Touch Screens in Cars Solve a Problem We Didn’t Have

nytimes.com

4 pointsaarghh3 comments

Not only touchscreen. All of that bits of proprietary code are harmful. My car tells me about seatbelts despite I never asked about that. Also it can enable loud annoucement to visit service. What's wrong with you cars? I have never ask you to so.

> What's wrong with you cars?

1.) Too many full-of-themselves people at car companies, with more-features-is-better attitudes. Or at least "more features will help keep me employed" strategies. (Yes, the seatbelt and service reminders are probably driven by other incentives at the car company.)

2.) Too many buyers who instinctively prefer the vehicle with most, shiniest, and most-useless sh*t - as a strategy for "my car's tail fins are longer than yours" social competitions and/or boosting their self-esteems.

On the contrary, I did not not buy a car that works perfectly for me for a price I can afford because it uses touchscreen infotainment (and AC, argh). Mostly because all the cars have them.

I can only suspect it's driven by cost saving (one screen vs all the mechanical buttons is likely cheaper when integrated into the same software system — a requirement for features customers do want, like starting up AC remotely), rather than customer demand.

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