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Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

drive.com.au

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Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#381

Post by raxxorraxor »

_the_inflator wrote: post #31
nokeya wrote: post #6

I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.

Despite China, IT development is a complete disaster in Germany. All car so called German car manufacturers UX/UI is horrible to say the least. Dieter Rams is the only UX/UI designer, who became famous - outside of Germany. Hartmut Esslinger kind of popularized DR, what an irony, that two Germans made history, but of course not in Germany and even in Germany DR wasn't well known. Braun was a brand and statement, but…

Software in Germany is simply not highly regarded, on the contrary. It is seen as necessary evil at best.

Ageing population that finds itself overwhelmed is my guess. There are exceptions, but they are far and few between.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#382

Post by lqstuart »

phatfish wrote: post #299
lqstuart wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad they don't care so much about factory worker safety or slave labor

I don't think the bake-off to decide which superpower has the worst human rights record is going to land where you want it to. Hint, they both suck. FWIW, I'll take the one not dropping bombs to keep their BFF happy, boosting right-wing shitheads, threatening to invade their real allies and slapping dumb tariffs on everyone.

They both suck, but one of them literally harvests organs from political prisoners.

I’m honestly torn on which one I’d pick, but there’s a TON of likely state-sponsored pro-China propaganda on the internet, so I consider it a patriotic duty to push back for the sole reason that we can still freely talk shit about the one (for the time being, as long as you don’t mention the blessed martyr Charlie Kirk), whereas the other blocks the internet and imprisons people for dissent.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#384

Post by throw_await »

virtualritz wrote: post #55
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VW? "No one needs Apple Car or Android. We are the world wide Nr. 1 in car business, what does a computer company know about cars? hahaha" VW was supporting CarPlay from launch and the VW MEB dash was on all pro material of Apple for ages.

Ever heard of CARIAD, the biggest trainwreck, er carwreck, of a software company south of the north pole? 6000 people to develop a software stack for VW. Go figure. The fact VW supported CarPlay early is footnote in this comedy.

Nowadays those 6000 people don't even develop anything, they do outsourcing.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#385

Post by iRomain »

_the_inflator wrote: post #31
nokeya wrote: post #6

I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.

Despite China, IT development is a complete disaster in Germany. All car so called German car manufacturers UX/UI is horrible to say the least. Dieter Rams is the only UX/UI designer, who became famous - outside of Germany. Hartmut Esslinger kind of popularized DR, what an irony, that two Germans made history, but of course not in Germany and even in Germany DR wasn't well known. Braun was a brand and statement, but…

Well there’s Bosch. Software wise I salute their home connect initiative which is maybe not the best UX but at least it works locally so either it is good forward thinking software engineering choices either it shows neglected software engineering practices.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#386

Post by teamonkey »

_the_inflator wrote: post #31
nokeya wrote: post #6

I’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.

Despite China, IT development is a complete disaster in Germany. All car so called German car manufacturers UX/UI is horrible to say the least. Dieter Rams is the only UX/UI designer, who became famous - outside of Germany. Hartmut Esslinger kind of popularized DR, what an irony, that two Germans made history, but of course not in Germany and even in Germany DR wasn't well known. Braun was a brand and statement, but…

> Only SAP is or has been featured somewhere below the bottom.

“The company is the largest non-American software company by revenue and the world's fifth-largest publicly traded software company by revenue. In June 2025, it was the largest European company by market capitalization, as well as one of the 30 most valuable publicly traded companies in the world.”

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#387

Post by brikym »

teo_zero wrote: post #26

And for those commands that do not deserve a physical button and are only accessible via touch, please adhere to a few simple rules. 1. Put them always in the same place. Especially the "back" or "exit" button! 2. Each button should do one thing, not switch between 3 or more modes that you should look to understand which one you've just activated. Negative example: one button to cycle from cuise control, to drive ass…

1. Drives me crazy on iPhone. On Android there is one button to go back. Very simple. On iPhone sometimes it's top left, some times it's called 'done'. Sometimes the app doesn't have it at all and I have to use a menu instead.

Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

#390

Post by yourusername »

andrewaylett wrote: post #291
m463 wrote: post #275

I think they should distinguish between controls and settings. Settings are great on a touchscreen. A wide variety of options, easily navigated to and explained. They suck on physical buttons, it ends up being like setting the time on a VCR. Controls on the other hand deserve physical buttons. Or levers. or dials/knobs/spinners. It should depend on muscle memory, and the type of control. I also thing driving status s…

I have a pre-facelift MB A-class, and I think it's the best car I've driven for controls. You don't have to touch the screen ever if you don't want to: there's a trackpad on the centre console that just works even (most of the time) with Android Auto (and the back/home/map/media/phone buttons will still save you even if Android Auto won't always let you move the cursor to the back arrow in YouTube Music). The steerin…

And then in the facelift they replaced the buttons on the steering wheel with touch sensitive ones and just removed the touch pad and replaced it with nothing. It's still useable and nice, but worse than the older model and there was no need to change anything.
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