They could go one step further and add braille support directly, it’s just nudges. Tactile feeling is the only reason they are back.
Yes, I’m aware there are no blind drivers. The point is not having to look at your controls and doing so with something that already exists.
Braille isn’t very good for quick discernment. It’s much easier to put differently-shaped buttons together or put buttons into different places.
Why not both? And blind people don’t seem to think so. Either way, better than what’s in the picture.
Out of curiosity, have you actually spoken to blind people about how useful they find Braille?
Feeling for a 2cm x 1.5cm button is way different than trying to read braille.
Now try selecting between each of the buttons 2cm x 1.5cm for a particular button without having to feel the rest or having to glance at it.
Literally just bumps that are even easier to make than the text on the buttons because they are just part of the plastic mold instead of additional paint jobs. Some people are just hostile to any basic improvement.
You do realize that human touch can differentiate between .01mm? It’s why braille works so easily.
Imagine trying to both make the argument that braille is too hard to distinguish and that 0.01mm is easy to differentiate in the same thread.
thank fuck
Finally!
Great! Now bring back phones with physical QWERTY keyboards.
Why not just a case with a slide out Bluetooth keyboard in the back?
Pair a full size Bluetooth keyboard to your phone
Now I want to see a full-size keyboard with a special place to mount a phone and a shoulder strap. Maybe some wheels so it could double as a skateboard and you’ll be an 80s/90s image of a hacker.
Hack the planet!
(Except those were roller blades because 90s)
That’d be cool, but compatibility is a huge issue. I’ve looked into buying one, and there’s no model available for my device.
I’m just saying it seems like a more obtainable ask.
I can appreciate that you want them available but I’d love not to be forced to have one. My fingers are too large for those tiny things.
Yeah I’ve gotten pretty good with swipe typing
Especially EV car makers need to take note.
I’m so glad I kept my car and weathered through this shitty phase of car manufacturing.
If only there was hope for weathering through the data collection, subscription-based features and the death of sedans though…
Get any Infiniti with a 3g antenna. The network doesn’t exist anymore so it can’t phone home.
Well, there are some strategies:
- data collection - remove/disable the antenna/broadcasting chip - in some cars it’s as easy as removing a fuse, in others you need to take things apart to remove the TCU or modem
- subscription-based features - don’t buy them and look for hacks to enabled them w/o buying
- death of sedans - buy sedans
Unfortunately, that’s a drop in the bucket since it seems the market in general wants larger cars with more spyware, and aren’t pushing back enough on subscription BS.
I’m actively looking for a car, and unfortunately the process is:
- find models we want to try out
- look up online about how to disable the spyware nonsense
- actually go look at cars
- repeat from 1 as necessary
- play dealership games because the private used market is essentially gone
- actually remove spyware
We’re on step 3, and I’m not looking forward to step 5. I’ve actually never purchased from a dealer before, because I’ve bought everything before now from a private seller. Wish me luck…
Can I suggest auction sites for used cars. Government is always getting rid of old cars.
I’ll have to check those out, I keep forgetting all about them. We don’t urgently need a new car, so that’s probably a good idea.
I asked a dealer for a dumb-car. No fucking auto 911 dialing, bluetooth enabled, GPS service horseshit, just a normal car and he shot me
I think you want a 2007 Toyota Corolla lol
I’ve currently got a 2012 Mazda 3 but swapped the radio for one that supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. No other fancy features.
I hope that Mazda isn’t a diesel one.
We’re looking for a new car, but unfortunately there’s nothing between “sedan” and “minivan” that we want. We have three kids and a minivan, and we hardly use the extra seats or storage. It’s still working fine (it’s a mid-2000s Sienna), but my wife and I hate driving it, it has terrible gas mileage (20-ish MPG), we don’t need the space 99% of the time, and we never need the storage space and people space simultaneously.
What I want is:
- AWD
- >30mpg, ideally 35+
- flip-up third row (will be used like 1-2x/year, if that)
- >30 cubic feet storage w/ third row unused (Prius is super close)
- as small as possible
- if I have to get an SUV, at least 1500lbs towing capacity (prefer >3000lbs)
If they still made them, a station wagon would absolutely fit the bill. But now, I can’t have that, so I’m stuck in SUV-land.
So my plan is to completely abandon the third row and get a compact hybrid SUV. If we buy new, it’ll be a Rav4 hybrid (the CR-V hybrid has a dinky 1000 lbs towing capacity, and if I have to get an SUV, I want the option). If we buy used, it’ll probably be a Ford Escape hybrid, not because it’s good, but because it’s cheap and good enough (Escape and Rav4 can both do 1500lbs towing). I don’t want either, but since there’s pretty much nothing in the sedan w/ storage space market (and I want more than suitcase storage, we camp quite a bit), I’m essentially being forced to get an SUV.
I hate SUVs, but I guess that’s what we’re getting. I’ll probably get an EV for the second car (currently a Prius), if only for the convenience of never having to fill up gas again.
Toyota RAV4 is nice. Especially the hybrid
Edit: never mind you mentioned that
Yup, they’re just a bit hard to get ATM because they’re super popular, so I’m not going to be able to haggle much to get a better deal. Used Rav4s go for the same if not more than new Rav4s.
The Ford Escape, however, is pretty decent and a lot more available than the Rav4, so I can probably get a decent discount. There are several 3-4yo Ford Escapes at $10-15k less than new that look interesting in my area.
That said, neither the Rav4 or the Ford Escape has an option for a third row/jump seats, which sucks.
I really just want a station wagon…
It might be too large for your use case, but have you looked at the Kia EV9? The EV6 might be worth looking at too.
EV won’t work because we do road trips quite a bit, charging infrastructure in the US sucks, and range would suck in the winter. If I’m going to get an EV, I’d need about double that range for a family car since we regularly go about 300-400 miles between charges, and often 800 miles in a day (takes about 13-14 hours driving). An EV would add a day to those trips, as well as require longer stops.
I’m planning on getting an EV for my commuter (only need about 150-200 miles of range), but not for our family car until range improves significantly.
and often 800 miles in a day (takes about 13-14 hours driving)
Oh wow. After my last trip that was supposed to take like 9 hours and ended up more like 12, I decided to never do that to myself ever again. But I guess if you have multiple drivers that can share the burden, such along day on the road is still an option.
Eh, I usually drive the whole way because I often get carsick if someone else drives, though my SO is there if I need a break. I grew up doing that, and started driving most (if not all) of the way as young as 16, so I’m used to it. We’re pretty efficient at it (get gas and go to the bathroom, then get back driving), and my kids basically just read, watch videos, or play video games in the backseat.
It’s a lot cheaper than flying and honestly less stressful than flying (no TSA, listening for boarding call, etc) and we don’t need to rent a car at the destination, though it takes a lot longer.
We’ll also do “shorter” trips at like 200-400 miles (i.e. visit nearby state and national parks), and an EV with 200-300 miles range would make that annoying (we’d have to recharge just before getting there). And the charging infrastructure to those places is spotty at best. An EV would be totally fine for around town driving, but not for road trips, so I either need <200 miles range, or >400.
Makes sense.
My wife and I don’t commute very far so an EV is fine for us even if we can only charge it with 120V initially (until we install a proper charger in our garage). We’ve got a BMW iX on order.
Tesla is opening superchargers to all brands eventually. That’ll help a lot, as will the inevitable changes that’ll happen to gas stations where they replace some pumps with EV chargers.
Range is definitely an issue, but it’s improving over time. 10 years ago, the average EV range was around 100 miles. I know BMW have tested a prototype car with ~600 mile range, and that tech should hopefully come with their Neue Klasse vehicles some time in 2026/2027. The Lucid Air gets around 500 miles range. Our current gas car (2012 Mazda 3) only gets around 360 miles until the gas light comes on, so it’s not actually that different for us.
Yeah, we’re right in that awkward window where EVs are almost good enough to replace the family car, but not quite.
We can usually get 400 miles out of our minivan, and filling up gas only takes a couple minutes. We usually pack lunches and whatnot for these road trips, so there’s really no reason to stop any longer than that. I guess it’s nice to stretch our legs or whatever, but we’d really rather just get to our destination and relax there.
With an EV, we’d probably get about 250 miles range since highway speeds are about 70-80mph in my area (probably a little less since fast charges aren’t everywhere), and then 20-30 min waiting to charge. For a typical 700-800 mile trip, that’s 3-4 stops, so if it’s 30 min each time, it would add 2 hours to the trip.
If we could get 400-500 miles range, we could recharge once, which is totally reasonable. But we’re not there yet, so we’re looking at hybrids for the family car and an EV for around town driving.
But we’ve still got a good 10 years of avoiding used cars. This era is literally landfill.
Never mind that even 3-5 years down the line, some of these systems will fail to connect/ pair with the latest gadget in your pocket.
10 years and counting
There’s so much bullshit in new cars that’s it’s infuriating, especially considering the cars call home with all kinds of privacy violating bullshit.
I prefer the tactile controls over the touchscreen. While you’re at it, bring back manual transmissions too!
except at rivian. they have stated future models will have an all touchscreen dashboard
They can state all they want, if their clients don’t pay for it they’d sell their firstborn son to get the numbers back up
Vote with your wallet.
always have for the most part
Vote with your 6 ton 4000 VDC truck mounted electromagnet
Plotnick, an associate professor of cinema and media studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, is the leading expert on buttons and how people interact with them.
I like that being a leading expert on buttons is a profession that exists in this world. You go Rachel Plotnick.
I’m just shocked that’s a cinema and media studies professor. I’d’ve expected human factors engineering or psychology, especially at such a psych school
Professors don’t always teach in their actual area of expertise. I had a German language professor whose PhD was in Philosophy and activity published in that field, in English, German and French journals. It does seem like an odd combination, but probably not a lot of students signing up for a class in usability of buttons, even from the fields you would expect to study them .
Leading expert on buttons says to use buttons?
Mild shock
Seriously though they are needed for many features especially cars or eyes away
Leading expert on buttons says to use buttons?
It’s exactly what Big Button wants you to think!!! Wake up sheeple!!!1!1!11
THANK JESUS H. VISHNU.
About fucking time.
I just want to say that I think this is the dash from my old car a Toyota Yaris.
I miss you ole’ buddy. I’m sorry you got rear ended and totaled. You were a great car.
I’ll pour one out for the Yaris.
My first car was a 2001 Yaris. Lovely car until the timing chain broke and destroyed all four cylinder heads at once!
Four cylinder heads in a Yaris! That’s a hell of an engine!
It was a 1 litre 4 cylinder V-Tec Toyota engine, I presume it had four cylinder heads but I will admit I’m not 100% sure now… Damn good first car though. Would definitely recommend it
I was just joking. A four cylinder engine has one cylinder head. Also VTEC is Honda. Toyota has their own variable valve timing called VVT-i.
Oh sorry, my current car is a Honda and I misremembered
You know there is still time to snatch up a fantastic Toyota GR Yaris and elevate your life!
I didn’t have a car for a few years and the one I had was 2003 (with a slight stint from a similarly-aged car during a couple-month time I had to drive). I now have a car again and I HATE that my heat/air and such are all flat against the panel (not a touch screen, though). I literally can’t adjust anything without looking in my current car. Thankfully, I avoid driving it whenever possible.
Touch screens are shit tor buttons. They can be hacked. They can be unresponsive.
There’s a load of other reasons, but either or both are enough to realise that a physical button is much safer. Perfect example of safety being lost in technology. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
The worst is all the ones that cheaped out and put a resistive touchscreen. Making it 10 times worse.
And they dont work with gloves when it’s cold.
I just hope they don’t go overboard one way or another. All touchscreen was too much but all buttons would be excessive too
The touch screen should be used for entertainment.
Touch screen should have maintenance/status display and diagnostics and settings for things you’d take care of while the vehicle isn’t moving. Like seat/mirror positioning presets, ride height, towing mode, etc.