VW Is Putting Buttons Back in Cars Because People Complained Enough
Customers and critics alike have raked VW over the coals for its "frustrating" interiors.
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I don’t want a touchscreen in my fucking car. That is all.
I don’t mind a touchscreen. Apple CarPlay/Android Auto are really nice.
I just also want physical controls for everything the car needs to do to be a car, like climate control or wipers or shifting. And also physical controls for play/pause, skip, volume, and tuning.
Touchscreens can do a lot to enhance the car experience, but they cannot replace physical buttons.
The car experience
The car experience is driving.
We don't need 6 different fuel efficiency visualizations and we sure as fuck don't need games or videos in the car.
Sure. I don’t want games or videos (though I can see how that would be useful while waiting for an EV to charge).
I just want Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. Or, failing that, whatever controls are necessary to facilitate an infotainment system.
How much entertainment do you need while driving? Can't you just plug your phone in for some music?
Do you really need a maps app built into your car when you already have one on your phone?
I just can't see a reasonable use for an infotainment system that isn't already taken care of perfectly by the device I already have.
In my older car, I have a mount for my phone because it does not have GPS. But it does work just fine for Bluetooth.
CarPlay is a lot easier to use. As was Android Auto when I had an Android phone.
These also give me greater flexibility with regard to mapping. I can, for example, simply tell my phone to navigate to my wife’s location. (Obviously not a dealbreaker to not have, but convenient!)
It can also be really nice to have a side-by-side view of the media player and the maps.
I dunno, it’s not like I wouldn’t buy a car that doesn’t have CarPlay, but that car would lose some points in my mind. It’s the kind of thing I didn’t think I’d appreciate as much until I had it.
If it's the kind of thing that it's not reasonable to expect that people will stop by the side of the road to do, it should be buttons. The rest can be touch.
So for example setting a destination on your navigation interface is fine to do via touch screen, but starting/stopping swipers or changing audio volume is not.
Very well put.
I'd go as far as mounting a full size qwerty keyboard on the steering wheel. Although we'd somehow have to deal with the shrapnel grenade situation as soon as the airbag hits it.
But if I'm gonna go out, having WASD forever embedded in my forehead is kinda metal.