Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#861

Post by satyenr » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 5:35 AM 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…

Are you sure you are talking about CarPlay? I could understand Android Auto to an extant -- it can be slightly confusing to the uninitiated, but CarPlay is just about as simple as you get -- at least in my experience.

(Please do not start a iOS vs Android battle over this comment -- this is simply my experience -- I use both on a daily basis -- your mileage may vary)

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#862

Post by atq2119 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #856

petre wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they did that in the EU. Reversing cameras are massively useful, especially in vehicles with low visibility such as the Toyota CH-R.

Really? As much as I like the comfort of the rear radars for big vehicles, I’ve always found the camera a bit useless

As somebody who doesn't own a car anymore but somewhat regularly rents very different kinds of cars, I have to say that reverse parking is massively easier with a camera.

Back when I always used to drive the same car I got used to its dimensions of course, but that just doesn't happen when you merely occasionally drive very different cars.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#863

Post by muzika » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 5:39 AM UTC

After driving a Tesla for a couple months, I now wish all cars had a UI like it does, with one large touch screen. Other manufacturer’s touch screens feel ancient by comparison. And so do tens of switches and knobs.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#864

Post by jaxn » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 5:53 AM UTC

frei wrote: post #773

Shivetya wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I promise you both work just fine it designed properly and placed properly. Example, 2017 Chevrolet Volt. Center stack UI was nice to look at it but many options required multi level drill downs to change. HVAC controls were at the bottom of the center stack. Forty plus buttons between steering wheel and center console and this does not count all functions on stalks. Z4 I had had three stalks and forty plus buttons w…

Well since you bring up heated seats, the TM3 does not turn on the heated seats automatically based on temperature / butt-in-seat and changing it requires 3 touchscreen taps, two of them high-precision taps, where as the Volt has simple tactile controls. Though I will say the Volt has some of the worst climate control UI I've ever seen. Similarly the defrost is not automatic and the button requires a precision tap. T…

I just tap the seat icon on the bottom row of the display. One tap to a persistent top-level button.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#865

Post by CaptainZapp » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:06 AM UTC

narimiran wrote: post #507

judge2020 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can use your preferred maps app in your car, so you can choose music using your favorite music app, so you can send and receive text messages without taking your eyes off the road. Without it, people would just be looking at their phones anyways. Guess we should go back to paper maps and listening to AM radio.

> so you can send and receive text messages How about not reading messages while you're driving? And why do you have to write messages while in traffic? Can't this wait?

This will probably not endear me to the general readerhip, but if it would be up to me.

People caught while texting during driving:

First time offense: Massive fine and three month licence revocation

Second offense: Permanent license revocation. Because you just have proven beyond a doubt that you're either too dumb or too reckless to be allowed to operate deadly machinery.

Phoning while driving is dangerous. Texting while driving is just outrageously stupid and grossly negligent

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#866

Post by santafe » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:33 AM UTC

Cool that i'm working on one right now. :S

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#867

Post by santafe » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 6:41 AM UTC

JangoSteve wrote: post #741

laughinghan wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have 2. One for power and one for data. Usually they're replacing a lot more than 2 buttons/knobs.

> They have 2. One for power and one for data. I don't think I've ever seen a touch screen with only two wires. For one thing, even power requires two wires, not one. Data for a touch screen typically requires more than one wire as well, especially considering there are two completely distinct types of data a touchscreen must transmit, those being display output and touch input. Most touch screens I'm aware of have w…

For one thing, even power requires two wires, not one

The chasis is your second cable.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#868

Post by suspectdoubloon » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

I think voice is a better interface for setting navigation, music selection. I used it quite often with the google assistant through android auto. Its intergrated into my steering wheel i hold the button and I tell the car what I want. Im not losing focus on the road to find the knob/touchscreen whilst I perform the interaction. It gets but clunky when I forget the order of operations but the feedback is there.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#869

Post by yholio » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 7:52 AM UTC

pugworthy wrote: post #777

ceejayoz wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A heavily vibrating vehicle which needs to be operated quickly and with 100% reliability by a human operator really should not be operated via a proliferation of touch screens and touch buttons as the images above show. In fairness to SpaceX, Dragon largely isn't designed to be operated by a human. There's a reason that page calls out stuff like "how warm should the cabin be" as the sort of decisions being made wit…

To quote the page linked earlier... > Crew Dragon will be a fully autonomous spacecraft that can also be monitored & controlled by on board astronauts and SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, CA.

I would be very surprised if Dragon did not include the 21st century equivalent of the Apollo 8-ball, manual translation controller and stick.

NASA is a very conservative organization and if there is a lesson to be learned from past near disasters, is how limited is the foresight of mission planners and how infinitely adaptable are the human astronauts.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#870

Post by donkeyd » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 8:38 AM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #212

Shivetya wrote: post #182

Well after owning a Tesla Model 3 I am of the opinion, why in the hell do we need forty plus buttons in cars? Seriously! (Go count your buttons, some cars are higher than that) First off with regards to the touch screen in the Tesla. In the vast majority of drives I never ever touch it. Not once. Why not? Well I have my temperature preference set, I usually play the music that is coming off my phone, and well, what e…

I don't have automatic lights. So lights on/dip around corners etc. Indicators every drive. Regularly switch airflow. Turn on reflow when allergy season. Turn knob for hotter/colder air. Emergency blinkers if traffic looks to be stopping suddenly. Wipers/speedcc, screenwash etc all manual. Heated read window in the cold etc. That's before we get onto the whole music thing, where I concede my cassette tape player is l…

Much of the stuff you mentioned is either automated or has physical controls in a Tesla. Also, by law, emergency blinkers need to be a physical button.

I do think that there's a lot of stuff wrong with touch screen for everything, but right now, I think Tesla has the best balance and also adds the most value. For example, the Audis that have everything touch screen, still have 3 buttons for driver seat memory. In the Model 3, you store this in a 'profile', which stores much more information, like ventilation preferences and you can store many of them.