I don't want touch screens in cars period and I can't stand this trend of using them. I'm finally starting to understand the feelings my grandfather had for anything thing he considered superfluous or inconvenient in a car.
Tried a quick search and couldn't find it. Is it like the scoll wheel on a mouse? Would be nice to have those on the steering wheel instead of up/down buttons.
Searching for ”steering wheel stalk” seems to bring up entire center shaft assemblies though, while ”whisker” is only referring to the controls.
The new car has a big flashy touchscreen, but there's no way to interact with it without taking a hand off the wheel and looking down below the dashboard line.
I don't know why they can't at least add button-based navigation to the UI.
1. Setting volume to 0 will pause the recording, even though I sometimes want to silently forward through some unwanted parts (intros or ads in podcasts).
2. These knobs are also infinity knobs, I liked to have fixed start and end position with an indicator how loud it's going to be when I switch on. That last part has been taken over by software and probably can't be done reliably any more.
3. On the leftmost, zero position that round knob was also used to switch a radio on or off. It is very convenient to have a single movement to switch music on, and with the same movement adjust the volume, or to lower the volume and while doing so, maybe decide to switch it all off entirely.
Because we hear logarythmic, it then makes the top half almost useless, while in the lower parts it's way too sensitive.
I drive a 12 year old Focus that has just about the right amount of modern functions - such as aircon, bluetooth connection and rear parking sensors.
I guess the problem with cars nowadays is that there isn't much to differentiate between them so all these added features have become a bit of an arms race?
The irony, of course, is seeing all of these fancy Range Rovers and Mercs broken down at the side of the motorway waiting to be towed away because they have become so sophisticated to the point of not being able to fulfil their primary function of getting from point A to point B?
The last thing I want to do when driving a car is turn my head away from the road.
This seems to be because when you are talking to someone in person there are two things that help offset the risk from the increased distraction of the conversation.
First, your conversational partner being in car provided another set of eyes that might spot something the conversational distraction makes you miss. I personally saw this once where I was driving and started to pull out into an intersection after a stop sign where cross traffic did not have a stop sign and somehow completely missed a car approaching from the passenger side. My friend in the passenger seat saw it and yelled "STOP!" and I immediately hit the brakes.
Second, when you are in situations where you need to devote extra attention to the road such as dealing with heavier traffic or trying to navigate an in person conversation tends to slow down or pause naturally. On the phone the other person has no clue what is going on at the car and so conversational flow control is not as good.
I recently moved backwards from a CarPlay car to a non-CarPlay car. Even with a very convenient MagSafe phone mount right where the CarPlay screen used to be, I still miss CarPlay. It was just easier and more convenient for controlling phone media, gps, etc.
On the settings app, the choice is between a crappy touchscreen UI and a crappy non-touchscreen UI, so I’m kind of neutral.
I don’t understand the layout sense but at least I’m lucky enough to have buttons.
It has android auto/carplay. To change songs, increase the volume, mute you use buttons on the steering wheel. There is a physical volume up/down knob as well in case the passenger wants to use it and these can be done via the touch screen as well.
They have done an excellent job blending new technology and continuing to use "what works" from the past.
Too many of these touch screens in cars requires accessing menue's and sub-menu's to do basic things that should be on the steering wheel. My ex-wife's Lexus which cost 5x what i paid for my Elantra wont let her access the navigation system unless it is stopped and in park?? I can simply hold a button on the steering wheel to access Siri and state where i want to go. Far too often if you touch the screen on her lexis you get "vehicle is in motion".. Great.. and i'm in the passenger seat confused as to why this is an issue?
this is such a problem that there are instructions on how to override it? https://www.wikihow.com/Override-Lexus-Navigation-Motion-Loc...
perhaps they should have done a better job planning this out before releasing it to the public?
Personally i feel Hyundai provides better "value for your money". By not having the incredibly complicated model and options packages you find in North American cars they keep their costs down and the variations on their products low.
No need to deal with the NA style "you want package A, you need to get packages B and C as well" crap.
Considering this, I don't think I've ever even had to touch the screen since; the wheel is just so nice. The volume knob down in that cluster is also very ergonomic.
This is VERY VERY stupid and TBH dangerous. Should se find herself lost on the highway she would need to leave the highway or stop on the side of the road to access the navigation system??
If you attempt to access the nav system while the vehicle is not stopped it simply displays some sort of "vehicle is in motion" alarm.
My Elantra wont let me use the keyboard to enter an address while the vehicle is in motion, but it will let me use Siri so i can make changes while moving if needed.
This is why I said the system is very stupid.. one would think that a passenger can access the navigation system given they are not driving.
The lesson I took away from this is: Never buy a car with a built-in GPS system.
Android auto/carplay are a much better - They are not likely to hold your car "ransom" for map updates or such, and don't have stupid rules like must be in park.
I like their rotating joyknob implementation, which can be used without looking nor stretching arms, and integrates well with CarPlay as well. It's so good I skip on touch even when touch would be a good fit.
Even their homegrown UI isn't that bad, which is actually praise given the crap automakers can come up with.
Side node: touch is useful for the passenger though, as reaching to the knob can be annoying for the driver, even at a stop.
The latest models go one further - the screen is not touch capable at all. It’s honestly great.
Don’t get me wrong, touchscreen gloveboxes are stupid as hell, but as I get older and things change, i find myself wondering if I’m being discerning or closed-minded.
It is almost always easier and cleaner to use their HTTPS name=value post interface directly if they officially allow it and support it.
Often you are going to get your payment information from the user in that format anyway, such as via a post from your checkout page, or as a row of named columns when you retrieve on file payment information from your database.
In that case submitting name=value pairs mostly just requires translating the field names from your checkout page or column names from database to the names that the payment processor uses, plus adding a few more name=value pairs.
Going through their language specific SDKs often requires building up some ridiculous object oriented mess.
You're being discerning. And a little over-generous.
I'll counter - as a fellow 'older' one :)
There's a tendency to be over-conciliatory and exercise excessive tolerance towards folly, for fear of being labelled a throwback. Don't minimise the wisdom your age brings.
Some things just get worse, objectively, until a correction occurs. Reality is, there are perverse design incentives and it's also the younger people who are tearing their hair at the madness of gratuitous tech and UX as a cult/ideology.
While I agree things like volume, glovebox release, and other standard functions should stay far away from a touchscreen, I do like that touchscreens have enabled highly customizable options/settings that would be a bit tougher to achieve without a touchscreen.
Or at the very least a digital screen with manual navigation buttons, but in this case, a touchscreen is a bit more convenient (and you usually have to have the car parked to change settings, anyway).
This is a really good UX match, but they should've stopped there for sure.
Touch screen is a better interface because the UI can adapt to the context. I get that when you are driving you don’t want to have to look at the screen but honestly the benefits far outweigh the perceived cons.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29631/when-car-radio-was...
The more complicated and sophisticated you make the UI, the worse it is while driving. A touch screen invites excessive complexity the same way enterprise java invited excessive complexity.
The safety aspects are quite different. It is mildly annoying not to be able to touch type text messages; it is deadly to have to fiddle with a touch screen for a car’s basic functionality.
When people are too stupid to recognise satire, you get tremendous support for stupid things.
https://www.theonion.com/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-...
how?
Yep that's why everyone is using 6" touchscreen keyboards on laptops and desktop PCs - oh wait, they aren't because there is plenty of space for physical buttons that work better.
And no way does a touch screen have benefits that outweigh the benefits of dedicated tactile controls for the driver.