this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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Can we please make touchscreens for neccessary functionality illegal, like using phones while driving?
Yeah, buttons can be found without looking.
They also provide tactile feedback allowing you to be sure they have been pressed without even looking.
My parents' Lexus has a button joystick kind of thing with similar resistance tech to the ps5 triggers for the navigation. It's not bad.
The joystick is on the center console, so you can use it without looking.
How do you see what the joystick is pointing at without looking at the screen it’s controlling.
Radio volume, climate controls, and drive/transmission controls are all necessary for safe operation and should be able to be used without taking eyes off the road if needed. There should be federal mandates to keep those controls off of gaze required touch screens. (I’m looking at you VW, of which I own 3 classic examples, but would never consider a current gen one).
I think it's just for changing inputs and radio, not climate, definitely not volume or transmission. You do need to look at the screen though.
THE reason i got a Mazda, after many years of Mercedes and BMW...
I feel like not enough people realize how amazingly simple and tactile the rotating dial is for doing anything in a car. And especially the placement being down by your arm makes it so easy. I can feel where all those buttons are without taking my eyes off the road.
Also make them illegal in aircraft! And spacecraft! Seriously stupid.
I vote for cheap PlayStation controllers.
Weren't they using an Xbox controller for that Titan sub?
It was a Logitech F710.
Should have used a madcatz controller, then they would have had a turbo button.
No it was a PC controller in the form factor of a PlayStation controller
I suppose the advantage on aircraft and spacecraft is that they consolidate functions so you don't have to have 90,000 switches in the cockpit, half of which you won't ever need.
Anything you need to find in an emergency absolutely should be a physical switch but anything else can probably be a UI interface.
But in the car you need to keep your eyes on the road at all times, which isn't so much of a requirement in the air.
If you can consolidate the UI to make it with work with touchscreen, you can make it work with something like Keyboard + trackball mouse and you can get rid of that touchscreen. I know it’s not the same stake situation but have people forgotten how much functionality blackberry had with QWERTY and few more buttons. Shame that the company went out the way it did
I can't think of a switch you won't ever need. I think the "sce to aux" story is a good example of when you need it you need it.
Salty Boeing
So much this, it makes no sense for using a portable phone to be illegal while driving but yet my car stereo can be a full on entertainment system and require me to have zero feedback to change the channel or answer a call.
Or at the very least, do what modern airplane cockpits do and have a trackpad/trackball on the center console.
I'm pretty sure they are for safety critical controls, such as in an aircraft cockpit. In the automotive world, we like to keep it jazzy and smooth, like my romantic life.
They aren't. Light ircraft now use touchscreens that you are supposed to use while bouncing around. They had a knob for a while but then it seemed touchscreens took over. With the knob you still had to look, it at least you didn't have to aim at a bouncing spot on the screen.
Oh wow, you guys get the cool stuff too? That must add some much need spice to the humdrum activity of controlling a potentially lethal machine.