7 ms·

I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And the

by nokeya 5mo ago

I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.

riffraff 5mo ago
I hadn't heard of this china regulation. Perhaps we will have a "Beijing regulatory effect" positively impacting the world like the Bruxelles and California ones.
- throw848tjfj 5mo ago
  Already happening, best example is worldwide grounding of Boeing 737 MAX. It was China who triggered it, not US authorities (protecting US corporation). Similar thing with batteries on airplanes, tube trains, ferries and underground garages. China cares about fire hazard, other countries care about ideology.
  - wiseowise 5mo ago
    > other countries care about ideology Not even ideology anymore, see US. Democratic country has been attacked in a biggest war since WW2, and they've decided to halt all support and attack Iran instead.
  - noelsusman 5mo ago
    China, famous for never putting ideology over policy.
    - Barrin92 5mo ago
      unless you're going back to the cultural revolution, modern China is extremely pragmatic. It's a nominally socialist country that runs deregulated special economic zones with tens of millions of people and more economic competition than anywhere else. The equivalent would be if the US started to run a socialist planned city of 15 million people somewhere, just for the sake of it. There's pretty much no other place that in the last 30-40 years has as much of a spread of policy experimentation as China has had.
  - drstewart 5mo ago
    Wow, that's amazing. What fire hazard are they preventing in their support for Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine?
  - lqstuart 5mo ago
    Too bad they don't care so much about factory worker safety or slave labor
    - phatfish 5mo ago
      I don't think the bake-off to decide which superpower has the worst human rights record is going to land where you want it to. Hint, they both suck. FWIW, I'll take the one not dropping bombs to keep their BFF happy, boosting right-wing shitheads, threatening to invade their real allies and slapping dumb tariffs on everyone.
      - lqstuart 5mo ago
        They both suck, but one of them literally harvests organs from political prisoners. I’m honestly torn on which one I’d pick, but there’s a TON of likely state-sponsored pro-China propaganda on the internet, so I consider it a patriotic duty to push back for the sole reason that we can still freely talk shit about the one (for the time being, as long as you don’t mention the blessed martyr Charlie Kirk), whereas the other blocks the internet and imprisons people for dissent.
    - platevoltage 5mo ago
      The country I live in has a specific cutout for allowing slavery for incarcerated people.
  - Scroll_Swe 5mo ago
    China glazing on HN, wow what a suprise!
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
- justonceokay 5mo ago
  It’s funny you say that because the China “anti regulatory effect” of the 90s-2000s also had a great impact on quality of life for the world in its own way
_the_inflator 5mo ago
Despite China, IT development is a complete disaster in Germany. All car so called German car manufacturers UX/UI is horrible to say the least. Dieter Rams is the only UX/UI designer, who became famous - outside of Germany. Hartmut Esslinger kind of popularized DR, what an irony, that two Germans made history, but of course not in Germany and even in Germany DR wasn't well known. Braun was a brand and statement, but because the devices were and still are extremely convenient. Braun never put design or beauty in the spotlight - it wasn't recognized as such and therefore not of value to capitalize on. VW? "No one needs Apple Car or Android. We are the world wide Nr. 1 in car business, what does a computer company know about cars? hahaha" Hubris, resulted into a failed attempt to build in 2 years a complete Car OS. It was so bad, I was mocked back then, because I bet against it. I am the only one who successfully build a No Code platform in financial services that became such a hit internally, that it became the standard. dbCORE is its name. Very long story, but design by committee is the norm in Germany, and since outsourcing is the way to go, vendors sell changes all the time otherwise they lose the customer. Value chains like Apple or Google are inconceivable and no one in Business has a background in CS. Porsche 997-2 had the best UX/UI there was. Fantastic blend of nobs and touchscreen. It blew my mind, really. This was 2008. The iPhone came to light 2007! Really, highly impressive, extremely functional and almost no friction at all. 90% was top. And to the haters: Show me any company or product from Germany in IT that is Top 100 globally. Only SAP is or has been featured somewhere below the bottom. And I gurantee you, no one fell in love with its UX/UI...
- symisc_devel 5mo ago
  BMW's latest infotainment despite being intimidating for first time users is quite decent and intuitive compared to the horrors I saw from other German car makers.
- microtonal 5mo ago
  VW? "No one needs Apple Car or Android. We are the world wide Nr. 1 in car business, what does a computer company know about cars? hahaha" I have no idea what you are talking about. I think all recent VW cars (since 2018) support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. CarPlay works great with our VW ID.3. Also, since a refresh a few years ago, the in-car system has had great UX/UI. We are perfectly happy with it and this is after almost two decades of iOS + having tried the systems of various different cars (including NIO). We do not have anything to complain about, except more physical buttons would be nice, but the latest generation is bringing them back (e.g. the new ID.3 NEO). We are considering upgrading to the ID.3 NEO soon (or maybe Hyundai).
ygra 5mo ago
Euro NCAP will also only give the highest safety rating to cars with physical buttons for common functions.
mock-possum 5mo ago
So what’s the next link in this chain why is china ‘really’ requiring it?
- mghackerlady 5mo ago
  safety, probably. Why do we require cars have functional brakes?
mihaelm 5mo ago
Dunno, people hate the all-touch trend so much (I've never come across someone who likes it), it surprised me it took them so long to reverse course.
- rossjudson 5mo ago
  I have an Audi Q7 and a model X. Don't miss the physical controls of the Q7 at all. Given a choice between Tesla software and Android Auto, I'll take Tesla's. Then again, I'm someone who likes the yoke steering, and invested a few weeks acclimating to the lack of steampunk turn stalks. For physical controls, it always comes down to "What did you want to do?" There are very few that are actually needed.
- beachy 5mo ago
  Anyone exec wanting to move away from touchscreens and back to buttons would have flashbacks to Steve Balmer mocking the new iPhone and stabbing his fingers at the touch panel and making a fool of himself for eternity.
- Rebelgecko 5mo ago
  It seems cyclical. Maybe the people who stand up for good UX retire and it takes a few years for a company to realize that they're going in a bad direction. Mazda used to have do the best most user friendly controls and bragged about it as a differentiator... but the new cx-5 is a touch screen-only monstrosity
jjtheblunt 5mo ago
well their F1 yoke uses lots of buttons, and makers often roll insights from F1 into production cars https://sim-lab.us/cdn/shop/files/mercedes-product-image.png?v=1772720158&width=1445 https://sim-lab.us/cdn/shop/files/mercedes-product-image.png...
throw0101c 5mo ago
> […] but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. European safety ratings also mandated buttons in 2024 (for this year) for certain functions: * https://www.euroncap.com/press-media/euro-ncap-announces-2026-protocol-changes-to-tackle-modern-driving-risks/ https://www.euroncap.com/press-media/euro-ncap-announces-202... * https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/ https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens...

by nokeya 5mo ago

riffraff 5mo ago

I hadn't heard of this china regulation. Perhaps we will have a "Beijing regulatory effect" positively impacting the world like the Bruxelles and California ones.

throw848tjfj 5mo ago
Already happening, best example is worldwide grounding of Boeing 737 MAX. It was China who triggered it, not US authorities (protecting US corporation). Similar thing with batteries on airplanes, tube trains, ferries and underground garages. China cares about fire hazard, other countries care about ideology.
- wiseowise 5mo ago
  > other countries care about ideology Not even ideology anymore, see US. Democratic country has been attacked in a biggest war since WW2, and they've decided to halt all support and attack Iran instead.
- noelsusman 5mo ago
  China, famous for never putting ideology over policy.
  - Barrin92 5mo ago
    unless you're going back to the cultural revolution, modern China is extremely pragmatic. It's a nominally socialist country that runs deregulated special economic zones with tens of millions of people and more economic competition than anywhere else. The equivalent would be if the US started to run a socialist planned city of 15 million people somewhere, just for the sake of it. There's pretty much no other place that in the last 30-40 years has as much of a spread of policy experimentation as China has had.
- drstewart 5mo ago
  Wow, that's amazing. What fire hazard are they preventing in their support for Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine?
- lqstuart 5mo ago
  Too bad they don't care so much about factory worker safety or slave labor
  - phatfish 5mo ago
    I don't think the bake-off to decide which superpower has the worst human rights record is going to land where you want it to. Hint, they both suck. FWIW, I'll take the one not dropping bombs to keep their BFF happy, boosting right-wing shitheads, threatening to invade their real allies and slapping dumb tariffs on everyone.
    - lqstuart 5mo ago
      They both suck, but one of them literally harvests organs from political prisoners. I’m honestly torn on which one I’d pick, but there’s a TON of likely state-sponsored pro-China propaganda on the internet, so I consider it a patriotic duty to push back for the sole reason that we can still freely talk shit about the one (for the time being, as long as you don’t mention the blessed martyr Charlie Kirk), whereas the other blocks the internet and imprisons people for dissent.
  - platevoltage 5mo ago
    The country I live in has a specific cutout for allowing slavery for incarcerated people.
- Scroll_Swe 5mo ago
  China glazing on HN, wow what a suprise!
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
justonceokay 5mo ago
It’s funny you say that because the China “anti regulatory effect” of the 90s-2000s also had a great impact on quality of life for the world in its own way

_the_inflator 5mo ago

Despite China, IT development is a complete disaster in Germany. All car so called German car manufacturers UX/UI is horrible to say the least. Dieter Rams is the only UX/UI designer, who became famous - outside of Germany. Hartmut Esslinger kind of popularized DR, what an irony, that two Germans made history, but of course not in Germany and even in Germany DR wasn't well known. Braun was a brand and statement, but because the devices were and still are extremely convenient. Braun never put design or beauty in the spotlight - it wasn't recognized as such and therefore not of value to capitalize on. VW? "No one needs Apple Car or Android. We are the world wide Nr. 1 in car business, what does a computer company know about cars? hahaha" Hubris, resulted into a failed attempt to build in 2 years a complete Car OS. It was so bad, I was mocked back then, because I bet against it. I am the only one who successfully build a No Code platform in financial services that became such a hit internally, that it became the standard. dbCORE is its name. Very long story, but design by committee is the norm in Germany, and since outsourcing is the way to go, vendors sell changes all the time otherwise they lose the customer. Value chains like Apple or Google are inconceivable and no one in Business has a background in CS. Porsche 997-2 had the best UX/UI there was. Fantastic blend of nobs and touchscreen. It blew my mind, really. This was 2008. The iPhone came to light 2007! Really, highly impressive, extremely functional and almost no friction at all. 90% was top. And to the haters: Show me any company or product from Germany in IT that is Top 100 globally. Only SAP is or has been featured somewhere below the bottom. And I gurantee you, no one fell in love with its UX/UI...

symisc_devel 5mo ago
BMW's latest infotainment despite being intimidating for first time users is quite decent and intuitive compared to the horrors I saw from other German car makers.
microtonal 5mo ago
VW? "No one needs Apple Car or Android. We are the world wide Nr. 1 in car business, what does a computer company know about cars? hahaha" I have no idea what you are talking about. I think all recent VW cars (since 2018) support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. CarPlay works great with our VW ID.3. Also, since a refresh a few years ago, the in-car system has had great UX/UI. We are perfectly happy with it and this is after almost two decades of iOS + having tried the systems of various different cars (including NIO). We do not have anything to complain about, except more physical buttons would be nice, but the latest generation is bringing them back (e.g. the new ID.3 NEO). We are considering upgrading to the ID.3 NEO soon (or maybe Hyundai).

ygra 5mo ago

Euro NCAP will also only give the highest safety rating to cars with physical buttons for common functions.

mock-possum 5mo ago

So what’s the next link in this chain why is china ‘really’ requiring it?

mghackerlady 5mo ago
safety, probably. Why do we require cars have functional brakes?

mihaelm 5mo ago

Dunno, people hate the all-touch trend so much (I've never come across someone who likes it), it surprised me it took them so long to reverse course.

rossjudson 5mo ago
I have an Audi Q7 and a model X. Don't miss the physical controls of the Q7 at all. Given a choice between Tesla software and Android Auto, I'll take Tesla's. Then again, I'm someone who likes the yoke steering, and invested a few weeks acclimating to the lack of steampunk turn stalks. For physical controls, it always comes down to "What did you want to do?" There are very few that are actually needed.
beachy 5mo ago
Anyone exec wanting to move away from touchscreens and back to buttons would have flashbacks to Steve Balmer mocking the new iPhone and stabbing his fingers at the touch panel and making a fool of himself for eternity.
Rebelgecko 5mo ago
It seems cyclical. Maybe the people who stand up for good UX retire and it takes a few years for a company to realize that they're going in a bad direction. Mazda used to have do the best most user friendly controls and bragged about it as a differentiator... but the new cx-5 is a touch screen-only monstrosity

jjtheblunt 5mo ago

well their F1 yoke uses lots of buttons, and makers often roll insights from F1 into production cars https://sim-lab.us/cdn/shop/files/mercedes-product-image.png?v=1772720158&width=1445 https://sim-lab.us/cdn/shop/files/mercedes-product-image.png...

throw0101c 5mo ago

> […] but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. European safety ratings also mandated buttons in 2024 (for this year) for certain functions: * https://www.euroncap.com/press-media/euro-ncap-announces-2026-protocol-changes-to-tackle-modern-driving-risks/ https://www.euroncap.com/press-media/euro-ncap-announces-202... * https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/ https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens...