention on actually driving the car.

JCharante 7y ago
Is it true that you can't use touchscreens in cars without looking at them? I don't drive so I wouldn't know, but my experience touch typing on my smartphone (and I don't use it very often) and as a cashier during high school who used a touch screen point-of-sales system would lead me to believe otherwise. Sure you can't keep track of its state the entire time, but you only need to glance at it to know what state/screen to operate/navigate from.
- debaserab2 7y ago
  > you only need to glance at it I think you answered your own question.
- harumph 7y ago
  Obviously I can't say if this is universally true, but it is most certainly true for me. I have CarPlay, and I do my damnedest to control it with Siri. It always feels incredibly dangerous to use the touchscreen. Because of the problems I have with Siri, I end up using the touchscreen much more than I'd prefer. My latest defensive habit is to queue up enough audio for the trip and not touch it again until I arrive. I would definitely prefer hardware buttons.
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  Glancing takes a long time because your eyes don’t just have to flick to and fro, you need to actually refocus your vision, scan for and find the object or point you’re intending to look at, switch contexts, then do it all over again.
- mstade 7y ago
  I drive a lot and quick glance is usually fine I'd say, but touchscreens often require more than a glance because the UI isn't as static as a typical dashboard. You lose context between apps, and so you end up having to look a bit longer. But the worst part isn't the glancing to be honest, the worst part is that when you're driving there are all these little changes in the road that makes you miss your target on the screen. Maybe it's a little bump or maybe there's a tiny adjustment in the steering that does it, but you end up tapping the wrong thing so often you then have to go back and fix things, and that's where you get into trouble I find because now your attention is truly divided. I like CarPlay, and found in the Mercedes models that had the little control wheel in the center console it worked well, because you had a physical switch to interface with CarPlay, but had the flexibility of the screen. I'm no expert, but I drive a lot of different cars and that so far is my favorite way of interacting with CarPlay. I'd still prefer a simple dashboard with physical controls though.
- amluto 7y ago
  As the owner of a modern car, PoS systems are in a whole different league than cars. In particular, PoS vendors actually care about making usage efficient. In my car, if I want to increase the fan speed, I need to tap a small target, wait while the system lags out, and then tap a new target on a popup. Meanwhile, I’m trying to focus on the road at (effectively) infinity. It’s distracting and unsafe. In my old, very well designed 1991 car, I could push the button to do this. It had two major benefits: it never moved and I could feel it. Touchscreens can’t replicate the feel of a button, but they could at least have the decency to keep controls in the same place.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    This is my big objection to Tesla's "touch screen for everything" approach. I know Tesla fans love it, but in my modern car (a 2019 Honda Insight), if I want to change the fan speed -- or anything else about the A/C -- I touch a physical button or twist a physical knob.
    - tyfon 7y ago
      You can change the fan speed (and much more) in a tesla via buttons on the steering wheel.
      - amluto 7y ago
        Yes. By pressing a scroll wheel to pop up a menu, then scrolling through the menu to select a mode, then pressing the scroll wheel again to select a mode, then scrolling once more to peform the desired action. This may well be better than using the touchscreen, but it's still bad.
        tyfon 7y ago
        Yes the best way is to use voice control. You can tell the tesla to "set fan speed to 2" and it will do it. Voice commands are the safest imho. But at least in my car I only need to select fan speed in the first menu then scroll do actually change it. This in a model x. But I was really responding to the "100% touch screen" statement.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  A point of sales system has the distinct advantage of not travelling at a combined speed of 60 metres / 200 feet per second.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  the button targets are much smaller on most infotainment screens. also, the vehicle being in motion makes it a lot harder to rely on muscle memory.
- tyfon 7y ago
  My fingers have pretty much memorised the few things I sometimes change from the screen while driving in my tesla, but 99% of what I would use the screen for can also be done via the buttons on the wheel / voice command. I still glance over when I do hit the screen though to make sure I did it correctly. I think with the latest update I can also control the active suspension via voice which is the only thing I still use the display for while driving except for hitting cancel on the navigation once in a blue moon. Cancelling navigation might also be available via voice command now, I haven't checked. In any case, voice and physical buttons (on the steering wheel) is much safer than touching or buttons below the screen the screen regardless. At least I feel much more in control personally when I can keep my eyes on the road and not glance away / feel my way to a spot on the screen.
mstade 7y ago
My favorite interaction with CarPlay so far were the Mercedes models that had the little wheel in the center console that you could use to navigate. All you had to do was take a quick glance at the screen if you didn't already know how many clicks you had to turn the wheel, or if you did know you could do it without looking. In all the newer models I've driven they've replaced the wheel with a touchpad like thing which is awful. I'm in the market for a car, and I want something new or new-ish, but I can't find any cars I like without touchscreens all over the place. I'm now looking at used cars from around 2012, before all the touchscreen nonsense became pervasive, but still with most of the modern conveniences I'm in the market for. I'm not in a rush so I might just wait and see still, but I said that a couple of years ago as well and the touchscreen craze has just gotten worse I feel like.
- modzu 7y ago
  i was looking for a "safe" car and that's why I didnt buy a current volvo. to add to the problem the screen is laggy too. kind of reminds me of cars before seatbelts. safety has come sooo much farther but seems we have a few new lessons to learn as we catch up with the shiny new tech.
  - modzu 7y ago
    what also bothers me about this is even if I don't buy one for the perceived safety risk, others can. the risk remains.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    I suspect it'll have to get solved the same way as seat belts did, too. For the same reason: Cost. A low-distraction interface is going to be more expensive to develop and manufacture than a touchscreen that can be largely assembled from commodity parts and some software.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      The way I read the history section here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt makes it sound like seatbelts are mandated. In what way is it cheaper to install seatbelts than not?
ghaff 7y ago
It almost feels as if we pretend that "hands free" solves the distraction problem. In practice, I find that voice commands don't work reliably enough most of the time and, as you say, add the increasing frustration of repeatedly trying things and cursing at Siri or Google.
- viburnum 7y ago
  If I try to do voice commands while driving my field of vision narrows to a pinprick.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Hey I've noticed this too. It's like I'm mentally somewhere else. Very odd. Fortunately, when I drive long distances I have other people in the car. And when I drive short distances, I can just stop wherever and change things. Honestly, on 101 and 280 I see drivers texting all the time and they're driving right in the lane, no problems at all except being slow to react to what happens in front of them (which makes it obvious they're on the phone). I don't know how they do it. Even glancing down at my phone instead of the center console loses so much state.
- catalogia 7y ago
  I don't use voice commands but neither do I use the screen. I have my navigation app on my phone speak to me using text-to-speech while my phone is screen-down in the center console. When I need to input something I either have the passenger do it, or I find someplace to pull over. Pulling over to make changes may not be the most convenient, but I think for me at least, it's safest.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
In fact that is why the audio buttons on the steering wheel are the only way I can listen to music off my phone. If I gotta unlock my phone and look down to find the "button" on screen its too distracting for my comfort level. I dont know how people can text and drive. I usually see cars swerving and driving way too slow into a high way and it always turns out they are texting up a storm when you look.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  they just don't realize how obvious it is from outside the vehicle. that's the scary part.
Waterluvian 7y ago
Not even from a safety perspective, but from a UX ergonomics perspective: Give me a D pad, an OK and a Cancel button. And make a phone API that works exclusively by that and the sounds and chimes it outputs. I just want every supported app to be in a top level list that I arrow through and OK. Then within any app the options are all navigable in simple ways. Overall functionality is reduced. Voice control is a secondary system altogether.
thedance 7y ago
You can control android auto with physical buttons. It’s really up to the car makers. In my car I rarely need the touchscreen. I use a pixel 3a in a Honda Clarity.
- copperx 7y ago
  Mazdas have a physical wheel to control Android Auto and CarPlay. I couldn't live without it. Also true for Toyota Yaris and the older Scion iA.
Marsymars 7y ago
> I hope this kind of thing doesn't get banned entirely. when it works, I find that having a good navigation system allows me to pay more attention on actually driving the car. Anecdotally, over the years I've been driving, a majority of potentially collision-causing mistakes I've made (and that I've noticed) have been when I've been cognitively distracted by navigation systems and was looking for a turn/exit or thinking ahead for a turn/exit. I've adjusted to always prioritize real-time safety even if it comes at the cost of missing my turn and having to double back to get where I'm going. I believe that following nav directions in real-time comes at a safety cost, and am skeptical that many people both realize this and make the appropriate adjustments.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I'm guessing this is a ymmv type situation. I personally find navigation to be by far the most stressful part of driving. I have a bad tendency to flip binary directions like left/right, east/west, etc. when I first had my license (before navigation apps for your smartphone really existed), I had to spend a lot of my cognitive budget trying to remember whether the turn at X St was a right or left and not paying as much attention to the evolving situation on the road. I'm always willing to miss an exit/turn if I notice it too late or there isn't room to merge safely. if anything, I'm more willing to miss a turn in an unfamiliar area when I know the nav system will automatically find a new route. this probably varies depending on your spatial reasoning skills. my brother can take a quick look at a map and remember the connectivity of all the major roads and then navigate from memory. whenever I try this, I end up in a stressful loop of miss turn -> find place to pull over to look at map -> miss turn again. stress has a comparable impact to driving safety as distraction in my experience.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  I had one of those portable navigation systems before in my old car and had it mounted on the lower left end of the front window. It was perfect. I never felt distracted or in need to leave the street out of my view for longer. Now I have a quite large navigation screen in the mid console and those optional arrows next to my speedometer. It really took some time to get me to not look and the centre screen. It took even longer to get used to just listen to what the computer lady says. I can't understand how this centre screen has become a safe standard. Especially in countries like Germany where there is no speed limit. It's a toy for passengers.
gkfasdfasdf 7y ago
Do you really use physical buttons on the dash without looking at them? I can't in any of my vehicles.
- x3n0ph3n3 7y ago
  I absolutely develop tactile memory of the stereo and A/C control panels.
jsight 7y ago
Who cares about Android Auto with specific buttons, I wanted them to compare the same tasks to a old device. How distracting is it to play a specific song on a radio from 1999? Or a specific FM radio station that isn't already programmed?
- mlavin 7y ago
  2000 Volvo with same radio interface as the earlier 850. For playing a particular song, rest my wrist on the shift lever and push seek next until it gets to the right track. For a specific station, same button until it lands on that station. Not particularly distracting, and minimal glancing at the LCD readout that only shows current frequency or track number.
capableweb 7y ago
> I'm curious how different it would be if you could control Android auto with physical buttons You can, if the car is made that way of course, but the software supports it. I would not buy a car knowing it's only a touchscreen. At least in my car, the radial controls the focus on Android Auto and press it down to select. The screen is not a touch screen.
xenospn 7y ago
I agree. I don't think touchscreens in cars should be a thing. Anything that requires you to look away from the road is a huge distraction, especially a giant colorful screen.
- silon42 7y ago
  Also, the physical controls never change, so it's much less mental effort if you do glance at them.
jacobsenscott 7y ago
Physical buttons are much safer, and this is well known within the industry. But touch screens are cheap and easy - so automakers won't go back to physical buttons unless they are forced to by regulators.
deveac 7y ago
This is a great question. There's no question that physical controls for the most common tasks in a vehicle (there are actually very few) take less attention. Additionally, it seems like one great promise of software in a vehicle would be to augment and improve upon that fact by design. But it's terribly obvious that this has not been a design goal ever. The goal has been to take the familiar UX of your phone and transfer it to your car so that the media component is immediately familiar (this is nice), but all the while we could have been making the act of driving safer too...
supdatecron 7y ago
> even voice can be distracting when you have to repeat variations of the same command five times and keep checking whether it actually works. This is a silly argument, given the number of arguments that I’ve seen drivers participate in.
jrs95 7y ago
IMO touch screens should be banned as a part of safety regulations. There's simply no need from them in cars, it's a gimmick. Physical buttons are better and don't you to look at them to use them while driving.
beatgammit 7y ago
It's pretty easy to set up navigation without voice control. Basically just pull over for a second, enter your destination, start navigation, then get back on the road. It probably takes the same amount of time as voice commands, but it's not nearly as distracting.
Pxtl 7y ago
Or Android's obnoxious tendency towards silent failure of the Google Assistant. How many times has your phone just just get stuck in the busy-spinner? Mine does often. No audio feedback, not even a way to stop it without picking up the device.
m-p-3 7y ago
I hope Google and Apple will consider putting in place a solid way of navigating the UI with physical buttons. As much as I love Android Auto, I feel like I'm always constrained to use voice commands which I hate with a passion, and I already stick to my steering wheel buttons to control music playback.
- yc12340 7y ago
  Android already has a solid way of navigating UI with physical buttons. The first generation of Android phones didn't have touchscreens, so the whole OS was designed around DPAD controls — it's support for navigating UI with directional buttons is second to none. The problem isn't OS itself, but applications. Android application developers are frequently implementing custom graphical components, that do not handle "presses" and "clicks" and instead try to directly interact with touchscreen. Google have made a number of increasingly aggressive attempts to work around the issue — for example recent versions of Android try to infer purpose and interactivity of custom UI elements instead of expecting developer to declare it. But that does not help, when everyone is using a handful of fancy libraries, hardwired to require touchscreen. Incidentally, the biggest offender is not a third-party component... It is RecyclerView — Google's official item list implementation, distributed as a separate library. It's support for DPAD navigation is so abysmal, that Google's own engineers (from different department, I presume), had to create Leanback framework largely from scratch instead of relying on official RecyclerView components.

JCharante 7y ago

Is it true that you can't use touchscreens in cars without looking at them? I don't drive so I wouldn't know, but my experience touch typing on my smartphone (and I don't use it very often) and as a cashier during high school who used a touch screen point-of-sales system would lead me to believe otherwise. Sure you can't keep track of its state the entire time, but you only need to glance at it to know what state/screen to operate/navigate from.

debaserab2 7y ago
> you only need to glance at it I think you answered your own question.
harumph 7y ago
Obviously I can't say if this is universally true, but it is most certainly true for me. I have CarPlay, and I do my damnedest to control it with Siri. It always feels incredibly dangerous to use the touchscreen. Because of the problems I have with Siri, I end up using the touchscreen much more than I'd prefer. My latest defensive habit is to queue up enough audio for the trip and not touch it again until I arrive. I would definitely prefer hardware buttons.
ComputerGuru 7y ago
Glancing takes a long time because your eyes don’t just have to flick to and fro, you need to actually refocus your vision, scan for and find the object or point you’re intending to look at, switch contexts, then do it all over again.
mstade 7y ago
I drive a lot and quick glance is usually fine I'd say, but touchscreens often require more than a glance because the UI isn't as static as a typical dashboard. You lose context between apps, and so you end up having to look a bit longer. But the worst part isn't the glancing to be honest, the worst part is that when you're driving there are all these little changes in the road that makes you miss your target on the screen. Maybe it's a little bump or maybe there's a tiny adjustment in the steering that does it, but you end up tapping the wrong thing so often you then have to go back and fix things, and that's where you get into trouble I find because now your attention is truly divided. I like CarPlay, and found in the Mercedes models that had the little control wheel in the center console it worked well, because you had a physical switch to interface with CarPlay, but had the flexibility of the screen. I'm no expert, but I drive a lot of different cars and that so far is my favorite way of interacting with CarPlay. I'd still prefer a simple dashboard with physical controls though.
amluto 7y ago
As the owner of a modern car, PoS systems are in a whole different league than cars. In particular, PoS vendors actually care about making usage efficient. In my car, if I want to increase the fan speed, I need to tap a small target, wait while the system lags out, and then tap a new target on a popup. Meanwhile, I’m trying to focus on the road at (effectively) infinity. It’s distracting and unsafe. In my old, very well designed 1991 car, I could push the button to do this. It had two major benefits: it never moved and I could feel it. Touchscreens can’t replicate the feel of a button, but they could at least have the decency to keep controls in the same place.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  This is my big objection to Tesla's "touch screen for everything" approach. I know Tesla fans love it, but in my modern car (a 2019 Honda Insight), if I want to change the fan speed -- or anything else about the A/C -- I touch a physical button or twist a physical knob.
  - tyfon 7y ago
    You can change the fan speed (and much more) in a tesla via buttons on the steering wheel.
    - amluto 7y ago
      Yes. By pressing a scroll wheel to pop up a menu, then scrolling through the menu to select a mode, then pressing the scroll wheel again to select a mode, then scrolling once more to peform the desired action. This may well be better than using the touchscreen, but it's still bad.
      - tyfon 7y ago
        Yes the best way is to use voice control. You can tell the tesla to "set fan speed to 2" and it will do it. Voice commands are the safest imho. But at least in my car I only need to select fan speed in the first menu then scroll do actually change it. This in a model x. But I was really responding to the "100% touch screen" statement.
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
A point of sales system has the distinct advantage of not travelling at a combined speed of 60 metres / 200 feet per second.
leetcrew 7y ago
the button targets are much smaller on most infotainment screens. also, the vehicle being in motion makes it a lot harder to rely on muscle memory.
tyfon 7y ago
My fingers have pretty much memorised the few things I sometimes change from the screen while driving in my tesla, but 99% of what I would use the screen for can also be done via the buttons on the wheel / voice command. I still glance over when I do hit the screen though to make sure I did it correctly. I think with the latest update I can also control the active suspension via voice which is the only thing I still use the display for while driving except for hitting cancel on the navigation once in a blue moon. Cancelling navigation might also be available via voice command now, I haven't checked. In any case, voice and physical buttons (on the steering wheel) is much safer than touching or buttons below the screen the screen regardless. At least I feel much more in control personally when I can keep my eyes on the road and not glance away / feel my way to a spot on the screen.

mstade 7y ago

My favorite interaction with CarPlay so far were the Mercedes models that had the little wheel in the center console that you could use to navigate. All you had to do was take a quick glance at the screen if you didn't already know how many clicks you had to turn the wheel, or if you did know you could do it without looking. In all the newer models I've driven they've replaced the wheel with a touchpad like thing which is awful. I'm in the market for a car, and I want something new or new-ish, but I can't find any cars I like without touchscreens all over the place. I'm now looking at used cars from around 2012, before all the touchscreen nonsense became pervasive, but still with most of the modern conveniences I'm in the market for. I'm not in a rush so I might just wait and see still, but I said that a couple of years ago as well and the touchscreen craze has just gotten worse I feel like.

modzu 7y ago
i was looking for a "safe" car and that's why I didnt buy a current volvo. to add to the problem the screen is laggy too. kind of reminds me of cars before seatbelts. safety has come sooo much farther but seems we have a few new lessons to learn as we catch up with the shiny new tech.
- modzu 7y ago
  what also bothers me about this is even if I don't buy one for the perceived safety risk, others can. the risk remains.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  I suspect it'll have to get solved the same way as seat belts did, too. For the same reason: Cost. A low-distraction interface is going to be more expensive to develop and manufacture than a touchscreen that can be largely assembled from commodity parts and some software.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    The way I read the history section here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt makes it sound like seatbelts are mandated. In what way is it cheaper to install seatbelts than not?

ghaff 7y ago

It almost feels as if we pretend that "hands free" solves the distraction problem. In practice, I find that voice commands don't work reliably enough most of the time and, as you say, add the increasing frustration of repeatedly trying things and cursing at Siri or Google.

viburnum 7y ago
If I try to do voice commands while driving my field of vision narrows to a pinprick.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Hey I've noticed this too. It's like I'm mentally somewhere else. Very odd. Fortunately, when I drive long distances I have other people in the car. And when I drive short distances, I can just stop wherever and change things. Honestly, on 101 and 280 I see drivers texting all the time and they're driving right in the lane, no problems at all except being slow to react to what happens in front of them (which makes it obvious they're on the phone). I don't know how they do it. Even glancing down at my phone instead of the center console loses so much state.
catalogia 7y ago
I don't use voice commands but neither do I use the screen. I have my navigation app on my phone speak to me using text-to-speech while my phone is screen-down in the center console. When I need to input something I either have the passenger do it, or I find someplace to pull over. Pulling over to make changes may not be the most convenient, but I think for me at least, it's safest.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

In fact that is why the audio buttons on the steering wheel are the only way I can listen to music off my phone. If I gotta unlock my phone and look down to find the "button" on screen its too distracting for my comfort level. I dont know how people can text and drive. I usually see cars swerving and driving way too slow into a high way and it always turns out they are texting up a storm when you look.

leetcrew 7y ago
they just don't realize how obvious it is from outside the vehicle. that's the scary part.

Waterluvian 7y ago

Not even from a safety perspective, but from a UX ergonomics perspective: Give me a D pad, an OK and a Cancel button. And make a phone API that works exclusively by that and the sounds and chimes it outputs. I just want every supported app to be in a top level list that I arrow through and OK. Then within any app the options are all navigable in simple ways. Overall functionality is reduced. Voice control is a secondary system altogether.

thedance 7y ago

You can control android auto with physical buttons. It’s really up to the car makers. In my car I rarely need the touchscreen. I use a pixel 3a in a Honda Clarity.

copperx 7y ago
Mazdas have a physical wheel to control Android Auto and CarPlay. I couldn't live without it. Also true for Toyota Yaris and the older Scion iA.

Marsymars 7y ago

> I hope this kind of thing doesn't get banned entirely. when it works, I find that having a good navigation system allows me to pay more attention on actually driving the car. Anecdotally, over the years I've been driving, a majority of potentially collision-causing mistakes I've made (and that I've noticed) have been when I've been cognitively distracted by navigation systems and was looking for a turn/exit or thinking ahead for a turn/exit. I've adjusted to always prioritize real-time safety even if it comes at the cost of missing my turn and having to double back to get where I'm going. I believe that following nav directions in real-time comes at a safety cost, and am skeptical that many people both realize this and make the appropriate adjustments.

leetcrew 7y ago
I'm guessing this is a ymmv type situation. I personally find navigation to be by far the most stressful part of driving. I have a bad tendency to flip binary directions like left/right, east/west, etc. when I first had my license (before navigation apps for your smartphone really existed), I had to spend a lot of my cognitive budget trying to remember whether the turn at X St was a right or left and not paying as much attention to the evolving situation on the road. I'm always willing to miss an exit/turn if I notice it too late or there isn't room to merge safely. if anything, I'm more willing to miss a turn in an unfamiliar area when I know the nav system will automatically find a new route. this probably varies depending on your spatial reasoning skills. my brother can take a quick look at a map and remember the connectivity of all the major roads and then navigate from memory. whenever I try this, I end up in a stressful loop of miss turn -> find place to pull over to look at map -> miss turn again. stress has a comparable impact to driving safety as distraction in my experience.
Krasnol 7y ago
I had one of those portable navigation systems before in my old car and had it mounted on the lower left end of the front window. It was perfect. I never felt distracted or in need to leave the street out of my view for longer. Now I have a quite large navigation screen in the mid console and those optional arrows next to my speedometer. It really took some time to get me to not look and the centre screen. It took even longer to get used to just listen to what the computer lady says. I can't understand how this centre screen has become a safe standard. Especially in countries like Germany where there is no speed limit. It's a toy for passengers.

gkfasdfasdf 7y ago

Do you really use physical buttons on the dash without looking at them? I can't in any of my vehicles.

x3n0ph3n3 7y ago
I absolutely develop tactile memory of the stereo and A/C control panels.

jsight 7y ago

Who cares about Android Auto with specific buttons, I wanted them to compare the same tasks to a old device. How distracting is it to play a specific song on a radio from 1999? Or a specific FM radio station that isn't already programmed?

mlavin 7y ago
2000 Volvo with same radio interface as the earlier 850. For playing a particular song, rest my wrist on the shift lever and push seek next until it gets to the right track. For a specific station, same button until it lands on that station. Not particularly distracting, and minimal glancing at the LCD readout that only shows current frequency or track number.

capableweb 7y ago

> I'm curious how different it would be if you could control Android auto with physical buttons You can, if the car is made that way of course, but the software supports it. I would not buy a car knowing it's only a touchscreen. At least in my car, the radial controls the focus on Android Auto and press it down to select. The screen is not a touch screen.

xenospn 7y ago

I agree. I don't think touchscreens in cars should be a thing. Anything that requires you to look away from the road is a huge distraction, especially a giant colorful screen.

silon42 7y ago
Also, the physical controls never change, so it's much less mental effort if you do glance at them.

jacobsenscott 7y ago

Physical buttons are much safer, and this is well known within the industry. But touch screens are cheap and easy - so automakers won't go back to physical buttons unless they are forced to by regulators.

deveac 7y ago

This is a great question. There's no question that physical controls for the most common tasks in a vehicle (there are actually very few) take less attention. Additionally, it seems like one great promise of software in a vehicle would be to augment and improve upon that fact by design. But it's terribly obvious that this has not been a design goal ever. The goal has been to take the familiar UX of your phone and transfer it to your car so that the media component is immediately familiar (this is nice), but all the while we could have been making the act of driving safer too...

supdatecron 7y ago

> even voice can be distracting when you have to repeat variations of the same command five times and keep checking whether it actually works. This is a silly argument, given the number of arguments that I’ve seen drivers participate in.

jrs95 7y ago

IMO touch screens should be banned as a part of safety regulations. There's simply no need from them in cars, it's a gimmick. Physical buttons are better and don't you to look at them to use them while driving.

beatgammit 7y ago

It's pretty easy to set up navigation without voice control. Basically just pull over for a second, enter your destination, start navigation, then get back on the road. It probably takes the same amount of time as voice commands, but it's not nearly as distracting.

Pxtl 7y ago

Or Android's obnoxious tendency towards silent failure of the Google Assistant. How many times has your phone just just get stuck in the busy-spinner? Mine does often. No audio feedback, not even a way to stop it without picking up the device.

m-p-3 7y ago

I hope Google and Apple will consider putting in place a solid way of navigating the UI with physical buttons. As much as I love Android Auto, I feel like I'm always constrained to use voice commands which I hate with a passion, and I already stick to my steering wheel buttons to control music playback.

yc12340 7y ago
Android already has a solid way of navigating UI with physical buttons. The first generation of Android phones didn't have touchscreens, so the whole OS was designed around DPAD controls — it's support for navigating UI with directional buttons is second to none. The problem isn't OS itself, but applications. Android application developers are frequently implementing custom graphical components, that do not handle "presses" and "clicks" and instead try to directly interact with touchscreen. Google have made a number of increasingly aggressive attempts to work around the issue — for example recent versions of Android try to infer purpose and interactivity of custom UI elements instead of expecting developer to declare it. But that does not help, when everyone is using a handful of fancy libraries, hardwired to require touchscreen. Incidentally, the biggest offender is not a third-party component... It is RecyclerView — Google's official item list implementation, distributed as a separate library. It's support for DPAD navigation is so abysmal, that Google's own engineers (from different department, I presume), had to create Leanback framework largely from scratch instead of relying on official RecyclerView components.