4 ms·

Luckily the tide seems to be turning: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-cars.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screen

by baobob 4y ago

Luckily the tide seems to be turning: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-cars.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-car...

tablespoon 4y ago
> Luckily the tide seems to be turning: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-cars.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-car... We can hope, but there's reason to be pessimistic: > With traffic fatalities spiking over the past few years and with no real plan for how to make screens less distracting, we seem to have entered into the type of brutal acquiescence that’s common in the tech era; car manufacturers will keep putting bigger and more complicated screens in cars without much thought to safety or even functionality, and we, the consumers, will continue to buy them. > ... > The incentives of carmakers are pretty clear: Touch screens are cheaper than designing and installing a mechanical panel. And given that most cars today are reliable, come with lengthy warranties and an array of mostly uniform features, a big screen becomes a way for a car brand to distinguish itself from its competitors, especially on the showroom floor before potential buyers have a chance to really immerse themselves in just how annoying the screen will be. One of the weaknesses of the market is that it doesn't necessarily give consumers what would work best for them, it just lets them pick from what they're given. Barring regulatory action, I don't see device-makers moving away touchscreen maximization.
- _jal 4y ago
  > we, the consumers, will continue to buy them. Who's this "we"? I'm in the pre-buy stage, it looks like my record of non-car-ownership will end at 23 years. (My last car was stolen from a SOMA lot in 1999.) It does look like I'm buying used and IC, because I will not have a touch screen. I've driven basically every model of car you can rent, and some of them are less offensive than others, but they're all ass. Backup assist is vaguely nice, but I learned to parallel park before they existed, so I don't really care. And everything else about them is actively worse. The UI is such a weird thing to cheap out on. As far as I'm concerned, keep your butt warmers and solenoid-driven seat adjustment, I want physical knobs I don't have to look at to use.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    ' I'm buying used and IC, because I will not have a touch screen' That's not a solution - you have to look at market of brand new cars, as whateber is avaliable now will replace all the used cars.
    - _jal 4y ago
      Of course it is a solution. I end up with a car that doesn't have a touch screen.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        >> That's not a solution - you have to look at market of brand new cars, as whateber is avaliable now will replace all the used cars. > Of course it is a solution. I end up with a car that doesn't have a touch screen. The point is that solution is only a band-aid. Cars wear out. New cars turn into used cars, which turn into "classic cars", which then turn into museum pieces. Especially with the later two steps, supply drops and maintenance becomes harder.
        _jal 4y ago
        And my point is, humans wear out. They stop driving cars and eventually die. There is a reasonable chance I won't buy another vehicle, so I don't care what the rest of the market does.
        tablespoon 4y ago
        > There is a reasonable chance I won't buy another vehicle, so I don't care what the rest of the market does. Good for you, but why do you feel you need to weigh in on the new car market when you have no intention of ever participating?
        _jal 4y ago
        Why do you feel the need to play conversation-cop?
musesum 4y ago
This! Was fiddling with a Tesla touch screen to do something basic. During those few seconds, autopilot decided to steer me off the road - with no shoulder - at 80 MPH (it was during a sunset). Fortunately, I caught it in time. After the panic subsided, I decided to learn the voice commands. It seems that each device, now, has its own language, which we have to learn in order to function. A modern tower of Babel.
- digitallyfree 4y ago
  Speaking of Teslas, the SpaceX spacecraft also use touch screens heavily in the cockpit (maybe it's just something the company prefers) and only have a very small button panel. This is in comparison to the large array of controls normally seen on most aircraft and spacecraft. Obviously they state that the technology is well tested and that the astronauts train a lot with them, but in my mind you simply won't have the muscle memory and response you can get with a tactile interface.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    Astronauts are passengers though. There is very little they can do to control their spacecraft during launch, as the flight path is complex and cannot really be flown manually. Rockets have always been this way, it's just that before they had no choice but to put everything on toggle switches.

by baobob 4y ago

Luckily the tide seems to be turning: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-cars.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-car...

tablespoon 4y ago

> Luckily the tide seems to be turning: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-cars.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/touch-screens-car... We can hope, but there's reason to be pessimistic: > With traffic fatalities spiking over the past few years and with no real plan for how to make screens less distracting, we seem to have entered into the type of brutal acquiescence that’s common in the tech era; car manufacturers will keep putting bigger and more complicated screens in cars without much thought to safety or even functionality, and we, the consumers, will continue to buy them. > ... > The incentives of carmakers are pretty clear: Touch screens are cheaper than designing and installing a mechanical panel. And given that most cars today are reliable, come with lengthy warranties and an array of mostly uniform features, a big screen becomes a way for a car brand to distinguish itself from its competitors, especially on the showroom floor before potential buyers have a chance to really immerse themselves in just how annoying the screen will be. One of the weaknesses of the market is that it doesn't necessarily give consumers what would work best for them, it just lets them pick from what they're given. Barring regulatory action, I don't see device-makers moving away touchscreen maximization.

_jal 4y ago
> we, the consumers, will continue to buy them. Who's this "we"? I'm in the pre-buy stage, it looks like my record of non-car-ownership will end at 23 years. (My last car was stolen from a SOMA lot in 1999.) It does look like I'm buying used and IC, because I will not have a touch screen. I've driven basically every model of car you can rent, and some of them are less offensive than others, but they're all ass. Backup assist is vaguely nice, but I learned to parallel park before they existed, so I don't really care. And everything else about them is actively worse. The UI is such a weird thing to cheap out on. As far as I'm concerned, keep your butt warmers and solenoid-driven seat adjustment, I want physical knobs I don't have to look at to use.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  ' I'm buying used and IC, because I will not have a touch screen' That's not a solution - you have to look at market of brand new cars, as whateber is avaliable now will replace all the used cars.
  - _jal 4y ago
    Of course it is a solution. I end up with a car that doesn't have a touch screen.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      >> That's not a solution - you have to look at market of brand new cars, as whateber is avaliable now will replace all the used cars. > Of course it is a solution. I end up with a car that doesn't have a touch screen. The point is that solution is only a band-aid. Cars wear out. New cars turn into used cars, which turn into "classic cars", which then turn into museum pieces. Especially with the later two steps, supply drops and maintenance becomes harder.
      - _jal 4y ago
        And my point is, humans wear out. They stop driving cars and eventually die. There is a reasonable chance I won't buy another vehicle, so I don't care what the rest of the market does.
        tablespoon 4y ago
        > There is a reasonable chance I won't buy another vehicle, so I don't care what the rest of the market does. Good for you, but why do you feel you need to weigh in on the new car market when you have no intention of ever participating?
        _jal 4y ago
        Why do you feel the need to play conversation-cop?

musesum 4y ago

This! Was fiddling with a Tesla touch screen to do something basic. During those few seconds, autopilot decided to steer me off the road - with no shoulder - at 80 MPH (it was during a sunset). Fortunately, I caught it in time. After the panic subsided, I decided to learn the voice commands. It seems that each device, now, has its own language, which we have to learn in order to function. A modern tower of Babel.

digitallyfree 4y ago
Speaking of Teslas, the SpaceX spacecraft also use touch screens heavily in the cockpit (maybe it's just something the company prefers) and only have a very small button panel. This is in comparison to the large array of controls normally seen on most aircraft and spacecraft. Obviously they state that the technology is well tested and that the astronauts train a lot with them, but in my mind you simply won't have the muscle memory and response you can get with a tactile interface.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  Astronauts are passengers though. There is very little they can do to control their spacecraft during launch, as the flight path is complex and cannot really be flown manually. Rockets have always been this way, it's just that before they had no choice but to put everything on toggle switches.