Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#721

Post by gnopgnip » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

IOT_Apprentice wrote: post #685

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. >…

Mazda and other automakers build TRULY AWFUL UIs in their cars. Carplay is a godsend in this case. You can direct Siri to send texts, read texts and you have a superior GPS application. CHeck out the abomination that it Mercedes-Benz carousel for showing/selecting radio stations on their cars. What you are really advocating is tactile feedback for digital displays--with some method of shaped feedback on by the screen…

The 2019 mazda 3 without the touchscreen still has carplay and android auto. You can still do all of that. You control it with the "commmander switch" instead of a touch screen, and more often with the volume knob or buttons on the wheel for the most common tasks.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#722

Post by brightball » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:10 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. >…

I understand your reasoning, but for me after having used Car Play in my wife's vehicle...it was a major factor in my car shopping experience.

I spend a lot more time getting things set "just right" on my phone than I ever will on my car. Being able to hop in and have Waze, Google Maps, Pandora "just work" and be easily accessible rather than some built in system within the car that's going to just "check a box"...it's night and day. Car Play was so far above anything I've seen in a vehicle before that I actually miss it when it's not there.

I can understand the preference for analog controls though. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#723

Post by rconti » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:15 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. >…

Have you ever used iDrive? I've been using it in cars occasionally for at least 10 years and it still confuses me.

I just bought my first vehicle with it yesterday, so maybe I'll get better at it. Touchscreens are not great in cars but if you can perform the action quickly, it beats fiddling with a knob for 15 seconds.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#724

Post by rconti » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #368

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. >…

>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 bought a 2016 Golf with CarPlay and only used it about twice. I hated how it was locked into only the functions it supported, didn't let me use the in-car nav or other functions while it took over my screen, and it also took over my phone.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#725

Post by zaroth » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #711

celticmusic wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the big one for me would be radio and temp. I assume no one in their right mind would put lights or cruise control behind a touch screen, but I could be wrong there. And maybe part of it is me being set in my old man ways, but I don't want a touch screen for any of that. Probably the only 2 things I can see being useful on that screen are the reverse camera and GPS that talks to you and you can glance at it o…

I think Teslas make you use the touchscreen for adjusting the cruise control speed

This is incorrect. In fact you cannot adjust the cruise speed via the touch screen at all.

Apparently this was actually changed in an early software update to the TM3, and cruise initially was engaged via the screen though!

https://interestingengineering.com/tesla-moves-autopilot-con...

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#726

Post by TomVDB » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:18 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. >…

> This to me is insane reasoning. That is no way user centric. This decision is 100% business driven and has nothing to do with the end user.

I absolutely hate user interface of my Audio (with rotary knob and without touch screen), so I use CarPlay pretty much exclusively.

I would love to be able to use a touch screen on that for some of the interactions.

> It basically means they have given up on developing a good branded interface between the driver and the car.

You can't expect that all car markers will develop a good branded interface, just like most Android phone makers have a UI that's worse than the standard Android one.

With CarPlay, I get to use a UI from a company that's an expert a making good apps.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#727

Post by TomVDB » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:20 PM 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?

He didn't use the words reading and writing...

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#728

Post by Broken_Hippo » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #464

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.

Thanks, you're just making my point for me. I mean you said app twice in it. Ten years ago, nothing was mediated via an app, somehow we managed to survive. Now almost everyone has been turned into a phone zombie. You're wasting your lives people! FOMO is entirely backwards, you shouldn't be afraid of missing out on something in your phone, you should be afraid of missing out on your entire life.

Years ago I had to carry a bunch of crap with me.

I had to take time to check email instead of simply looking when I get the message on my phone. I had to take a magazine to the toilet instead of reading on my phone.

I wore watches. They never lasted as long as the phone. I used to have alarm clocks too. The phones actually do better to wake me since a lot of alarm ringtones vary in sounds.

Gameboys and other portable gaming devices have been a thing for some time.

I actually carried around pen and paper when I went to the grocery store! When I was poor, I also took a calculator.

I used to have a portable television. It was black and white and possibly had a smaller screen than current phones. It definitely had poorer definition and one was lucky to pick up channels with the antennae.

Instead of arguing about who is correct about something, we can look it up in a restaurant. It is cool, and makes the conversation less about who is right and wrong and more about what is and could be.

Do you remember landlines? Wasn't it just wonderful that one couldn't have a private conversation at home? Would you seriously trade texting and/or having a private phone number for a house phone of old?

My niece carries my sister's phone around the house on video to talk to me. It dosn't matter that they are in Seattle and me in Norway.

I have a camera with me all the time and picture processing costs nothing! Do you have any clue how much I wanted that as a kid? I loved taking pictures, but couldn't afford film developing. As a bonus, my phone takes better pictures than many of the old cameras I've used. I happen to take pictures of manhole covers when I'm out, at least when I can make them interesting.

I share my artwork, that I make on paper, on the internet using my phone.

I have access to so many things. Lots of people can teach themselves "adulting" now, especially cooking. On their phone. Before I had my tablet, I used my phone in the kitchen.

Wasting life? No. You just aren't seeing the joy these piece of technology bring to others and disregarding the things the phone has replaced.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#729

Post by asdf21 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #687

asdf21 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, the Prius is an excellent car, and it doesn't look, sound nor handle as you describe.

You must never have driven any kind of decent car.

TL, taurus, model s, mazda 3, p100d, sure bud.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#730

Post by TomVDB » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #442

ken wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why is carplay even a thing? Geez, can't people stop fiddling with their phones? They've become like a kind of soother, a techno nanny that people can't do without. The sooner people put those things down, the better off we'll be.

It's a thing when many car manufacturers want you to pay a monthly subscription just get simple map updates for their already very crappy maps application.

It's a thing when when all your music is already on your phone.