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I don't want a car that has a touch screen Hell yes. Whoever decided to put touchscreens into cars deserves the Darwin Award. We live in a bit of an unfortuna

by moe 14y ago

I don't want a car that has a touch screen Hell yes. Whoever decided to put touchscreens into cars deserves the Darwin Award. We live in a bit of an unfortunate age where perfectly time-tested interfaces are replaced with inferior touch-controls left and right, just because "we can". This applies even to the canonical application; the phone. It's great how many things we can do on our phones now, but the core feature (telephony) has suffered badly. I can't take a call without looking at it anymore, much less place one. In the winter every incoming call turns into a little challenge (how quickly can I rid of that glove without dropping my precious $600 slab-of-glass onto the icy concrete?) Rewind to the 1990s. Many people could tap an entire SMS on their Nokia without taking it out of the pocket. We could dial numbers without looking because we knew a contact is "four taps down" in the address book, and the buttons gave us a reassuring "click" when they were pressed. The industry needs to re-discover tactile feedback and predictable latency as desirable traits. Early androids had a jog-dial (sony) and dedicated camera-buttons (HTC), but they largely disappeared for stupid reasons. I really can't wait for Apple to re-"invent" physical controls in one of their future models. Perhaps the telephony-experience on our expensive pocket-computers will then finally catch up to what we had 20 years ago...

georgemcbay 14y ago
I totally agree with everything you wrote, but since it is going to be a while yet before the industry learns any of these lessons... You can pretty easily turn any set of gloves into touch-capable gloves using a small amount of conductive thread and sewing it through the pad area on the primary finger you use for touch.
ricardobeat 14y ago
I believe it's a matter of technology. Right now touch screens have so many advantages that they make up for the lack of tactile feedback, but as soon as technology allows it will be back.
cdcarter 14y ago
Exactly. Mackie is now making a little audio console that works with your iPad. Plug in your microphones and amps, slide in your iPad, and run it from there. The problem? There's no haptic feedback at all, nor any memorable locations! If a horrible noise starts being emitted, you can't just reach at a known area and slam down a master, you need to make sure you're on the right page on the right mix and then find it, and hope your touch latched.

by moe 14y ago

georgemcbay 14y ago

I totally agree with everything you wrote, but since it is going to be a while yet before the industry learns any of these lessons... You can pretty easily turn any set of gloves into touch-capable gloves using a small amount of conductive thread and sewing it through the pad area on the primary finger you use for touch.

ricardobeat 14y ago

I believe it's a matter of technology. Right now touch screens have so many advantages that they make up for the lack of tactile feedback, but as soon as technology allows it will be back.

cdcarter 14y ago

Exactly. Mackie is now making a little audio console that works with your iPad. Plug in your microphones and amps, slide in your iPad, and run it from there. The problem? There's no haptic feedback at all, nor any memorable locations! If a horrible noise starts being emitted, you can't just reach at a known area and slam down a master, you need to make sure you're on the right page on the right mix and then find it, and hope your touch latched.