Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#891

Post by m4rtink » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #700

leonroy wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The likely driving force that is causing it is the manufacturers BOM costs. Whilst I think this is part of it's about more than just reducing the BOM. There's a trend to move all interfaces from knobs and switches to touch screens even when money isn't the problem. For example the SpaceX Dragon capsule also takes this approach which you can see from the images below: https://www.spacex.com/crew-dragon A heavily vib…

> 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…

There are a few physical buttons for the few critical functions you might want to trigger in the boost/reentry phase. The rest is either 1 g or microgravity and a touchscreen should not be a problem.

BTW, not surre if they implemented it in the end, but they planned to handle screen blurring due to vibrations by shifting the screen content based on accelerometer data in real time. A rather clever idea IMHO. :)

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#892

Post by hombre_fatal » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #816

laughinghan wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I love the iPad because it’s flat and glassy, not despite it. Really? Your kitchen counter and car windshield are also both flat and glassy. Are you sure you don't love the iPad because it's a huge touchscreen controlled by software with virtually limitless capabilities, rather than because it's flat and glassy? Superior to everything else that ever came before and that currently exists. That's my point about you…

Yes, I love the computing device because all that it presents is a solid slab of glossy glass. If it tried to present any other affordance it would be all the lesser for it. If the rant is supposed to be about the future, then IMO it spends too much time disparaging the present. I think it’s a stupid and pointless rant if the premise is “this isn’t the best it will get.” Duh? That’s like the ultimate straw-man. But o…

Besides, what else did "pictures under glass" give us? Ultimate generalizability. That's a major reason why the touch screen won.

Maybe one day our devices will use nanobots to assemble any arbitrary per-app configuration of controls and gizmos and cranks and levers. But what exactly is the rant pitching in the meantime?

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#893

Post by mwexler » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

Having recently driven two model year cars with little change other than one now has a touch screen, the screen made a world of difference. Features I normally never use were quick and easy to access. Yes apple and google car stuff were also easier, but just the entire driving experience was nicer: no knobs to twist and press or shift like a joystick, no sea of buttons with meaningless icon, fewer endless dives of menus.

I see that the data may not agree with my experience but I look to have touch in every car I buy in the future. From a driver looking to leverage technology, while we get automation working, let's make it easy for the driver to get to the car's features.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#894

Post by _ea1k » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #343

_ea1k wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You shouldn't be doing anything like that while driving. What does that have to do with anything? The touchscreen controls for most of that aren't even enabled when driving. But on the Mazda you can't even do these things with the touchscreen while NOT driving.

This entire article, arugment and comment thread is about how Mazda is removing touch screens to improve saftey while driving. I agree the Mazda solution isn't much better though.

The person that I quoted was responding to someone who talked about keying in directions and the limitations that Mazda's limitation will cause for that. That functionality is not available while driving even with a touchscreen.

To me, its a situation of throwing out the good with the bad.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#895

Post by modzu » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

this is actually the reason i didnt get a tesla! 800 comments in this thread and maybe im not alone. hopefully things change for the better.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#896

Post by fatnoah » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

xx_alpha_xx wrote: post #882

fatnoah wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've seen implementations without touch, and they're much, much less useful. I have this. I never use it. Instead, I mount my phone next to the screen and use Android Auto on my phone. Using the rotary dial and other buttons is a) far more difficult and b) far more distracting while driving. An action that takes 1 second with a touch requires several seconds of fumbling with a knob and buttons w/out touch.

But the important different IMHO is that a knob / buttons don't require you to take your eyes off the road. In that 1 second you look down, you could cause an accident due to inattention.

Good point. That made me realize my preference is a bit more nuanced. For anything where navigating menus or anything displayed on a screen is required, I'm all for touchscreens.

For other things, like volume adjustments, climate control, seat position, etc. I agree that physical controls that can be operated w/out visual interaction are best.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#897

Post by mastre_ » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

xedeon wrote: post #497

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…

> I do agree, though, that touchscreens beyond phone interfaces should be used very sparingly. The Tesla's all-touchscreen situation in particular seems like a terrible idea. 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. This is a very common misconception. You CAN adjust the A/C via the steering wheel buttons, turn it off…

> The Tesla's all-touchscreen situation in particular seems like a terrible idea.

Terrible idea? It's the best thing since sliced iPhone. Keep in mind that the "car" is usually driving itself; that's a much higher level of solving the "silly human takes eyes and hands off road" problem, which makes what Mazda is doing seem, frankly, short-sighted (disclosure: although a Honda/BMW/Tesla fan, I've always secretly cheered for Mazda because I like their driving "DNA," and if I ever buy another non-EV again it might just be an MX-5 NA or NB for autox/track use). Now, of course, they're _currently_ not in the same league, but this stuff is getting cheaper (technology! heck yeah!) and these changes should be a look toward the future. All of that said, I don't feel like there's anything wrong with the move they're making, just, again, doesn't seem terribly forward-looking -- other than that, it's perfectly fine.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#898

Post by nkrisc » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

mwexler wrote: post #893

Having recently driven two model year cars with little change other than one now has a touch screen, the screen made a world of difference. Features I normally never use were quick and easy to access. Yes apple and google car stuff were also easier, but just the entire driving experience was nicer: no knobs to twist and press or shift like a joystick, no sea of buttons with meaningless icon, fewer endless dives of me…

How many features do you need? I have a 2019 Subaru Forester and if I could have gotten it without a screen I would have. Everything I need while driving is on the steering wheel (cruise control buttons, radio controls), climate is a knob and 2 buttons. Everything else I don't need while driving.

The only thing a screen is good for is a backup camera. In my ideal car the screen just turns off or hides away when I'm not in reverse. Everything else is a distraction when you should just be driving.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#899

Post by GVIrish » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:50 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. >…

> Audi, for instance has said that part of the reason it’s discontinuing its rotary controller is that a touchscreen better supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The baffling thing about that is that Audi's MMI system was actually pretty darned good. And a few of the cars support controlling Apple Carplay with the rotary dial.

Audi and BMW used to sell their dial interfaces as a unique advantage over touchscreen only infotainment systems. It blows my mind that they're (Audi at least) going in the opposite direction now.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#900

Post by rco8786 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

sumedh wrote: post #875

rco8786 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. what's your point

The point was you comparing a car to a phone does not make any sense right now. That elusive future where a car just becomes a device is not going to be here in the next few years, we can talk about it when it comes but right now cars kill people if you dont pay attention.

I think you're vastly underestimating how quickly car manufacturers are moving..or at least trying to move.

Tesla is already pre-selling, for money, full self-driving capability in their existing cars. And they are, of course, designing their current fleet of cars for that future. There's already a Games section in the dashboard.

We can talk about the safety aspects all day until we're blue in the face. But this is the reality.