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zestyping

This is not all that far from what's happening with touchscreens in cars.

Pros of touchscreens:

- You can make the UI look like anything you want.

Cons of touchscreens:

- You can make the UI look like anything you want.

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The more important con of touchscreens for cars is that you have to look at them. Well-designed controls for cars can be reliably operated by feel once learned.

I'm less convinced by this: controls within easy reach while driving need to be physical because you can reach them without looking, but the center control dash is always a little bit too far away from a comfortable driving position to start with - and thus a reasonable candidate to be touchscreen-ifyed provided you don't put serious controls on it.

i.e. I don't mind touchscreen A/C controls or something, provided the driver's wheel also has those controls (which in my old Toyota Prius it does).

IMO the big innovation is making sure that everything I would want to do while driving is literally at my fingertips, which should be on the steering wheel.

While you generally have to do a quick glance to find the center console controls, after you get a hold on them you can put your eyes back on the road because of the physical feedback. You would need incredibly good haptics on a touch screen to accomplish the same (I haven't experienced incredibly good haptics on any car I've rented (my car uses mostly physical buttons))

I do not understand how Tesla was allowed to put de-fog button for the windshield in a submenu on the touchscreen. This is a critical safety feature. The only explanation is that it is not needed often in California.

biggest con is you have to look at it to do anything.

being able to turn the heater or defrosters on without looking is a pretty big upside when driving.

tesla changing where that is in updates and making you look for it in a new design just makes a bad problem worse

tesla changing where that is in updates and making you look for it in a new design just makes a bad problem worse

There was extensive discussion about that on here a short while ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30140984

The problem isn't that you can make the UI look like anything you want, it's that only the manufacturer can do so, without authorization nor notice.

Actually being able to customise it yourself (and have the changes persist long-term) wouldn't be that bad.

I’d develop that argument a little further, you can’t stop the manufacturer from changing the UI you currently like arbitrarily at some point in the future.

I don’t like that on my computer and definitely don’t want it in my car. It’s bad enough when you buy a new car and things have been “improved”.

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