I must say this, and the absence of piano black, were some key determining factors for me to buy the new Hyundai Kona (of course, maybe not the most important ones, but decisive nonetheless).
Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
441–450 of 523 posts
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
Total nonsense you’re spewing here. Especially for it being very country-biased in a world where giants like Volkswagen and BMW are highly international. https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/innovation/innovation-network/te... For example, BMW tech offices exist in Silicon Valley and Shanghai, among other locations. German cars have been very well-regarded in terms of their automotive interfaces by the automotive press and re…
Where driving platform dynamics are they offering that helps normal people (not talking about car junkies here)?? All the provide is a squeeze money scheme by making everything paid upgrade, laggy software, buggy software, bad range and much more. There's nothing good about most German cars anymore. Bmw neu klasse is finally a decent answer but it took how many years?
Time to put up your receipts.
What are you talking about with “bad range?” I’m not even talking about EVs directly. Two of the top 10 Edmunds tested EV range vehicles are made by Mercedes. The next 10 vehicles include 5 German brand cars.
“Paid update” are you saying competing brands don’t have subscriptions? https://www.toyota.com/connected-services/
Laggy software? According to whom? Can you link me a review of a German vehicle that complains about laggy software?
Buggy software, compared to what?
“Car junkies” are a more profitable segment than customers who shop by price and don’t care how the car drives.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But at the other end of the market: Common luxury cars have lots of features, and KISS isn't really one of the design goals (if a customer wanted cheap and simple instead, perhaps they'd be shopping for a Dacia instead). It wasn't always like this. Mercedes-Benz used to make high quality, straightforward automobiles without all the inspector gadget james bond crap. See e.g. W123, W124, W126. Luxury meant high build…
Even a W123 can be complex compared to something like a spartan 1979 Dodge Aspen. Electric power windows, vacuum-operated power locks, telescopic steering column, power-adjustable mirrors, a radio that does AM and FM... Fancy stuff seemed pretty common on those (awesome, stout) German luxury cars. The more I think about it and read comments here, the less sure I am that the gilded age of simple, reliable cars has eve…
The self-leveling hydraulic suspension in the W123 wagon was also a complication. The climate control system was failure prone, but failed in a sensible way--when the control unit failed it would no longer maintain a set temperature, but would still work as an open-loop system. The cruise control "computer" (completely analog device) was also prone to failure. But the thing is all that stuff was implemented simply, reliably, and with an eye towards service and maintainability. Maintaining the systems on a W123 was easy. I did it for almost a decade. It was a fancy car, but in a sensible high-quality way. It was built to be understood. There were excellent printed, bound shop manuals. It was obvious that an immense amount of thought went into the UX of working on that car. It wasn't just a luxurious car to drive it was also a luxurious car to maintain. Even the fucking hose clamps were special.. like, they had a continuous metal bearing surface so they don't cause pinch points and raised bosses for the worm gear threads to ride on instead of the punched slots you commonly find. Contrast that with the situation today. Everything was a lot better before corporations started using software as a wedge to separate users from real, meaningful ownership of their machines. It didn't have to be like that, they could have done it differently. Software could have been a wonderful thing for the automobile, but the way they chose to do it made it awful instead. And now everything is an iphone app with subscriptions and in-app purchases and engagement metrics. It's disgusting what these people have done to the world.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#444Maybe normal height grills will also make a comeback. We can dream.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment reminds me of the hostile, to say the least, Munich U-Bahn map: https://drmory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/TARIFPLAN_Inne... I remember seeing it back then in the subway, looking for directions and feeling really confused about it. "Damn why didn't I get a transportation systems PhD before coming to Germany!"
The concentric rings remind me of atomic bomb destruction maps where they have different rings for different damage levels.
Different levels of damage to your wallet. Each time you cross a circle the fare goes up.
So really the same idea, just that here you want to be in the epicenter
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly - I own a Tesla and an id.buzz and it’s just insulting how bad the user experience is on the buzz. I don’t need buttons for the rear view mirrors or lights, I need them to do the right thing for me instead. VW not saving the position of the rear view mirrors on my profile is stupid. Having a hardware button for the seat position “profile” is stupid. Having walk away lock locking and unlocking the bus in a loo…
You are absolutely right. See my other post before where I saw essentially the same thing. It is absurd how bad the German companies are; the only thing they know how to do great is the engine. I never understand these people with their ac knobs... What are they doing that they need to change AC all the time during driving? I set it to 21.5 with auto, and it is perfect for the whole car. Why do people need to constan…
>the only thing they know how to do great is the engine.
EA888 G1 has entered the chat.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#447I’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.
> […] but because China requires physical buttons starting next year.
European safety ratings also mandated buttons in 2024 (for this year) for certain functions:
* https://www.euroncap.com/press-media/euro-ncap-announces-202...
* https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens...
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And to the haters: Show me any company or product from Germany in IT that is Top 100 globally. Also I wouldn’t want to disagree with you outright, there are still a few important German companies in the IT sector (or related): Siemens, Infineon, Deutsche Telekom, Bechtle, TeamViewer come to my mind. What Siemens exemplifies is that the strength of German industry is not pure software, but high-tech machinery. While…
Technically SAP is a Société Européenne but still somehow the biggest German software developer.
And fittingly SAP is successful despite horrible UX
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#449Remember how Volkswagen exec promised exact same thing many years ago and just blatantly lied? I do. I will judge only by the actual actions and not by the empty arrogant lies.
Did they? The id.Polo (I think the first car to come out since VW said they were reversing course there) has quite a lot of buttons. Like arguably a comical number of buttons.
Yeah, newest Polo seems to have physical controls now. By all models released after their statement two and half years ago came with shitty capacitive clusters.
Re: Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
To expand on #4 WINTER AND GLOVES! Yes it’s a first world proven that I have to take gloves off to turn on my heated seats but buttons made sure stupid problems like this never happened in the first place
There are gloves that work with capacitive touchscreens and have existed for 20 years now ever since the iPhone came out.
Those kind of gloves are too thin to be of any use when it's -10°F out (early mornings are frequently at least this cold in my area). In the winter I'm normally wearing thick leather gloves treated with Sno Seal (a waxy, oily substance derived from beeswax) with wool liner gloves. Even if I could prevent them leaving a residue on any screen they touch, and even if they had some substance in them (that wouldn't wear off) that made them work with a capacitive screen, the reduced finger dexterity from all that material would make actually using that screen very difficult. Practically, what I actually have to do to use a touchscreen is take the gloves off.