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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

#951

Post by T-A »

nradov wrote: post #913
ceejayoz wrote: post #902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computing and testing has come a long way since the Gemini days. We now have aircraft (particularly military fighters) that are literally uncontrollable without the computers.

Those control systems only work within certain preprogrammed constraints. They are generally incapable of handling unexpected situations outside of the design limits. Computerized fly by wire systems still depend on a pilot in the loop, especially in the case of a mechanical failure.

So let’s say the airplane gets damaged, and one of the flight controls is no longer available. A legacy airplane would still try to use that surface because it doesn’t know any better. The F-35 digital flight control systems will say, “That surface isn’t doing much for me anymore, so I’m going to have to compensate by using some other things. Maybe I’ll have to move them a little bit more to get the same effect because the pilot still wants to turn left.”

https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/f-35-faces-mos...

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#952

Post by Fins »

lhorie wrote: post #927
Fins wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much top of the line. There's a big difference between what is safe and convenient when you are sitting at your desk, lazily poking at the screen, and what is acceptable when you are barrelling down the highway, with the screen you need to stretch your arm to reach.

Interacting w/ a car touchscreen when you're on the highway isn't the brightest of ideas... Every car - even those w/ touchscreen - has physical buttons for top level commands (e.g. play the radio) that one could use via muscle memory or, at worst, a quick glance. Doing anything more involved that requires attention _while the car is in motion_ is just asking for trouble.

Exactly the point. But on some cars pretty much everything requires you to interact with a touch screen (cough, Tesdla, cough), and even if it does not, there's usually not enough buttons.

On my wife's Sonata, e.g., sure, you can switch the screen between map, nav. entry, radio, etc. with physical buttons. But after that it's all touch screen.Thank God they at least left alone knobs for the climate control...

Sat in the eTron lately while waiting for service. Two Nice, bright screens with haptic feedback. Very much fun, as long as I was playing with it on a showroom floor. But I shudder to think of actually trying to use on the road.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#953

Post by petre »

rbanffy wrote: post #945
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.

Wouldn't it be better just to make cars with good visibility?

Yes it would. That's why I'd never buy the Toyota CH-R. We have a Civic with bad enough visibility already, thank you.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#954

Post by BrandoElFollito »

I would love to have one single, continuous touch screen instead of what the car is providing me.

I only care about the speed and fuel level. And a big STOP when something is wrong.and style feedback on things Iwill have to change soon.

Then radio and possibly two buttons.

All of this automatically provided when it is me who "logs in".

But I get some weird philosophical view of some designer go though I am interested in the engine rate (I do not even know the name of this rpm big dial), the oil temperature and whatnot.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#955

Post by brokenmachine »

dublin wrote: post #932
elihu wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially given that you can then deliver crappy software and the market will bear it, because we have been trained to expect and accept crappy software. I'd put it differently; I'd say we've been trained to expect anything with (user-visible) software to be crappy, and to accept it because we have no alternative.

That's especially true for automotive SW and interfaces, which raise dreck to a whole 'nother level. For a whole lot of reasons, I don't expect to ever buy a car much newer than about 2010 for the rest of my life. Avoiding (ob)noxious systems and interfaces is a large part of that reason.

Maybe a new Mazda will be up your alley!

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#956

Post by brokenmachine »

patrick5415 wrote: post #940
dublin wrote: post #932

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's especially true for automotive SW and interfaces, which raise dreck to a whole 'nother level. For a whole lot of reasons, I don't expect to ever buy a car much newer than about 2010 for the rest of my life. Avoiding (ob)noxious systems and interfaces is a large part of that reason.

I’m with you. Im not that old but new cars really have no appeal to me. Will be interesting to see how it goes hanging onto a 2010 for 50 years

Me too.

I enjoy driving a manual ("stick") and distrust auto-braking/lane assist/etc. My car has airbags, ABS and traction control so I'm happy with the safety features.

No way will I buy a car where essential functions are touchscreen operated, or with any phone-home "features".

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#957

Post by brokenmachine »

santafe wrote: post #867
JangoSteve wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You still need a wire from the touchscreen to the chassis.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#958

Post by brokenmachine »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #485
inetknght wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

Tiny bluetooth to aux adapters cost $10–20 on Amazon and work amazingly well. Just get one that has a constant power source (no battery), and try to plug it in to a switched power outlet so it disconnects when you shut the car off.

>bluetooth... work amazingly well.

No.

Bluetooth is slow to change tracks, slow to pause, slow to connect, has annoying pairing issues, has lower sound quality, and is just generally subpar.

>Just get one that has a constant power source (no battery), and try to plug it in to a switched power outlet

So it's wireless, but with wires.

I rarely use either though, my car has usb and I have a 32Gb stick of music that stays in there.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#959

Post by brokenmachine »

fishywang wrote: post #837
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…

I don't know about CarPlay but Android Auto works good enough with knob controls. I have a 2014 Mazda3, which Mazda offered Android Auto/CarPlay upgrade for a fee earlier this year and I upgraded. My car has a touchscreen, but disables all touch features above a certain speed (5 or 10 mph I think). I don't think I'm really missing anything on Android Auto without touch.

I hate that kind of nanny stuff, what if you have a passenger and they can control it?

Does it also have a stupid screen that pops up every time you start the car saying, "don't use this while driving", or some such nonsense?

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#960

Post by brokenmachine »

_ea1k wrote: post #907
navigatesol wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CarPlay is the best all screen car interface I've used, and these days it's all I ever use if it's available in the car I'm driving. Curious, do you own a car, or are you renting them? Maybe that's why some people are such advocates for the Apple/Android interfaces: when you're driving different cars regularly it's helpful to have a consistent interface. Meanwhile, I have never had any problem "getting used to" the…

I own a car with Android Auto and I use it all of the time. The biggest benefit is the voice interface, but almost everything about the nav system on Android Auto is better than the builtin one. AFAIK, one of the main feature requests for Tesla is to add Android Auto. Its one of those things that is annoying to go without, once you've had it available for a while.

>I own a car with Android Auto and I use it all of the time. The biggest benefit is the voice interface

Google must have about 100Gb of recordings of me saying, "OK Google, no, fuck, OK beep, OK Google... fuck, what was I doing again?"

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