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Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

motorauthority.com

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Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#121

Post by diggan »

tomp wrote: post #114
diggan wrote: post #8

Recently switched from a Renault Captur (with touchscreen) to an Audi A3 (without touchscreen) and the amount of focus the touchscreen requires compared to a non-touchscreen with a radial button is amazingly scary. How did anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place? Can't imagine going back to having a touchscreen now, and hope they slowly disappear from everything cars.

Can you expand on this? I really don't get it... I understand why people would prefer "fixed-function" buttons like temperature up or lock doors , but I don't understand how radial button (which is just switching focus on the display) is any better than touchscreen... To me, it looks strictly worse, you need to focus on the button and the screen (to see what's selected), instead of just focusing on the screen and tou…

I've had the Audi for around 1.5 weeks now, and I've already learned how to navigate the system without looking. Can easily go from navigation to Spotify in Android Auto without paying attention to where the radial is or what's showing on the screen.

Compare with the Renault Captur which I could never learn to use without having to look at where I have to tap on the screen.

Edit: while driving, I'm not doing things in the onboard system that I haven't done before, like browsing through settings and other things. I'm only interested in doing modifications to already running things or turning on/off certain systems while driving, and those were much easier to get learned under muscle control when having a radial than using touch controls (which with touch I never managed to actually learn).

I guess an easy way to compare them would be to say, going from navigation to Spotify would require me to:

(radial): drag radial down, three clicks to the right, and click

(touchscreen): find button about 10cms from the left without looking or any tactic feedback

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#122

Post by diminoten »

lobotryas wrote: post #76
kkarpkkarp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good. There is a reason you don't see apple like designed plane cockpit. But Mazda's cockpit isn't plane cockpit either. Please go for a test drive with new Mazda 3 and you will be surpised how stupid is this decision. If you want to volume up, change a song, yes, it is easy. But if you want for example turn on GPS navigation, you need to use this wheel near the gearbox to: - leave a radio interface (you must look…

Your argument doesn’t make sense to me. Why would you do any of that WHILE DRIVING?? That’s both dangerous and foolish. As for key presses to navigate a menu you would be surprised how quickly a human memorized exactly how many times to press what buttons to get to where they want to go. In my current car I know that if I press Home, down x3, and OK I will end up in the Media menu. I can do all this without taking mu…

I think it's an easy cop out to say, "Doing literally anything other than focusing exclusively on the task of driving is not worth talking about."

The reality is, people will be adjusting their radios while they drive. They will be looking for open restaurants, changing their destination, and a number of other things while driving, and pretending like they're not worth accommodating ignores some very fundamental principles on the topic of economics.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#123

Post by mhandley »

Like many people my age (early 50s), I now need reading glasses. My distance vision is fine, but my phone held at arms length is slightly out of focus unless I put on my reading glasses. This is the case for many (most?) people my age. I hate any display on a car that I can actually reach. No touchscreens for me.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#124

Post by itchynosedev »

How it made through ] production in the first place is really baffling. There are supposedly thousands and thousands of engineers, industrial designers, QC and other product people working in the automotive industry. And yet between 2010 and 2019 you'd be hard pressed to find a model coming without a touch screen. This is insane. This seems like a basic usability and safety issue.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#125

Post by PakG1 »

diminoten wrote: post #116
rmrfchik wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does not. None of my trips are in calendar. None of my music is in Google Play or any stock music player. And the last thing I need in my car is phone interface.

You are not the target audience for this feature, but that audience exists and it's gigantic.

Is Audi's target market also a complete subset of that target audience, or is it at least significantly overlapping with that target audience?

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#126

Post by laurent123456 »

tomp wrote: post #114
diggan wrote: post #8

Recently switched from a Renault Captur (with touchscreen) to an Audi A3 (without touchscreen) and the amount of focus the touchscreen requires compared to a non-touchscreen with a radial button is amazingly scary. How did anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place? Can't imagine going back to having a touchscreen now, and hope they slowly disappear from everything cars.

Can you expand on this? I really don't get it... I understand why people would prefer "fixed-function" buttons like temperature up or lock doors , but I don't understand how radial button (which is just switching focus on the display) is any better than touchscreen... To me, it looks strictly worse, you need to focus on the button and the screen (to see what's selected), instead of just focusing on the screen and tou…

You don't need to look at the button to use it. I forgot exactly how the Audi one works but once you're used to it, it's like: Press, Turn right twice: Map. Press turn left once: Audio player. Press: Play. You don't need to look at the controller and, when you're used to it, you don't even need to look at the screen. With touch screen, you'll never get used to it to the point of doing anything without looking at it.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#127

Post by rvense »

barking wrote: post #111
haberman wrote: post #72

I'm curious, have you used Android Auto? You get in the car and it already knows where you want to go because it has access to your calendar. It has all of your contacts and your music. As a user these are the things that matter to me, not a car company trying to serve me a "branded interface."

> You get in the car and it already knows where you want to go because it has access to your calendar. We're revealing too much to google and God knows who else.

"Give me convenience or give me death"

Sometimes I wonder what the endgame is. When all things (and people) have had as many iPads as can possibly fit shoved into every opening, and I need only mutter a desire for an Amazon drone[0] to appear to satiate it... what will I actually /do/?

[0] Which may or may not be a person...

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#128

Post by WalterBright »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #96
haberman wrote: post #72

I'm curious, have you used Android Auto? You get in the car and it already knows where you want to go because it has access to your calendar. It has all of your contacts and your music. As a user these are the things that matter to me, not a car company trying to serve me a "branded interface."

For music and navigation, touchscreens are OK, as these are things you don't suddenly need to adjust if something happens. But for instance the defrost function on the AC can be something that you need to immediately control while driving 60 mph, e.g. if you enter a tunnel with moist microclimate (we have one of those nearby, it fogs up your windscreen in ~10sec at some conditions). Such things need to have physical…

> the AC: the buttons are shaped like a human, and you press the part of your body where you want air

I was driving a friend's newer car down the freeway once, and had to call him to find out how to turn on the godam defroster. There were so many knobs, switches, and dials that influence this, all labelled with icons so I had no idea what they did. Turns out that you had to push two buttons, toggle a toggle, and turn two knobs. Madness.

My car has a selector that you move to "defrost". Then it defrosts, like magic.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#129

Post by diminoten »

PakG1 wrote: post #125
diminoten wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not the target audience for this feature, but that audience exists and it's gigantic.

Is Audi's target market also a complete subset of that target audience, or is it at least significantly overlapping with that target audience?

Luxury car makers seem to keep putting more and more not-directly-related-to-the-act-of-driving features in cars every new model, so that leads me towards, "Yes."

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#130

Post by kkarakk »

ehnto wrote: post #110
kkarpkkarp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good. There is a reason you don't see apple like designed plane cockpit. But Mazda's cockpit isn't plane cockpit either. Please go for a test drive with new Mazda 3 and you will be surpised how stupid is this decision. If you want to volume up, change a song, yes, it is easy. But if you want for example turn on GPS navigation, you need to use this wheel near the gearbox to: - leave a radio interface (you must look…

You shouldn't be doing anything like that while driving. Also if it's physical in any way you can build accurate muscle memory and know without looking that you have gone to the right spot. This is almost never the case with touch screens interfaces. There is no safe way to interface with a screen while driving. You are taking your eyes off the road, and your focus goes with it necessarily. The safest option is no sc…

Just don't use navigation guy, memorize the paper map! /s
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