I'm not big on touchscreens on phones, though it doesn't drive me mad personally. Real estate is a practical limitation and so forces trade-offs. The big diff

I'm not big on touchscreens on phones, though it doesn't drive me mad personally. Real estate is a practical limitation and so forces trade-offs. The big difference with a phone/tablet is that you're looking at the screen when using it. That's fundamental to the interaction experience. Cars are _completely_ different: a driver should be looking at *the road*. Touchscreens as the main control interface for cars were a stupifying dumb idea right from the start. It's as if the alphageeks burst through the design studio doors, shunted the ergnonomicists aside, and proclaimed anything physical was neanderthal and out of date. Behold, the emperor has new clothes! "We can do all this in SOFTWARE, and it's adaptable, we can use clever colours, and look if you just tap this menu three times and slide along here, YOU CAN BOOST THE BASS IN THE RIGHT REAR SPEAKER! Show me how you do THAT with your Victorian buttons!". Fair play to Mazda for leading the resistance movement here - and good to see VW actually listening and doing something about it. With any luck, touch screen car control will suffer the ignominious death it deserves.