Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#431

Post by cptskippy » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #408

joking wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CarPlay is amazingly good, and only really works well with a touchscreen. >At this point, it would be very hard for me to buy a car that didn't have CarPlay integration with a touchscreen. I've seen implementations without touch, and they're much, much less useful. Well, maybe the solution is to make apple carplay and android auto to work well with a dpad and buttons configuration, those interfaces have been working…

Acura is introducing a touchpad, with absolute, not relative, cursor positioning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKa9apjOX8 It reminds me of the PSP/PSV having a touchpad on the back of the screen.

They have physical controls for climate control and opted for nondescript buttons instead of knobs. Truly brilliant...

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#432

Post by mrmonkeyman » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

rvense wrote: post #127

barking wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Complain about it.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#433

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

marapuru wrote: post #47

Praise to Mazda for making this decision. As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. For years I have been working on product interfaces (not just apps). Many studies I conducted actually told me that people favored analog controls over digital touch screens controls. It gives you tactile feedback, making it accessible for anyone with sense of touch. >…

Of course it's not user centric. It's about capturing more revenue while limited the parts in the car. Back in the day, you had modular radio mounts. Ford broke the mold with the Ford Taurus and the integrated controls that you couldn't replace.

Now, if you care about a nice radio in your car, you need to upgrade your entire car for $5k.

I have an otherwise awesome Honda Pilot with a built in, unsupported android tablet that doesn't support carplay or android auto, and is hard to replace without heavy hackery because core controls of the car are built into the tablet.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#434

Post by DanTheManPR » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

coleca wrote: post #283

Not ready to give Mazda any praise for their infotainment systems. I leased a 2019 CX-5 Grand Touring Reserve a couple months ago. Had I known how bad Mazda’s UX was I would have leased something else. First off their system takes an eternity to cold boot. If I’m making a quick run to the store or dropping the kids off at a friends house the system isn’t available for most of the ride. While it’s booting, the radio r…

I would suggest taking it to the dealer, what you're describing sounds abnormal. Mine boots in about 10 seconds.

I do definitely find it annoying that it defaults to playing whatever audio source you last used when you start up your car. Whenever I have a passenger, I have a slight moment of panic as I try to remember what's about to play through the speakers, and whether it's appropriate for them to hear.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#435

Post by bumby » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

Phillipharryt wrote: post #195

Isinlor wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about spacecraft with touchscreens: https://www.spacex.com/crew-dragon ? Compare to the cockpit of Space Shuttle: https://i.redd.it/9mj5bcbnzsx21.jpg

I hope you're arguing in favour of the space shuttle there. It has no contextual buttons. I'll always argue that contextual controls do not belong in critical systems. Every button on that shuttle will do the same thing every time you press it. A touch screen looks nice but isn't safe. Mission control is telling you to press X button, but X button isn't actually on your display right now?? That's a big problem.

>Every button on that shuttle will do the same thing every time you press it.

I agree with you in spirit, but would disagree with this particular point. Apollo had an erroneous "Abort" signal because a particular switch didn't do what it was supposed to, because it had some interesting failure modes in zero-gravity.

I think is dangerous to assume that one design is flawless over the other; both touch-screens and mechanical systems have their own unique failure modes. Maybe one is more reliable than the other, which I think is currently the case here.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#436

Post by bumby » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

Isinlor wrote: post #144

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we extend this idea, why not do it for airplanes? It seems like a bad idea to be changing the layout of mission-critical systems. I'm sure it'd wreak havoc if the cockpit of a 787 was all touch screens, with UI changes pushed at the whim of developers. I drive a car with analog controls. The buttons for controlling the radio, hazard lights, the A/C, etc are all static. I wouldn't want it to change. It gets the job…

How about spacecraft with touchscreens: https://www.spacex.com/crew-dragon ? Compare to the cockpit of Space Shuttle: https://i.redd.it/9mj5bcbnzsx21.jpg

Just because there is a design moving forward does not mean there is not a considerable amount of discussion/dissent/disagreement on the approach.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#437

Post by galangalalgol » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #386

jforman wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It basically means they have given up on developing a good branded interface between the driver and the car. The one piece of feedback I gave Toyota in their post-purchase survey is: please replace the hot mess that is Entune with CarPlay. They absolutely should give up. You can't compete with an OS and ecosystem into which billions of dollars have been sunk. I agree, for what it's worth, that analog controls are s…

Isn't CarPlay exclusive to iOS devices? If so, what you're describing might be viable with Lexus. It'd be somewhat pointless with the Toyota brand, where iOS users are a rather small minority.

Seriously? People will have the newest iPhone before they shell out for a car with a working air conditioner. The car is gone as a status symbol, the phone is now arrived.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#438

Post by inetknght » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #425

ubermonkey wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. Before phone integration, I might've agreed with you, or at least had no opinion on the subject. After watching many car companies, even high-end ones like BMW and Mercedes, fail utterly at producing reasonable phone integration systems or interfaces, though, I'm all-in on CarPlay. >It basically means they ha…

> CarPlay is amazingly good As someone who recently rode in a car with CarPlay and saw two young technology professionals try to use it, I disagree. One of them owned the system and drove it every day it still didn't seem like either one really understood it ("Why's it doing that?" "Maybe because ..."). I agree that all the built-in systems I've seen are terrible, but CarPlay seems like merely the "least bad" impleme…

> "Here's my 2006 iPod if you want music, or unplug it and plug in your phone if you want"

Well, your 2006 iPod still uses a 3.5mm analog port. But that newfangled phone over there needs a new $400 Apple USB Thunderlightning Wireless Port. And your car doesn't seem to have an interface for that.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#439

Post by robbyt » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

remote_phone wrote: post #427

I just bought a Model 3. There are a lot of great features but I simply hate the touchscreen display. I can’t reliably change the AC, etc without distractingly taking my eyes off the road. I hate it. My other cars I just reach for knobs or buttons but having to find the stupid parts of the touchscreen are really dumb and a terrible design. If the next version doesn’t have a better interface with more knobs and button…

Thats frustrating. Not trying to be snarky, but did you notice this while test driving?

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#440

Post by cptskippy » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

BanazirGalbasi wrote: post #394

CrazyStat wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most of us are used to being able to adjust the AC without looking, and that's only possible because there are physical controls we can feel. My Tesla allows me to adjust the AC without looking, using the scroll wheels built into the steering wheel.

Not sure if you're trying to support his point or refute it, but those scroll wheels are a great example of physical controls done right.

On the flip side, the Nissan Leaf with premium audio is an example of physical controls done wrong. Everything is buttons with no tactile way to home your hand, you have to take your eyes off the road to fine the right button.

My old Honda had 3 knobs on the console with the center one being larger. There was no ambiguity when you blindly groped for controls.