BMW removing touchscreen from a bunch of models due to chip shortage | Hacker News Reader

BMW removing touchscreen from a bunch of models due to chip shortage

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190 pointsedward203 comments

I knew this thread would be filled will people that dislike touchscreens. I hate them too and and when we bought our first car, we looked at a used Subaru at the last model-year that kept physical controls. I'm a synthesizer designer, so I'm a bit biased towards knobs.

My dad just bought a new Toyota Civic and I've watched him be completely frustrated and overwhelmed by the touch screen. I've also had to use it a few times while driving it and noticed that my eyes needed to be off the road for way longer than I'm comfortable with (just to turn the volume down!).

Is there ever going to be a movement towards these car companies going back to physical controls for this stuff? Or are we pretty much heading towards a steeringwheel-less wrap around touchscreen dashboard that plays advertisements for nearby businesses.

I'm legitimately curious about the safety of these things, and has any studies been done? It's just strange to have car companies investing billions in self-driving cars claiming "you're too distracted to operate a car yourself" and then making current models where adjusting the A/C requires drilling down thru menus.

I think Mazda makes cars that have a screen whose controls are physical.

Yes. I had a last gen (2014 Mazda 3) and traded it in for a current gen (2021 Mazda 3) earlier this year. On last gen models they do have touch screen, but the touch part is auto disabled when the speed is above a low threshold (5 or 10 mph). In the current gen they just removed touch part completely.

With the last gen I only barely used the touch function in the pre-Android-Auto days, to help put the address to its builtin navigation system faster. Later they provided the optional upgrade of Android Auto (for $500) and I don't think I ever used the touch feature after the upgrade. In the current gen Android Auto is standard configuration and I never missed touching.

Besides the removal of touching, they also have some other small but useful improvements on the screen on the current gen that I really appreciate:

1. They made the screen wider in the current gen, so with Android Auto you can have 2 apps displaying at the same time, usually maps and music, with one horizontal and one vertical.

2. They made the screen slightly slanted towards the driver in the current gen.

Another thing I think most people don't realize is that the design around non-touch screen could mean that the screen can be placed to a better position. When the screen is touchable, it has to be within arms reach, which usually means it has to been lower, and the driver has to look down when they need some info from the screen. The current gen Mazda move it upper, so the driver only need to roll their eyes slightly to see it.

Another 2021 Mazda 3 owner - I hadn't even realized you last point about screen position, but now that you've mentioned it, it's obvious. And frankly, fantastic. The physical-only controls are the entire reason we went with a Mazda, and remembering my 2016 Civic, watching Hagerty's review of the 8th gen Golf, and reading through this is just vindicating that choice.

I'd recommend a Mazda, on this basis alone, to anyone that asks - and ridicule other brands when it comes up (with someone that hasn't just dropped thousands on a new car).

Yes, they had touchscreens for a while but started disabling/removing them from new cars (pre-COVID) for safety reasons. I believe their 2021 cars have all switched to physical controls plus one of those puck things.

It should be obvious any romantic notions of things like helping the environment or saving lives are just costumes for the reality of most modern business motivations: making money.

I don't think these cynical comments add anything to the conversation.

The reality is that even if the knobs and the touchscreen were identical in cost, the touch screen allows for a separation between the software and hardware design teams.

It's quicker to update, enhance, patch, redesign, etc. It's just better from a manufacturing perspective, and aside from the tactile loss, allows more options and more data presentation for the consumer in a much smaller space.

I am also a cynical, if admitting market forces is cynical. :)

The only 75% cynical part of me thought that the move to touchscreens, removing ports, etc improved device lifetime and also lowered the unit cost of things like AppleCare.

The less moving parts the less chance of failure, right?

> The less moving parts the less chance of failure, right?

Of failure by impact and vibration, perhaps. But that's pretty much a solved problem in car dials and buttons - we have decades ols cars with fully functional dashboards and controls.

Otherwise, risk of failure is driven up by complexity, in which case a computer, with all its components, plus an operating system, drivers, etc, and apps on top of it add many layers of complexity in comparison with buttons and dials.

an electric motor, wiring harness and software to control vent direction versus a couple of injection molded pieces of plastic... which is less likely to fail and which is easier to repair/replace?

Software is a moving part - usually a lot of moving parts.

>the touch screen allows for a separation between the software and hardware design teams

it allows for the illusion that there is a separation, which isn't the case because when you're controlling a physical system through a digital interface both are inherently connected.

What it likely allows for is significantly more bad design, because both teams have no idea what the other one is doing or how changes in one system affect the other.

It's like arguing that separating the head from the body allows for better medical treatment because you can ship one to the psychologist and the other to physiotherapy when in reality you end up in the morgue (a fate you might be sharing with the touchpad distracted driver who was staring at data presentations while driving into the busy intersection)

Also it allows nonsense where clearly things are done because they can be, not because anyone in the world thought this was actually a good idea. Look at the latest Porsche Panamera, where the middle vent is directed by using a control on the touchscreen.....directly below it. So you replaced a simple and intuitive dimple on the vent that allows you to easily direct the vent without looking, to something that's hidden under a submenu, that you need to look at to use, and that takes several seconds to adjust because there's now a motor controling the vent orientation.

Like, I honestly cannot imagine anyone at Porsche actually thinks this is a good idea - it exists purely because a team somewhere had to fill a quota for "features" they are responsible for.

ha-ha, they just blindly copy it from tesla, without copy profiles and other features. In all new tesla's including expensive ones' you don't have manual regulation. You do everything with one gesture, saving so many manual frictions. Once you set it up it remember your profile, so you don't need to change it every time your family member decide to use your car e.g. every day or more often.

I mean, I get the idea with profiles, sure, but I just don't understand how that's removing friction in day to day situations? You jump in your car after going to the gym, you want cold air blasting in your face - having to mess with the on-screen controls to change that temporarily is a huge amount of friction in user interaction, especially compared to the previous UI which was literally "grab a little handle, point the vent at your face, done".

Jump in the car, and say "I'm hot" while getting out of parking. Climate control blast the air to optimal temp regardless during first minutes. You adjust it with few taps to you and your passenger. You can even use in some cases camera in the car to point the air to your face. And yeah, swipes gesture also work on the screen, so you can adjust temp without looking at screen, even thought voice is much intuitive.

I was a rear passenger in a model 3 on a hot day and the amount of fiddling the owner had to perform to actually get some cool air flow in the back was ludicrous. In my 2013 car with 20th century knobs and dials I could have done it myself in 2 seconds.

You probably confused it with some other car, back seat on model y and 3 equipped with analog handles. Same as your 20th century car.

I mean, I haven't been in the back seat of a Model 3 personally, but literally every car I have ever had, analog handles or not, you had to do something to make the air flow to the back. Even if you have vents in the back, the air doesn't go there by default. This was usually a button on the dash - so I'm not surprised if even in a Model 3 you have to select an option on the screen to make the air re-route to the back. This is not a critique btw, just a possible observation.

There are also completely unusable by visually impaired people who need a completely different interface. I'm so sick of getting touchscreens shoved down my throat by pollyanna-ish types.

(I am not currently visually impaired but have experienced several weeks of temporary blindness...it's a completely terrifying experience. Suddenly computers were almost wholely useless to me.)

Since we're talking about driver's dashboard here it's a very marginal case.

At what level of visual impairment is one able to still drive safely? I’m not sure touch screens would be the biggest problem in that situation.

Far sighted people can still drive safely, but might need glasses(or a different kind of glasses) to operate screens in a car. Where previously you could adjust things by touch and intuition, well, now you can't.

I assume parent comment was complaining on physical buttons getting removed from many home electronics and a company removed keys from a keyboard and replaced with a touchbar thingy - though from what I read they had the courage to admit the users did not like it but nobody seems to think "let's do a real world user UX test before we do major changes because some vision person thinks this touch shit looks futuristic".

Yep, no more headaches if you have no head. Roll safe.

Ultimately no one really uses these touchscreens cause they are ux nonsense. All this work done on redesigns (crap, where is that thing again?) goes straight to the trash, bypassing any criticism.

more data presentation for the consumer

Never heard it as an argument for buying a car. “Why did you choose BMW? Oh, you know that data presentation thing and more on-screen options!” I can’t help but burst out laughing imagining this conversation.

The only reason this happens is that it is a small thing embedded into a big one, and one doesn’t simply turn the big thing down because of a (relatively) minor nuisance. When android or iphone design team break your workflow again, you sigh but don’t throw it away, because it’s still android or iphone and there are no alternatives. These touchscreen teams get ZERO negative feedback except some whining on tech forums.

I rode in a Tesla for the first time yesterday and apparently drivers are putting up with with a constantly flickering, incredibly glitchy rendering of the car’s knowledge of surrounding objects being juggled around like hot potatoes on the huge display panel. Would you prop up a full size iPad Pro on your dashboard as you drive, playing a YouTube highlight reel of Russian dash cam near-misses? No? Then why would you simulate that experience with these grey ghost cars, of which, in the 20 nauseating minutes I watched them, every single one appeared to be an imminent collision, poking into our lane?

I hope Tesla is internally in shambles leadership-wise, because I would hate to be the person that gave the green light to shipping that and not be able to blame it on endemic dysfunction. What a farce.

That sounds terrible. And the worst part of it is today you can’t rip it out and insert a good aftermarket part anymore.

Hilarious!

I've never been in one (and don't intend to), but that precisely describes what I imagine being in a Tesla to be like from watching videos of it.

The funniest one I've seen was the one where they were following a truck full of stop signs, and it appeared on the screen like a bubble machine endlessly creating stop signs.

These things are funny to watch but terrifying to me that something this half-baked could be released into the public.

There's also the recent one where it was going to drive the car directly into a pole until the driver grabbed the wheel at the last moment.

It's definitely a hard problem, but I believe that Tesla's hubris will NOT be rewarded.

<<It's quicker to update, enhance, patch, redesign, etc. It's just better from a manufacturing perspective, and aside from the tactile loss, allows more options and more data presentation for the consumer in a much smaller space.

So this is my beef with this approach to today's manufacturing. It is never complete and relies on future updates. The final product is never fully delivered.

It started with games, but the demographics skew young and those are not exactly savvy consumers. I lost it when Tesla was allowed to bring this model into cars. Constant updates including ones that affect how the battery you bough operates. Even if you buy the same model, it is not a given that the car will behave the same way ( as more recently evidenced by Model Y and "Phantom Breaking").

And this is the part it don't get. Buying cars is not exactly a cheap affair. It can't be just the case of 'fool and his money', because the trend is being adopted by other manufacturers to an extent so there must be research suggesting people will buy it and anecdotally in my MBA class students were earnestly pitching IoT devices with subscription models for cars along the lines of 'this is about to break'.

I just want something that works. It is a car. It is not a website. It is supposed to a job. You don't need to redesign UI every few weeks just to feel relevant.

GDI, now I really feel old.

"move fast, break things" gets an entire new (dark) dimension in car manufacturing.

>The reality is that even if the knobs and the touchscreen were identical in cost, the touch screen allows for a separation between the software and hardware design teams.

A touch screen is not required for that separation. Physical controls can also be interfaced to hardware in the same fashion. A knob control can be a "soft" knob, where it only reports the direction of rotation (or the current knob position, and the software determines the delta).

Sure, but now it doesn’t have a label, or help text, or anything else you could implement with a touchscreen.

Single-function knobs should be mandatory for anything you might need to reach for while you’re driving, but seriously - what’s with the physical control fetish?

Of course knob cost more than a touchscreen. They are more expensive to produce, since you have more parts, more wiring, more steps to assemble it. Like it's more expensive to produce "analog" electronics than putting a microcontroller and do things in software.

The question is, what is better? To me touch interfaces in cars are very bad from a safety standpoint: they are impossible to use without looking at them, thus not looking at the road. Physical buttons are more practical, since you can just feel them, I don't need to look at my AC controls to change temperature, I just have to rotate som knobs or push some buttons that I know where they are located. Same thing with radio controls, I know where the buttons are and I can perfectly operate them without looking at the radio itself.

Beside that, but it's my opinion, touchscreen are more ugly to see, all modern car seems to have a big tablet, that not only is ugly but it reduces the field of view of the driver, or of the passengers. When I'm on a car trip I want to view outside the panorama, not an ugly 10" display to show me the radio station that I'm tuned to as it did the old 20 character display of my old radio.

I love the dashboards of older cars, with knobs, switches, dials, colored LEDs, an 8 segment displays. Now every car seems identical to another.

If we talk about more data presentation, yes more useless data presentation for sure. Useless information distracts you from driving, and thus makes car less safe. If you want then to extract whatever other data from the car... a cheap ODB-II interface that connects via bluetooh to your car is all you need. Of course to be used only when you are not driving.

Of course. But there's also rare examples of companies going above and beyond for no immediate gain.

https://danluu.com/car-safety/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689538

Volvo in the short term could not advertise their cars any better than their competition, who was passing the same tests.

However in the long term (and we're talking decades here) them going above and beyond what was mandated earned them a reputation for safety.

HN leans contrarian and older. Car buyers below 31 prefer touch screens. [1]

[1] https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/best-cars-blog/2012/01/y...

Prefer, perhaps, but do they increase incidence of distracted driving? That's really the only metric that matters.

makes sense

> Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.

edit: tangentially, physical controls of newer BMW are badly placed as well.

That group has always had the highest rate of crash involvement, even before touchscreens in cars were a thing.

that's the point.

the preferences of people with little or no experience shouldn't drive safety considerations.

why? that still makes no sense.

putting touch screens in cars to appeal younger generations is a legit market proposition, but forcing them on people who are familiar with other types of car controls and have been driving for decades should be considered putting them at risk.

younger people prefer touch screens?

make them optional and let the customers chose if they want them or not.

Ah, but how can you sell ad-space that way?

You think 16 year olds are buying a car for the touchscreen?

original post showed that they prefer them, not me.

[2012]

Generation Y buyers are also interested in cars packed with technology, including smartphone integration and touch-screen interfaces, according to the Los Angeles Times. With systems like MyFord Touch and the Tesla Model S’ iPad-like touch-screen center stack, automakers have already started to address this in the market, but most reviewers say there’s lots of room for improvement. In particular, Ford’s MyFord Touch system has been panned for its labyrinthine setup, hard-to-use controls and buggy software.

Let me translate it from journal-ish. They said they’d like fuel data and music in their smartphones because in-car touchscreen ui is utter bullshit.

> Is there ever going to be a movement towards these car companies going back to physical controls for this stuff?

Mazda and Honda already are: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/honda-and-mazda-ditch-touchscre...

Touchscreens in cars are great... for non-essential stuff. Want to change the backlight color for the instrument cluster? Touchscreen is a lot better for that (given a good gui menu system) than holding two buttons at the same time, then holding one, and clicking the other 6 times, waiting 3 seconds, and then clicking through the colors.

Touchscreen for radio control, AC, answering (bluetooth) phone, and stuff... no, thank you, give me physical controls.

> than holding two buttons at the same time, then holding one, and clicking the other 6 times, waiting 3 seconds, and then clicking through the colors.

Why can’t it be a dedicated dial? If you run out of room, maybe it’s not so important

That's the point of touchscreens I think.

Being able to offer users a myriad of config options without the need for tons of knobs.

Not saying I like it, but a lot of people seem to.

I guess the ideal setup would be knobs for essential stuff like volume, AC, etc, and then a touchscreen for the rest of the stuff.

You want a dial to “change the backlight color for the instrument cluster”??

It could go right next to the dial that changes the instrument panel's backlight brightness

You might be joking now, but:

https://www.ebay.com/p/20004588697

I drove a 40+ year old car for a while and it had one of these. Great feature, except that in old cars they always need to be at max these days due to all the street lights, etc.

Now it's been replaced with headlight moving knob in newer cars, which is more awesome.

My panel brightness knob is also the button that resets the trip meter.

No, I think it’s a silly feature. But if someone decides it must be there, then I want it to be a physical thing, such as a dial

Or just have six dedicated buttons for “everything else”:

  BACK |       UP        | ENTER
   /   | LEFT ---- RIGHT |   /
  EXIT |      DOWN       | MENU

Mazda did better: https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...

The central Commander can be tilted up/down/left/right and pushed. Also if my memory is not cheating, it has a capacitive touch surface.

Mazda and BMW have had something like this in some of their cars for years now. It's been a pleasant experience in the few cars I've used that had that kind of setup.

Here's how that works in a VW for calling back the last person who called you: right-right-right-ok-down-ok-down-down-ok-down-ok-ok. Not exactly what I'd call "pleasant experience". And you must look at the screen for the procedure, luckily they have a small screen for this in the middle of the instruments.

The Mini has a dedicated button to switch instrument panel colours. Or at least, older models did.

> Want to change the backlight color for the instrument cluster? Touchscreen is a lot better for that (given a good gui menu system) than holding two buttons at the same time, then holding one, and clicking the other 6 times, waiting 3 seconds, and then clicking through the colors.

Is that actually on a car that you've used? What a horrible design. A few Ford models have a dedicated button for ambient lighting that cycles through the colors, and a knob beside it to adjust the brightness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2TiKCEzQIA

Do we really need to be able to set the RGB value of the interior lighting? This seems so ridiculous.

Cars have always had ambient lighting. I don't see why adjusting the color is ridiculous, especially considering work trucks like the F-250 have options like heated/cooled massaging seats and heated steering wheels. If you want to talk about questionable options, check out Bentley's Falconry "kit" for the Bentayga.

https://www.bentleymotors.com/content/brandmaster/master/ben...

Yeah, just look at the average office phone, e.g. [1]. Almost nobody knows what all those buttons do, and when you can press them. Just give me a touchscreen like I have on my smartphone!

Same for printer menus. To get the IP address of your printer, you have to wade through 1-line menus and print a physical page, seriously?

[1] https://cdn-web.vtp-media.com/products/CM/CM18445/CM18445_VT...

All of those buttons in the image you linked are labeled. What do you find confusing about it, and how would a touch screen make it any less confusing if you don't know what the labels mean to begin with?

The labels are mostly just one word, so not very helpful. That conference button, what does it do? Will it ask me to type in the phone numbers of to-be-invited participants?

Also the buttons are not context sensitive. Ideally they should disappear when you can't press them. I want a basic interface with clear options, and unfolding menus whenever I want to do something more advanced like making a conference call.

Well nowadays tough screen controls have no affordances, it's not even clear what areas can be pressed, much less what actions it will engage.

>The labels are mostly just one word, so not very helpful. That conference button, what does it do? Will it ask me to type in the phone numbers of to-be-invited participants?

How would a touch screen change that?

>Also the buttons are not context sensitive. Ideally they should disappear when you can't press them.

Ok, so you enter a menu and now you have a "conference" button displayed, but you still have no idea what it does. I think touch screens are useful for actions that require a lot of interaction like entering navigation, but removing physical controls for basic inputs like volume knob or HVAC controls is an obnoxious anti-pattern, especially Tesla moving the wiper controls to a menu. Dirty windshields and worn out wipers are enough to make auto-sensing wipers act inconsistently. Removing the physical controls from them is a stupid fashion choice, much like Jony Ive screwing up the MacBook pro over the last decade in the name of design.

controlling climate via physical is a very bad idea. You only need manual a lot when a climate control implementation is bad. The ultimate goal, is car knows how to keep you in comfort. In electric car heat or cooling is instant( you don't need an engine to warm up). You have a touchscreen controls for the flow settings, that allows you to have preferences, to the point when system can detect your position. I love tesla's climate control. It is ALWAYS in automatic mode by default. It knows I like 71 f, when i'm in the car, it first start with very strong fan on, trying to pick up temp as fast as possible, after that slows down, to reduce the noise, and just keep the comfort temp. I never ever touch it. at all. My girlfriend has a different preferences that changed automatically whenever she activate her profile. Whenever I go to a second car and activate my profile there, it also knows what I like, where to blow, and how strong to blow. Why on earth anyone want to downgrade to manual knobs? In the rare occasions you can tell car, I'm hot, or I'm cold.

Changing profile is a separate story. It changes mirrors , sound preferences, temperature, seat position. I'm doing it that with two touches on the screen. Now imagine you're doing all that manually with old dumb knobs and buttons? Imagine you're doing that every day?

Your kids will be laughing how stupid cars were in 2020's while having all the computers and possibilities to make your car really comfortable.

Changing profile is a separate story.

Separate keys, one for each driver. The profile is chosen by which key is used.

keys are from the past. But if you replace it with lets say your phone, yeah, great, that's where a modern car shines. Your phone key knows who you are , sets a correct profile. You still need a modern car with decent settings that supports deep customization for your profile. Subject of article , BMW, is not great with touch screen or without. Their approach to UX is super archaic

> keys are from the past.

As a surfer, this is problematic.

I think this problematic deprecation of essential functionality comes from forgetting the second half of one of the classic 80/20 rules -- 80% of users use only 20% of features, but all of them use a different 20%.

You can have a UI and menu system with physical controls, too.

It is more difficult because then the state can’t be stored in the position of the physical controls. A switch can’t be on or off, a dial can’t be coldest to hottest air, and so the visual indication of the state of the control from the switch or knob is lost.

Touchscreens in cars suck

Subarus still have physical controls, so I'm confused by your first sentence. They also include a touch-screen infotainment system, but it doesn't really replace any physical controls (except maybe favorite radio station buttons?)

> My dad just bought a new Toyota Civic and ...

Honda makes the Civic, not Toyota.

Don't know about all of their models, but my Rav4 Prime has plenty of knobs and buttons. I think I only really use the touchscreen for changing Apple Car apps and switching Spotify playlists.

Nitpicking is fun

I want to see the marketing studies where marketers provide evidence that touchscreens actually reduce costs and/or increase sales.

As a former mechanic, and some who has only once brought a car to a dealership for repair; my concern is Reparibility.

My father bought his last new truck in 1998.

The salesman ask my father about power windows, and other accessories. My father was a Shade Tree mechanic his whole life. He just looked a me, and said, "I hope I never see the day I can't roll down a window, and those motors are just another thing to fix."

I was comfortable with the computer controlling the truck. I knew they had federal standards, and requirements. I also remember an instructor telling us, you will see a lot of mechanics replace the computer. It's not the computer. The failures rate of a vechicle's computer is extremely low. What happens is the mechanics damages the computer by checking it's ohms with the wrong DVOM, or short it out by accident.

My point is about simplicity, and the availability of parts.

I believe the only computers that the federal government demands high standards for are the main computer that you plug your scan tool into, and in many vechicles the sewerage power train computer.

All those dash computers don't have the same quality demands from the government?

I just don't want to see the day where only wealthy people buy vechicles because of maintenance/repair costs.

Out of curiosity which Subaru were you looking at? I got a 2020 Forester with a touch screen but 100% of non-home-theatre and 75% of home theatre controls had physical interfaces. I was really quite happy with the balance.

"I'm a synthesizer designer, so I'm a bit biased towards knobs."

Plenty of those still on the roads.

IMO it's about UX than touchscreen vs physical controls.

I bought a new Toyota tacoma and it has the worst UX I've seen in a vehicle. The touchscreen UI is bad, the physical button layout is terrible also. It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out how to turn off the truck bed light. The steering wheel button placement is also horrible.

Even the push to start button has like 3 different modes (which I don't fully understand). A number of pushes for accessories only, accessories + power windows, ignition.

I think it's arguably both. Bad UX means that it's difficult to learn how to do things and can make it easy to press the wrong button even once you are used to it.

However, having driven my share of cars that are exclusively touch screen, even when you know where something is (capacitative volume buttons, touchscreen climate change controls), it takes too long to find and adjust the settings compared to having physical knobs that you can easily reach over and adjust without taking your eyes off the road.

IMO only Tesla got this right. I absolutely love the touch screen. Though I wouldn't mind some physically buttons for a few essentials like A/C

Your experience with the Honda Civic is largely because of poor UX. You can make thoughtful touchscreen designs and combine them with physical buttons for a great user experience.

Pinching to zoom and using your finger to drag a map around to get sense of the terrain in an unknown area is fantastic. Using a touchscreen to reduce volume is stupid. Etc. Etc.

I specifically avoided Honda/Toyota/Mazda because I didn't like the UX of their touch screens.

People seem okay to Tesla's implementations as well because they also have a very responsive system.

Don't forget that you can have crappy UX with physical controls as well.

Existing research on change blindness would be a good starting point.

http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/#CB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_blindness

Whatever touchscreen you provide, my phone will be better, smoother, have a more polished UI and easily upgradable to stay current. Navigation apps are infinitely better than what you get stuck with, and I can navigate by voice using state of the art tech that keeps getting better with updates. Just give me a decent phone holder (upgradable) and bluetooth, and make that bluetooth a module that can be swapped out as newer bluetooth versions become available like swapping out an old ISA card on a PC. Same with usb. You buy a 10 year old car and get stuck with ancient USB ports with very low charging rates that don't really interface with modern equipment. All this "modern" crap dates the car before the actual utility of the car (a thing to get you places) does.

I am thankful for the physical audio volume knob on the dashboard. I literally don't even use the touchscreen (except to change the clock 2x a year), as I have a lovely 12" tablet that does everything I want with a large beautiful display that is easy to read, blocking it. That's on a 2019 model.

How well do the Apple and Android car/auto integrations work? Do they push enough of the smarts into the phone that you can mostly avoid bad automaker interfaces?

I have a 2021 Honda. Yes, CarPlay is basically the iOS philosophy of “full screen touch interface with Siri that becomes wholly focused on whichever app you’re using.” Maps, Spotify, and Messages are the 3 I mainly use, but I could download more from the App store or even make my own.

The last car I owned had Android Auto. I like it a lot and would plug my phone in to get it pretty much every drive.

A few years back I got a ~$300 head unit that supports CarPlay to replace the CD/tapedeck in my 2004 truck and it is still streets ahead of any modern first party offerings I’ve seen. If automakers had the sense to leave climate controls as physical buttons and dials and just provided a dumb screen that booted to “connect your smartphone for media and nav…”, we’d all be better off.

That’s exactly how it is on my 2021 Corolla Hybrid. We bought a wireless CarPlay adapter and the whole experience is amazing. The touchscreen is useful, I have up to date information on it, podcasts, music, audiobooks… it all just works. And everything but that is still controlled via physical buttons, so I can stay in CarPlay the whole time.

Imho this is an absolutely killer feature of the car and I would deeply miss it if it were gone.

You forget to explain why one would do any of that instead of selling you a newer car.

Always use a cigarette adapter for faster charging.

There isn’t anything inherently preventing touch screens from being upgradable (software is already possible today).

I'd rather a car with usable USB ports than using antiquated cigarette adapters.

But only as long as they get the USB power spec right. Because, if not, the cigarette lighter with an adapter is going to be more useful.

True.

I was on that train for a long time, but I've swung all the way around to the other side now. I want my nav available without me having to take my phone out of my pocket and hook it up (even if it's wireless, which comes with its own issues). Like, I want to sit in the seat, then scroll through recent destinations with a button on the steering wheel and be done.

Also, and this is huge, I want the turns in the HUD. Before you have one, a HUD is a dumb gimmick. I got one on my current car just because that's what was on the lot... and boy oh boy, I'm not going back to looking next to my knee before every turn. Not gonna lie, I'm an average driver at best. I need to be focused on the road at all times. Glancing away is all the time the car in front needs to slam on its brakes.

The trade off is not the absolute, most accurate turn by turn directions; not taking the best and latest traffic into account at all times. But I've also found that I'm not cool with weaving through neighborhoods to save 3 minutes. Putting on a good podcast and sitting on the freeway is okay with me.

> then scroll through recent destinations with a button on the steering wheel and be done

This, but with a voice control option, please, so I don't even have to distract myself looking at the options.

> I want the turns in the HUD

And IMHO - ideally - on a real HUD, the one projected over the windshield. I drove a Volvo that had it, it was nowhere perfect (especially in sunlight) but if the conditions were right it made a whole world of difference compared to the under-windshield or worse (behind-the-wheel) displays.

Not to mention that real HUDs are typically quite limited and thus not crowded with useless graphical bells and whistles.

I really loathe car dashboard designs. It's either something straight out of 60s, huge round dials without any thought put behind their meaning - like the engine rpm being the largest one, on a car with automatic transmission; or "modern" designs with lot of colorful icons and those animated blinking moving parts showing how engine braking recharges the battery right this moment.

An HUD like this https://www.volvocars.com/images/support/imga73646cb4d8984f3... (sadly, cannot find a real photo, but it looks quite similar in real life) is almost perfect.

Haha, that's exactly mine. The car I'm talking about is a late-model Volvo.

HUDs are not a dumb gimmick even if you don't have turn-by-turn directions.

Turn-by-turn in the HUD is awesome and really helps - but don't tell me that it's not a little bit dangerous to try to check your speed while you're driving without a HUD!

The ideal solution is a HUD that communicates with carplay/android auto. Once that is here I will feel like the future has finally arrived.

Whatever you refer is a bad implementation of your car. They not able to supply you with decent update system and maps. I never use a phone in my car, and that's the best thing I experience in the car since 3g start working good during trip. You have good big screen for navigation, you don't need this ugly phone mounts in the car, it doesn't fall-off during turns, you don't need stupid wires. That's a right way to implement it. When car manufacture put a big decent screen with good brightness and willing to pay tiny fraction of the car price to maps API provider. If BMW is not willing to do that in 2021 they are bad manufacture that it.

Even better would be just leave out the entire entertainment unit (except maybe an amplifier and speakers, and have a standardized rectangular hole with mounting brackets.

Even better if you put all the physical buttons for accessories (heat, amplifier volume etc) on a panel fitted into an identical hole.

Replace the pointlessly curved dash with nowhere to mount anything with a standard shape that can be removed with bolts (and without removing all the trim) while you're at it.

That was once the case, and led to a whole ecosystem of car stereo stores. The auto companies wanted to capture that revenue, so now that's all built in.

Mazda has been doing the reasonable thing in this area for a while*. Recent models don't have touch screens and require you to use the (funnily enough, BMW i-Drive style) control knob for radio and CarPlay. Even their most recent model, the CX-50, has a full array of manual knobs and controls.[1]

* With the sad exception of their first EV, the MX-30, which puts climate controls on a touch screen[2]. The upper display is still controlled by the knob, though. Weird choice.

1: https://smartcdn.prod.postmedia.digital/driving/wp-content/u...

2: https://www.netcarshow.com/mazda/2021-mx-30/1600x1200/wallpa...

I would happily trade in the touch screen on my Jeep for some nice physical controls. It displays a safety dialog every time the car starts and controls (volume!) are disabled while that dialog is up. Similarly, it switches inputs constantly, so the radio plays if my phone is not connected. Just give me a knob to select input because I always want it on Bluetooth.

I rented a car recently with a touch screen that would display that safety dialog and also not allow a destination to be entered into the sat nav without first placing the vehicle in park. Considering that this model of vehicle is often marketed to families it seems odd that they wouldn't consider the possibility that a passenger could enter the destination without distracting the driver. If touchscreens are that big of a liability (and I believe that they are since the touchscreen doesn't provide any tactile affordance for the driver to distinguish controls) then they shouldn't be in the car in the first place.

Yeah, the touchscreen is great for the navigator. It needs to be placed where the driver cannot even see it: the driver shouldn't even be able to help the navigator as just looking at the screen takes the drivers off the road for too long..

If you are driving solo I'm fine with a while in park mode that you can see a touch screen, but I can't think of a good way to implement it.

Head-Up Displays solve this by projecting the essential information on the windshield. So you don't have to move your eyes away from the road at all - and even when you're looking at the HUD data, you still have a view of the road, unlike those displays on the central column where the best you have is some peripheral vision.

Paired with a voice assistant, it could work nicely for the navigation. You say "navigate to $address", and HUD would show you the essential information for your next turn (rough distance, street or exit name, turn lanes).

The problem isn't where the eyes are looking though, it is where the brain is focusing. HUD still distracts the brains focus.

HUD is useful for essential information. I agree if it is only about turn left in X. However my radio (infotainment) has a lot of things a driver shouldn't have access to. Ever try to find the right genre of music for the trip?

I'm a driver and I want to be able to pick genres.

All else being equal, if the driver of car X can pick genres and the driver of car Y can't, I'm buying car X.

I've got my phone in the cradle and I can look at it whenever I want, even when navigating, and it has no stupid popups or park brake sensor.

I don't need stupid nanny-screens that I have to touch to tell me what to do, and I don't need the screens that I've paid for in my car put in a place where I can't see or use them if I want because I can't be trusted.

I'm an adult and I'm very aware that when I'm driving I should be paying attention to driving and not the screen.

I'm quite capable of deciding when I will look and when I won't look, and I won't have that decision taken away from me by some focus group full of brain-dead idiots or marketing people who derive some kind of sick pleasure from fumbling with touch screens with no tactile feedback.

Feel free to go ahead and design that crap because it will make my next car buying decision really simple.

If you put that kind of crap in a car and I can't turn it off, then I'm not buying that car.

To make it clear:

Any kind of touch screen that I have to press every time I drive to use the screen I paid for = no buy.

If the AC is controlled by a touch screen = no buy.

If volume can be controlled by a touch screen only = no buy.

While I'm at it, let's add this: any kind of tracking that I can't disable = no buy. I don't care about your app.

If I'm spending my multiple tens of thousands of dollars on your car, I'm the owner. Not your moron silicon valley focus group of Elon Musk idolizers and touch screen fetishists.

If nobody wants my money, I'll be very happy driving whatever older car I can buy that has none of this crap forever - and I probably can do that forever because it is likely much more repairable than your garbage touch screens built by the lowest bidder.

Your move, manufacturers.

"... not allow a destination to be entered into the sat nav without first placing the vehicle in park ..."

I am under the impression that this limitation is tied to the occupancy sensor in the passenger seat (which you undoubtedly have, or the seat-belt chime would sound incessantly ...).

I believe if you had a passenger those controls would be allowed while driving - did you have a chance to test that ?

"Passenger" could just be a backpack full of stuff. Or a water bottle. One of those large water boxes with the tap on the front should do it as well.

Yes, when my wife or I were in the front passenger seat we would still need to stop the car in order to set a destination. It's also possible that the occupancy sensor was disabled as the rental car wasn't exactly in pristine condition.

I think, car manufacturers are installing them to reduce manufacturing costs in the long run, because instead of building plastic parts, you install a module and get infinitely more ways to exploit the customers in various ways you see fit.

Also, it looks good on paper, and allows some useful controls while is backwards in many ways.

I'd rather have physical buttons which I can operate blindly rather than a touchscreen though. They're really dangerous when it replaces the physical buttons.

Pushing the puck/ok button didn’t dismiss it?

Not sure if they still do, but the infotainment in Mazdas used to do that. I very quickly learned to turn down the volume before turning off the car. I still do it in every other car because it has traumatised me so much.

For some reason Blueooth was a lot more quiet than the other input sources. So you play music from the phone whilst driving and turn up the volume. All good there. But then when you start the car again and it couldn't connect to the phone for any reason it would decide to switch back to radio with the jacked up volume and blast it in your face. It's a full on jump scare.

That aside their infotainment controls are actually really good. Better than many other cars including much more expensive ones. It was quite satisfying to build up muscle memory on the infotainment menus with the excellent knob controls and not having to look at it.

Does your Mazda not have the physical volume knob in the center console near the cupholder? The touchscreen and steering wheel controls are useless until ~30 seconds after starting the car, but the physical volume knob always works (at in the CX-5).

Yup, from what I remember I could mute it by pressing the volume button. But that was after I had just been blasted with radio at almost full volume. It also lulled me into it because it's silent for what feels like half a minute whilst it is not connected to anything.

My vehicle (different make/year) does the radio thing too.. even sometimes if the bluetooth isn’t playing anything. Super annoying. I found a somewhat reliable workaround though; I switch to XM radio which I’m not subscribed to and then to BT when that happens.. then when then it falls back it tries to play the locked XM channel (or channel 0 which just shows radio ID)

Yeah a friend of mine recently rented a car and it was so frustrating just to configure audio playback. Android Auto kept popping up on my phone, and I had to manually switch the car to bluetooth every time, which meant menu diving and then asking my friend to pull over so I could pair my phone/adjust the audio settings. Really stupid all around.

On the other hand, my car (a 2006 Hyundai Sonata) has a CD drive and a radio, with a knob for volume and a knob for tuning, and that's it. I keep a stack of CDs in the car plus a little bluetooth-to-FM dongle which I rarely ever use, because I usually either enjoy my CDs or want to hear what's on the radio!

Only feature I'd really want from a fancy HUD is rear camera, as I do a lot of parallel parking in Brooklyn, but idk, I've gotten pretty good at doing it without "assistance".

I occasionally need to rent cars and the UIs are often so bad I just ignore them. Set them up at start and use a car mounted phone instead. Suction cup mounts to the rescue.

Navigation UX is usually just annoying in most cars anyway.

A LOT of features have disappeared on BMWs in the last few months. I looked into trading in my X5 (2019) for a X5 45e (plug in hybrid) but it was missing quite a few bits that came as standard before. Like, fog lights. Or the heated/cooled cup holders, wifi hotspot and several other features.

Strangely (ahem) the prices haven't gone down!

Are turn signals still an optional extra? :)

Yes, the stalk is there, buf if you use it, black cars come to your house, remove your BMW and replace it with a Wolkswagen! Us BMW drivers are all terrified of using them!

Front fog lights are utterly useless anyways. Many cars don't even come with them now.

Actually I use them a lot, on single track roads in the UK, they provide a MUCH better coverage around the front/side of the car -- I don't know how many critter I managed to dodge because I saw their eyes in the hedges.

Is it actually that foggy there that regularly?

That depends, what do you define as regularly?

In parts of the country, definitely. For days on end, sometimes.

And it doesn't really matter how regularly. If you are driving in those conditions… you only have to crash once.

But fog lights don't really prevent you from crashing. They do not output that much light and unlike your headlights and highbeams, they are not directed, but just scatter light in front of you.

In the UK, it's not legal to have the fog lights on unless your visibility is less than 100 metres in front of you. That's basically the same range as your dipped lights have, and less than five seconds worth of visbility if you're doing 80 km/h.

If your visibility is reduced so much, your best bet against crashing isn't just to scatter some light near the bottom of your front bumper, but to engage the rear fog lights and drop your speed significantly.

Often enough that I probably use high visibility lights on several journeys per year on average. It's usually because of dense fog on rural roads but occasionally conditions like torrential rain on a motorway too.

On rare occasions I've had to drive in conditions so bad that the front fogs on my car were providing the main or perhaps only useful illumination of the road immediately ahead. We were all just crawling along at barely more than walking pace, even on roads that might normally have been major high-speed routes. Vehicles without appropriate lights were parking up, totally unable to make progress until the weather improved. That definitely hasn't been an annual occurrence in my experience, but it's happened to me more than once.

I'd be very wary of buying any new car without excellent lights today. I'd even say the lighting would be in my top 5 deciding factors. Basic headlights have improved dramatically in recent years, thanks to better light sources and adaptive technologies that offer better coverage without dazzling other road users, but the specialised lights like high visibility and reversing lights are also important at the those times when you do need them.

The front fog lights also often act as the light that goes on when turning into a street (rather than a curve). So not useless.

Most cars have dedicated curve lights instead now.

Curve light is not the same.

That sounds more due to inflation. Instead of charging you more, they keep the price the same and give you less stuff. It's not unique to cars. Even food packages are getting smaller in weight of product and the price the same, or more. I've heard it described as "shrinkflation." For instance, a "pint" of Hagen Dazs ice cream has changed from 16oz (a pint) to 14oz in the last few months.

> Many consumers may have noticed that popular food and beverage containers are shrinking along with their wallets, but that prices, alas, are not. Tropicana, for example, recently redesigned its large orange juice container, giving it an easy-pour lid—and the capacity to hold only 89 ounces, rather than its old 96 ounces. The price has stayed constant. In an email, Tropicana spokeswoman, Karen May, explained that the smaller size was needed as "the optimum configuration" for the new lid, adding, "Our consumer research indicates that, despite the smaller size, there was no change in the perceived value of the product because of the benefits of the added features."

https://www.newsweek.com/food-packaging-shrinks-prices-stay-...

> "Our consumer research indicates that, despite the smaller size, there was no change in the perceived value of the product because of the benefits of the added features."

This sentance makes a mockery of the whole concept of resarch and data-driven decision making.

I haven't had a touchscreen in a car, and while I'm excited with the idea of having a fully electric car, I have to say that the thing I dread the most is touchscreens. Are touchscreens in cars mostly things like music and satnav, or are they also used for things like A/C, direction of air flow etc?

We recently got a loaner car from our local Subaru -- lots of controls were touchscreen only, including climate and radio controls.

Needing to take your eyes off the road to interact with safety-critical controls (defroster, for example) is a step backward.

I’m curious what model, as I have a new Subaru Ascent and have been very pleased with the mix of touchscreen and physical knobs - and I’m a guy who was super skeptical about the touchscreen.

A recent-model Outback, probably a 2021?

This is what it looked like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akCh_LyGOt0 There are more knobs than I remembered, but the overwhelming sense was that the touchscreen made difficult things possible, but the simplest things more-difficult.

Many of the climate settings are in software. The seat-heaters as a software switch are a big step backward from the 2013 Outback's dedicated buttons, too.

Oh! Thanks for the video - wow, that is significantly different from the Ascent! On mine the heating / cooling options are all physical controls as are the buttons for switching between media modes. Yes once you are into things like CarPlay it's all touch screen, but even then there are control buttons from the steering wheel for next track / previous track, volume, invoke siri, etc.

It varies by trim level. For example the entry level outback has physical climate controls, but the "premium" one has tiny little buttons on the touch screen

Needing to take your eyes off the road to interact with safety-critical controls (defroster, for example) is a step backward.

...and there's a 100m cliff behind you with some innocent families playing at the bottom.

It staggers me that regulators around the world didn't block the trend for highly interactive UIs and touchscreen controls for essential driving actions a long time ago. It's so obviously dangerous and unashamedly putting style before substance.

It terrifies me that before long I'm going to have to give up my existing car in favour of something modern. I would be very happy to have the better performance and environmental characteristics of modern cars but I have yet to find one where the technology didn't actively deter me from buying.

Varies by car, of course.

I think Tesla is the most extreme towards the all-touch end of the spectrum. I recall reading their windshield wiper controls are only on the touch screen.

My GM vehicle has physical knobs and buttons for almost everything, but some of the functions are also available in the touch screen. Climate control, as an example.

Speaking of Tesla. I've always been wary of them for this reason. It seems to me however that they actually have put a lot of thought and effort into making both the screen and the app work smoothly, so kudos to them for that.

But the question remains open, both for Tesla and others, if they'll put similar though into it in the future. And this is something you can't know beforehand.

If I buy a car I know that all the knobs and buttons physically in it will be there in 10 years. I have absoloutely no idea how OTA and app support will develop in 6 months.

Touchscreen in a BMW is already optional to use. You have the control joystick, which you use when driving. Touchscreen is for the passenger next to the driver, or when standing still. I personally never use it and prefer the joystick for all interactions. Touch is just useless when the car is moving, my eyes are on the road and my hand can't find the buttons.

EDIT Talking about this thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKmxrvDupCI

One thing I haven't seen anyone discuss is phone interfaces. BMW/Jaguar were one company invested in the old Webinos IoT efforts that I personally thought were super super on point, which was a nice standards based system, that respected personal data. I kind of imagine anyone in the car having a touchscreen interface if they want it: just pull out your phone.

We don't expect a good parity interface, but projects like Webinos or, heck, the Jeep QNX-OS hack, show great things are possible. The Jeep hack, fwiw looked amazing: a beautiful fantastic DBus interface for all the cars systems. I remain in love with the idea of hacking one's own car & building the fantastic interface the car maker are unable to build (and which would admittedly likely not suit all users; sad that software has so massified, must serve so so many, even though the consumers interest/abilities are not alike).

Another X factor I want to throw out there: personally I really like to have the cabin dimmed way down at night. I don't end up in a lot of cars, but in my limited experience, I've never seen a touchscreen that comes anywhere close to being able to dim down adequately. So one of the first things I do in a car typically is figure out how to turn the display off.

Even though I have a lot of touchscreen disastisfaction.

Ignoring the touchscreen debate. I picked up a new Audi in September, they asked if they could just give me a single key for now. i was given the actual stick part of the second key but not the fob. Obviously shortage in chips for the fobs. I’m sure if I protested they would have found another somewhere (or if I was picking up a top model) but I was happy to help. Will probably get the second fob next year sometime.

They also told me they had to make a call to a customer that afternoon who had orders an A3 to a custom spec back in March 2021 to update her on the new delivery date… for March 2022. And that’s just an A3!

I have a 2017 Honda Civic, which was one of the few models with a touch-based volume control (as opposed to the physical knob). It is a pain to adjust the volume, since it is hard to know if I’m tapping and what direction it interprets the tab, or sliding, and if the velocity of the slide matters for how much the volume changes. It’s nice to be able to touch on the CarPlay interface, but I would trade it for a predictable knob, and I think Honda knows this is a good move since they added the physical knob back the following model year. I guess that’s just another vote for physical controls in the car.

The problem I have with touch screens in cars is lining up your finger so that it presses the right area of the screen, which is difficult when driving (and dangerous). Why can't they integrate some sort of capacitive proximity sensor matrix in the LCD that will display a crosshair cursor as your finger gets near the screen? This would help immensely with lining up the press and allow me to use the thing quickly like analog controls.

I don't mind a touch screen, but let me program the buttons on the steering wheel e.g. there should be a fn button. When I press it and arrows I can change the temperature. I'd have pretty much all important functions available without taking my hands far away from the steering wheel as well as my eyes off the road.

I wish they would stop making capacitive buttons though. (VW, Audi and Mercedes - I'm looking at you)

It should be illegal to put a touchscreen in a car that the driver is intended to use.

Or at least that the driver has to use (wipers, heating/defrost/defog)

No, the driver shouldn't be able to use it at all. You have to take your eyes off the road to use it, and drivers never allow enough space to do that safely. When driving there should be nothing that the driver can see that isn't required to drive. Not even a radio station frequency indication, just hit scan or up/down until you find something you like (if you are loyal to a station program a preset while in park)

All the people in this thread here who hate touch screens don't know what the alternative looks like. I have a 2017 Lexus RX which doesn't have a touch screen, and it fucking SUCKS! Straight up had to get an after market android auto/carplay upgrade or else I would have sold this car given how frustrating the "joystick" is for controlling the infotainment.

Exactly what component is missing here? The display is still there, as is the SOC running the OS that does UI. Is a shortage touch-enabled displays or display drivers?

Is a part of the issue that these companies can do redesigns quickly enough, so they cannot change to other components that does the same thing only in a slightly different manner?

Maybe it’s high risk to do mass production with untested components rather than revert to tried and tested components

Good! I really prefer physical controls!

All of the affected models have physical buttons, literally nothing changed.

I thought replacing touchscreen chips were easier as they likely ran some mobile ARM chip for which there seems to be no shortage. My understanding was replacing other chips were harder as they are specialised for serving one purpose and needs safety and other considerations.

I hate touch screens in cars, but this isn't a win for fans of physical controls, despite what a bunch of other commenters seem to think - they aren't adding any new physical buttons, just disabling the touch screen and only allowing you to use the dial.

BMW has always had the dial as the primary input on iDrive, the touchscreen is an afterthought.

Even before the supply chain shock there were models that had near identical iDrive interfaces with a mix of touchscreen/no-touchscreen based on model year and LCI updates

This comment should be higher. The ui may be even more difficult/dangerous to use if you need to use the dial instead of tapping.

Like another commenter said, very curious to see safety studies on car uis.

I recently drove a friend's Mercedes and the hard part wasn't the touchscreen but rather the input device. On the center console there were some physical buttons and levers, and on the steering wheel column there were multiple dials. The problem was that what I thought should have been the gear shifter was instead conceptually a "mouse" for navigating the on screen menu options. Thankfully I only needed to drive the car a few miles, as one friend had already given up on driving the car and asked me to take the wheel instead - she was that frustrated by the controls!

Could be that I'd get used to it, but it wasn't a good first experience.

It's only been in the press that the BMW touch screen issue has mainly been on USA bound vehicle. I'm awaiting delivery of a G23 in the UK and have been told by the dealer that the car is in the UK but they are unsure if it has a touch screen chip as BMW haven't advised........so delivery delayed. If it has no chip we've been offered £500.00. I have touch screen on my Mercedes but tend not to use it, the hey mercedes voice app works fine for nav, phone calls, etc

Yet another thread full of confused people who have never sat in a modern BMW.

The driver has buttons for everything, the touchscreen is mostly for the passenger. There are no buttons added and removed between the touchscreen and not-touchscreen version.

I doubt touch screen BMW provide can be called modern :) Feels like the brand stuck in time. Especially knob to control a touch screen... All they did for the last 30-40 years was selling extra horse power. Luckily right now EV dramatically changed the price you can get a far better performance for far better price. That will finally force them to change.

> All they did for the last 30-40 years was selling extra horse power.

This was not my impression at all while cross-shopping the S-class, A8 and 7er. They’re all on fairly equal footing, I went with the 7 because it was put together significantly better than the Audi and had better tech than the S-class.

Now the brand new S-class might have shifted that balance a bit by adding rear wheel steering, but I’m not too sure about the touch screen monstrosity.

My Silverado touchscreen has been problematic for a year now. Nothing like getting a voice command to “state your content type” while navigating rush hour traffic.

I don't like touchscreens - sans the backup cam - cause I have glance at the screen (as opposed to a physical touch) to do anything. In addition, I don't use the car GPS, I use my device, etc.

I think there was a time when screens were a novelty and they helped sway buyers. But now that that thrill is gone, they feel like an inappropriate UX.

p.s. I like the backup cam but can certainly live without. I have for 30+ yrs so what's the big deal.

gotta say, touch screens suck while driving over bumpy roads. BMW idrive is a pretty decent interface, better than almost all the other dial-based ones

I really expected to hate the dial-based interface in my (non-touch) BMW but I actually grew to quite like it.

Putting a touchpad on top of the dial for OCR is kinda ingenius and works rather nicely.

Wait, that does OCR?! I only realized the other day that you can pinch to zoom on it…

yup! When you're in the address entry screen where you spin the wheel to spell out something, try drawing letters with your finger. A Wacom-style depiction of what you drew will appear on the screen. Lift your finger to do the next letter. I've had varied success with it. Usually faster to spin the wheel.

I have a 2015 Ford Explorer with CarPlay. Does CarPlay just stink or is it fords bad implementation? Siri only works sometimes. The radio.com (or audacy or whatever it’s named now) only works 20% of the time. Waze constantly has rendering problems. It’s a giant mess. But much better than sync3 which honestly may be worse than nothing.

That sounds like a Ford implementation. My cheap aftermarket CarPlay deck works pretty much flawlessly in a 2004 Explorer.

What I find confusing is why BMW couldn't find another interior feature to remove so cars could ship with a touchscreen. For example, removing the wireless charging for certain models. I feel that having the infotainment screen would be used on every drive vs wireless charging.

The infotainment screen can be used with or without touch. This allows them to remove a chip without loosing functionality.

For some of their enthusiast focused models many BMW drivers prefer the non-touch interface. I have had a BMW with a touch screen for 11.5 months now and a finger hasn’t touched the screen yet.

I think a lot of comments here assume that the screen is going away completely. But I think it might be saying that the screen will still be there, controllable with the joystick. But that would still seem to require some silicon, no?

I feel BMW missed an opportunity here to market this as an advantage rather than disadvantage...play on 'we listened to customer feedback'...and the safety angle.

I think that would have played better for their sales, at least that's my hunch.

I had the newest X3 with iDrive and I think I never actually touched the display itself - the "wheel" was perfect, much faster and safer. There was literally no need to touch the screen.

exactly. I think most of the people bashing here are missing this point. I always use the wheel in my BMW.

I don’t like touchscreens but what’s really cool is being able to search my owners manual on the screen. Such a minor feature but it’s surprisingly useful.

tfw supply shortages force design improvements

But it isn’t an improvement since nothing else changes. They’re just charging the same (or higher let’s be real after dealer markups) for fewer features.

"fewer features" is often an improvement by itself, tho - i think that's the case here

Bought my bmw x3 m40i 2020 last year, and I honestly have not touchscreen once. I have always been using the swivel wheel..

Central wheel control FTW.

BMW pioneered it in 2006

I love the scrolling steering wheel control, it's wonderfully tactile and easy to operate while you're driving. That combined with the HUD makes going to other cars painful when it comes to basic input stuff

Even earlier, I believe. I test drove a 7 series from 2003 that had the wheel (in the UK).

I have hated every touchscreen I've seen in every car, including and especially the Tesla, with the sole exception of touch-enabled implementations of CarPlay.

It just seems like a bad idea. I have, for my whole driving life (so 35 years) often adjusted car settings by feel, without looking away from the road. Touch screens ruin that.

This touch screen hate reminds me of iphone vs nokia hysteria. Touch screen in the car is far more superior, has more usability pros and in the long term will make cars cheaper. Since it radically eliminates car design complexity.

Usability: main trend, your car doesn't need so many overwhelming controls like in the past :

1. Tachometer, oil, temperature etc.. all go away due to electric cars. all you need to monitor regularly is speed. Even that partially replaces with speed sound notifications when you're above limit since cars are smart enough to read signs. Even something like windshield wipers is controlled automatically, far better and frequent reaction to the outdoor conditions. And it's just getting and better and smarter with time.

2. Phone-less experience: You don't need a phone mounted in your car somewhere if your car has a decent screen for navigation, internet and multi media. No wires, no annoying manual operations to mount/connect the phone every-time you sit in the car. No constant distraction, better security.

3. Drive controls: EV is far better at controlling traction, any kind of manual control has no meaning unless you want a "ride a horse" experience. Hence that, you mostly need steering wheel-mounted or even without it e.g. new model S. Floor-mounted is an anachronism and has nothing to do with usability since there is no logical reason to keep it on the floor. The only explanation, i'm old and I'm used to having it this way.

4. Air conditioner and climate control: touch screen is by far more superior as it gives you control from one place. You don't need to change settings from several places manually pushing something to get comfortable. Just count number of frictions you do , you change temp, you change flow in one place in the center, by the left door, right door... And that's every time you need to change settings. In most of the cases, you switch profiles, and you're good. It also works when you're switching the car. It knows what corner to blow the air, how strong, and what temperature you prefer in the previous car you drove recently. If you need the other passenger preferences or you're in the car just by yourself. If the car is heating, blow one way, if it's cooling do it other way...

5. Back up cameras: Any big screen gives you amazing observability, with several cameras. Simple rule of thumb the bigger the better.

6. Multimedia, full screen with movies, games, decent albums covers, in-car karaoke while on the trip... I guess this one is the clearest win.

7. Navigation: Yep, do you want to see a map on tiny phone or low-quality monitor or you want to observe your trip on a giant screen? No brainer unless you are biased.

8. Customization. Yeah, people are different. Manual controls don't let you do so.

9. Updates. Yep, manufacture can add extra features. Retrofit upgrades will work better since new/updated hardware can be easily integrated on the screen.

10. Keys, access management, security: You don't have keys, start button. You can leave the message that a car temperature is good and a dog is in good condition. You can programmatically restrict access to the glovebox when you're in valet parking, so no one will steal your documents, etc... it's so easy without manual controls.

The summary is :

if you drive a sport car, touch screen+EV is better, it will go faster, with better traction etc.

if you like outdoor: same as sport, better driving, an overview of complex spots, maps, planning of your trip, notifications etc... companies like Rivian market offering is completely about outdoor, Cybertruck, Ford follows.

if you like comfort, sit-and-drive feeling: EV+Touch+Voice screen is the best option. You don't need start buttons, manual keys, manual controls etc... Just approach the car, open the door hit a pedal, and drive.

Despite all these pros, the main problem is implementation. Look at Volkswagen. They try to copy the success of competitors, but they've been cheap with hardware and usability, their screens are glitchy. But that's just bad quality. The same was with some first-gen touch phones, that were able to glitch even when someone calls you.

Thanks. That was hilarious. Wrong in so many ways, but hilarious.

It would be great to see any of it that is completely wrong, but not "my plain old I used to do it this way" type of thing.

> 1. Tachometer, oil, temperature etc.. all go away due to electric cars. all you need to monitor regularly is speed. Even that partially replaces with speed sound notifications when you're above limit since cars are smart enough to read signs. Even something like windshield wipers is controlled automatically, far better and frequent reaction to the outdoor conditions. And it's just getting and better and smarter with time.

I've had windshield wipers not go as fast as I want them to. I do like automatic headlights though. Maybe you would prefer automatic blinkers too?

> 2. Phone-less experience: You don't need a phone mounted in your car somewhere if your car has a decent screen for navigation, internet and multi media. No wires, no annoying manual operations to mount/connect the phone every-time you sit in the car. No constant distraction, better security.

Nobody is saying they prefer using the touchscreen on their phone instead of a touchscreen on their dash.

> 3. Drive controls: EV is far better at controlling traction, any kind of manual control has no meaning unless you want a "ride a horse" experience. Hence that, you mostly need steering wheel-mounted or even without it e.g. new model S. Floor-mounted is an anachronism and has nothing to do with usability since there is no logical reason to keep it on the floor. The only explanation, i'm old and I'm used to having it this way.

There are many cars with better traction over EVs. I think you're forgetting about the extra 1000lbs of weight batteries add. This is just blatantly wrong on so many levels. EV's can have good traction, but be realistic on this.

> 4. Air conditioner and climate control: touch screen is by far more superior as it gives you control from one place. You don't need to change settings from several places manually pushing something to get comfortable. Just count number of frictions you do , you change temp, you change flow in one place in the center, by the left door, right door... And that's every time you need to change settings. In most of the cases, you switch profiles, and you're good. It also works when you're switching the car. It knows what corner to blow the air, how strong, and what temperature you prefer in the previous car you drove recently. If you need the other passenger preferences or you're in the car just by yourself. If the car is heating, blow one way, if it's cooling do it other way...

On my cars with buttons I can change temp, airflow, etc without looking away from the road. With my EV/touchscreen car I need to look at the actual panel, which for me is downwards. Profile are rediculous. You've never been in a situation where it starts raining and the weather gets colder? If I have to click a screen to pull up another screen to change something, the UX is bad.

> 5. Back up cameras: Any big screen gives you amazing observability, with several cameras. Simple rule of thumb the bigger the better.

Okay

> 6. Multimedia, full screen with movies, games, decent albums covers, in-car karaoke while on the trip... I guess this one is the clearest win.

Do you watch movies while you're driving? You should stop.

> 7. Navigation: Yep, do you want to see a map on tiny phone or low-quality monitor or you want to observe your trip on a giant screen? No brainer unless you are biased.

Again, is anyone talking about using their phone instead? If you like the nav on your app, touchscreen does work well. I never have maps up, I know where I'm going. But I'm old, and also have a lot of phone numbers memorized also!

> 8. Customization. Yeah, people are different. Manual controls don't let you do so.

I do appreciate how I can complete customize my touchscreen! Oh wait....

> 9. Updates. Yep, manufacture can add extra features. Retrofit upgrades will work better since new/updated hardware can be easily integrated on the screen.

You have to pay for a lot of these, upgrades also don't work out that great. Conversely, I would gladly pay to "upgrade" my vents to not be controlled through a touchscreen.

> 10. Keys, access management, security: You don't have keys, start button. You can leave the message that a car temperature is good and a dog is in good condition. You can programmatically restrict access to the glovebox when you're in valet parking, so no one will steal your documents, etc... it's so easy without manual controls.

I don't leave important things like this in the car, so....

tldr; They're trying to solve for issues that aren't problems. I don't think anyone ever said "it'd be so much better to go through a submenu to change where the airflow comes out of the vents"

>I've had windshield wipers not go as fast as I want them to. I do like automatic headlights though. Maybe you would prefer automatic blinkers too?

sounds artificial, you ultimately want a clear view, with least possible frequency of wipers. if automation works good, you don't need any settings, same as light.

>There are many cars with better traction over EVs. I think you're forgetting about the extra 1000lbs of weight batteries add. This is just blatantly wrong on so many levels. EV's can have good traction, but be realistic on this.

Nope, gas engine is limited by physics. It's the frequency you can adjust the torque. electric engine is just better suited for such task. Even with battery penalty which is improving little by little over time.

>On my cars with buttons I can change temp, airflow, etc without looking away from the road. With my EV/touchscreen car I need to look at the actual panel, which for me is downwards. Profile are rediculous. You've never been in a situation where it starts raining and the weather gets colder? If I have to click a screen to pull up another screen to change something, the UX is bad.

Yep, invention called climate control. You body doesn't like constant changes of temp. If it's get colder outside, a smart car adjust heat/cold automatically to the temp you like. if you really want to change your preferences, you're saying with voice "i'm cold" or "i'm hot" or how you want to adjust temp. Knobs, vents settings, adjusting air flow, that's not UX, it's just a tech limitation of the past.

>Do you watch movies while you're driving? You should stop

Nope, I can wait for someone while parked and watch a movie, so yeah. I can be a passenger and play game. I also do camping in the car. You know modern car is not only for driving from point a to point b :)

> I do appreciate how I can complete customize my touchscreen! Oh wait....

it's called settings :)

> You have to pay for a lot of these, upgrades also don't work out that great. Conversely, I would gladly pay to "upgrade" my vents to not be controlled through a touchscreen.

For the last upgrade i paid $115 including work, including service traveling to my home and hardware , they added a boombox speaker, to play sounds, that improve security of pedestrians, and adding some fun features. Software was already available. It's an official price, in one of the most expensive city in the world, New York, car company name is Tesla. There are other upgrades that doesn't cost you a lot.

>I don't leave important things like this in the car, so....

You required by the law to have some documents with you.

Can’t touch this!

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