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Comment by mstade | Hacker News Reader

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.

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Car manufacturers should look to motorcycles for minimal-distraction UIs. I have a late-model BMW touring bike which has a sizeable number of features (adjustable suspension, throttle response, grip heaters, cruise control), all of which can be controlled by feel/touch from buttons on the handlebars.

That said, car drivers really should get in the habit of making playlists so they can set up music and maps before they start rolling.

My Android Auto has limited features compared to the app, for example you cannot make a new playlist, only access existing ones.

I'm sure it can be distracting, but it is also easy to set up with minimal interaction.

Ultimately, it comes down to individual behavior.

> Ultimately, it comes down to individual behavior.

The problem with all this is that it just depends. If I check a message after stopping at a red light? No real risk. If i hit "call" whilst on an empty straight motor way for a hands free chat? No real risk.

If I try and compose an email on a country lane, or find a specific artist to play, or set a reminder whilst driving through a town centre... quite a lot of risk.

My car still has cassettes, so I have probably taken more risk changing over those (where is that bloody mixtape I want) than the limited phone use I have done

> Ultimately, it comes down to individual behavior.

If this were true cars wouldn’t have touchscreens built in.

I commute daily on a bike and I don't have any of these features. All I have is google assistant through my Bluetooth headset in the helmet.

As a rider, I love the lack of distraction and can focus on everything going on around me, an important skill for staying alive on a bike.

They do have them on F1 steering wheels (3 rotating dials for each thumb - on upper and two inside) - see https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iO-QwuFqzgI/maxresdefault.jpg

My understanding is that those steering wheels are highly customized according to the preferences of each driver. Good thing they are detachable (as they must be, so the driver can get into and out of the cockpit), so the driver can use it with different cars. (Source: Ars Technica long ago?)

Mazda is currently updating all their models with the new infotainment which removes the touchscreen. Android auto and Car play still work with a rotary controller. The screen is also closer to the eyeline of the driver so you don't have to look far away from the road

Had a Mazda 3 with this, although before Android Auto sadly. That input method is by far the best possible; everything is laid out so nicely in terms of using muscle memory, and the rotary knob interface just does the job.

Their approach is far better than the all glass, cost saving Tesla one.

It works super good with Car Play from Apple as well. Definitely worth it

If you still have it, most 2014+ models can have Android Auto added at the dealer, plus there is a open source diy version you can install also

Cheers, it was a 2014 Mazda 3 Astina - got rid of it to ride to work instead. I knew it was coming, but happened after I said goodbye.

As others have mentioned if you have the touchscreen, (2015+) you can get carplay/android auto added on. I did and having google maps with traffic is a huge upgrade to their built-in nav. I can't speak to android auto, but for carplay, the rotary knob, while it works, isn't as intuitive or reliable as the built in-OS. I actually find myself thinking that I have become less safe of a driver when interacting with it, as the finickiness prevents muscle memory from developing.

It's a ballsy move from Mazda. It's a move that definitely goes against the grain for consumer tech. It's better for drivers but I'm sure they lost some potential customers for sticking to their guns.

I don't think there is any way to know but I'd be interested to see some kind of study/data around people buying or passing on a car because of the presence or lack of touch screen.

It seems like a feature that no one would really care about either way that car manufacturers just seem to think people want. It may even be because its cheaper than to R&D a user friendly tactile system with enough features vs just throwing software at it.

Is it this?

https://youtu.be/fd-ZteexmV0

Even in previous generation models (2014-2018 I think) the touchscreen is only enabled when the car isn't moving. For me using the rotary knob became muscle memory so I don't ever use the touchscreen anyway.

That's great to know. I ended up with a 2018 Mazda 3 after I gave up trying to find a car that didn't have a screen and ticked the other boxes I wanted. I seriously considered an Audi A4 just because the screen retracts when you start driving.

This is something Apple could, at least in theory, fix on its end.

Right now, CarPlay interfaces with steering wheel remotes in the standard way where prev/next buttons change tracks and volume +/- changes the volume. What Apple could do is this: add a toggle somewhere in the OS that remaps these to cursor controls. This would, without any effort required on the part of auto manufacturers, bring something comparable to the Mercedes control system to the majority of CarPlay compatible vehicles on the road, all via an OS update.

Carplay on my subaru has navigation by dials all the time. The touch screen works, but the dials are always available. You just turn the right side dial (normally used for tuning when the radio is active) to move the focus on the screen, and press to select. It's how I nearly always interact with carplay.

Surely, the answer is to use Siri?

Now you have two problems.

It's funny to hear you praise that wheel, because internally (in the cloud software division, not hardware) everyone pretty regularly derides it. Of course our only interactions with the hardware are disembodied head units that we're paying 100% attention to, not trying to use out of the corner of our eye while driving.

This is one advantage of smaller teams -- the hardware and software people can communicate needs more effectively, like the importance of tactile controls. From threads like this I think the mistake the industry has made is prioritizing "hands-free" (and mechanical parts reduction) when what we really need is "eyes-free".

Have you considered a BMW with their iDrive controller for the satnav/entertainment?

I have yet to find a car with a better UX (aside from road handling, which I find equally good, but that’s another topic).

Touchscreens should only be allowed in cars with self-driving capabilities, and probably only on the higher levels.

I have, and I find it abhorrent.

In some lists the scrolling wraps around. In some it doesn't. Sometimes it's a click on an item. Sometimes it's a shift to the side.

And the systems I've seen (in BMW's DriveNow) have the worst feature of them all. The main screen where you have your selection of things to do (Nav, Car options, Media, Radio etc.) is not a fixed list, it's an MRU list.

So, if let's say radio is the very last item on the right side of the main screen, and you chose it, the next time you go back to the main screen, it will be the first on the left side of the screen. Now use Nav, go back. Now Nav is the first item and radio is the second item.

It is my long standing theory that people who design car interfaces have never seen a car in their entire life much less have driven one.

I've heard great things about BMW's system, only because you can bind the hotkeys to any screen/feature you want. But there's only like 8 and they all look the same.

True, but they stay at the exact same location, so it‘s easy to memorize.

(And just hovering/slightly touching the key will show the current setting in the display.)

Is this a newer thing? I drive a 2009 model and this is surely a fixed list there. I agree, an MRU would drive me crazy.

It could be a newer thing or their DriveNow interface on top.

Audi Carplay has this too, their screens don't even allow touch.

I put a Sony XAV-1000 in my '07 Honda Fit recently, it was the only Carplay unit I could find with a physical volume knob. You can hold the volume knob down to activate Siri, so I never have to actually use the touchscreen. It's been very nice for Apple Maps/Spotify, I'd recommend looking into it.

I don't think variants of this are particularly uncommon, at least in newer cars -- on my Honda Insight, I can hold down a button on my steering wheel to activate Siri.

(Personally, I don't think I find CarPlay any more distracting than any other in-dash screen; I'm not looking down at the car's built-in navigation system any more than I'm looking at Apple Maps on the same screen. But, I also tend to listen to podcasts while driving, so once they're playing and the map destination is set I rarely have much impulse to fiddle with things.)

The screens are because all new cars in the US are required to have backup cameras now. The lack of physical controls to go with them is entirely on the car companies, though.

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.

what also bothers me about this is even if I don't buy one for the perceived safety risk, others can. the risk remains.

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.

The way I read the history section here 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?

I think what the GP is saying is that because seatbelts were an added expense, the only way they were ever widely adopted was through legislation, and that distraction-minimizing infotainment systems will have to follow a similar path.

Right, sorry, yes, I see that now.

> 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.

That seems bizarrely counter-intuitive as a more-or-less standardized low-distraction interface already exists for car radios.

Okay, sure, you add the touch screen so you can do GPS and stuff, but is it really that hard to wire up a pre-existing car radio knob and buttons to an Android device along with some software to map twisting the knob to adjusting the audio volume and so on?

It just baffles me how little apparent attention was given to this sort of thing. I wonder if these people are dogfooding.

What was your problem with the volvo specifically? I just collected a 2020 XC60 T8 and I have zero issues with it. Much much better than the infotainment system I had in my 2016 Mercedes, far more intuitive and very responsive. My only gripe so far is that if I navigate away from Android Auto I need to scroll left to bring it back up again.

I can't speak for OP but can echo the sentiments with laggy touchscreens in Volvos. I don't know about the 2020 models or even 2019, but certainly the 2017-2018 models had issues in my experience. Maybe they've fixed them, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. I've always been a fan of Volvo's interface pre-touchscreens, they just made sense to me somehow. This is why I'm looking at a late model C70 as a potential purchase.

2019 and onwards got much faster CPUs. I was aware of people complaining about the speed and laginess of the interface on the models before then, but it's not been a problem in my experience, everything is pretty responsive.

Ah right that might be it then. The older models definitely had issues, to the point where you weren't sure if it had actually registered the press or if it was just being slow. The worst of it was the inconsistency, it would sometimes be responsive, and most of the time not. Glad to hear the 2020 models seem better!

IIRC Mazda is looking to remove touch from their driver UI.

We have a 2018 Mazda 6 and a 2019 Honda Odyssey.

The Mazda does have the little wheel (it's down near the gearshift) and in addition the touchscreen on the display screen is disabled when you are in motion (which I think is a great idea). I adapted to it within an hour (I was coming from our older 2007 Honda Civic which has none of these)

The Honda does not have the wheel and you can use the touchscreen any time (which I think is a bad idea)

So a good compromise for you might be a Mazda (I think all cars will come with screens especially now backup cameras are federally mandated)

The newer models (2019, at least) still have that wheel as an option. I love it. I didn’t realize how great it was until I had to rent a car with touchscreen CarPlay for a couple weeks and it SO distracting compared to the Mercedes wheel.

BMW has a pretty decent non-touch infotainment system. It is a wheel style but they do also offer touch if you want to use that.

I've driven i3s and, unfortunately, it's not ideal.

Well, the knob is fine - the CarPlay apps aren't. You can find the physical control by touch, but for any non-trivial operation you still have to actively watch the display as you fiddle the dial to get to the action (on-screen control) you need.

Which is dangerously distractive on the road and kind of irritating when parked.

Audi had this scrollwheel too. It was great. The newer Audis have touchscreens and I find them distracting as well.

There are Mazdas with the center tactile knob for CarPlay interactions.

I hear yah. FYI Current gen maxima has a wheel used to navigate

Audi A5 - still a small wheel in the 2017 model

Audi is also pretty good at making more relevant information and controls available in the dial display area, controlled with a scroll on the steering wheel.

Audi does this too. It isn’t a touchscreen.

I think most of them have this feature. In a Subaru you can the radio tune dial to navigate instead of touching.

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