- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, with most of the ire directed toward in-car infotainment.
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Car manufacturers need to realize that people already have a touchscreen that has a GPS, podcasts, music, and text messaging service in their pockets 24/7. Best option would be to make built in phone holders that are plugged in via USB C and connect to the sound system. Voila.
Stuff like this makes me very glad to own my 2015 Nissan Altima. I get occasionally let down by its somewhat lackluster engine and CVT transmission, but it cuts all the crap with infotainment bloatware in the dashboard and how it works. The only screen in my car is a small black strip that can only display text as most cars used to have. All you do is plug in your phone to the aux cord and use your phone as the touchscreen it was made to be, no need for another one. Physical buttons galore.
Phone holders need to be a thing. Maybe car manufacturers aren’t confident the general sizes of today’s phones won’t last long.
All I want is solid gps and Bluetooth.
I don’t need a fucking dominos app. Or to take my car to the dealer so my AC works again because of a fucking update
Shocking. They’ve been trying to make the car a second living room, and in doing so sacrifice the driving experience by foregoing buttons, levers, and switches for capacitive surfaces and touchscreens.
The turn signal on the Tesla Yoke is shocking to me. It screams of tech boys adding “cool things” before thinking about whether or not it’s useful.
Then there’s all the anti-consumer practises. Buy a car, but don’t own it. Yes we shipped it with heated seats, which you obviously paid for, but to use them you’ll have to pay a monthly fee. And no, you’ll still pay for all the energy used, that’s not on us. But hey we’re actually giving you a better deal on it!
It’s all BS.
My gf’s Subaru makes me literally yell. No touch screen, but my god, all the controls are identical pushbuttons, pale grey symbols or tiny letters on silver. You have to squint at a pale LED readout to figure out what the HVAC is doing. Nothing is intuitive.
Meanwhile, in my 2002 Spyder and 2004 F-150, twist knobs, receive joy.
Then there’s all the anti-consumer practises. Buy a car, but don’t own it. Yes we shipped it with heated seats, which you obviously paid for, but to use them you’ll have to pay a monthly fee.
“Existence as a subscription service” should’ve been nipped in the bud long before automakers worked up the nerve to pull this nonsense but I’m afraid it’s now too late. We’re all just sentient ATMs being bled dry every month by corporations that feel entitled to our money and have no interest in doing anything to actually earn it.
I’m with the people who miss 3.5mm jacks on phones on this one. Until there’s an open, portable standard between iPhone, android, and physical media that I own, I’m not buying ur dumb infotainment system. I’ll go on eBay and buy a physical Garmin GPS before I learn what “google automotive services” is
Touch screens in cars are stupid: you need to take your eyes off the road to use them. Buttons and knobs, once you have learned them, can be operated by touch and maybe a quick flick of your eyes.
Love my Mazda3 for saying “no” to touchscreens. The knob is great!
Mazda has the best system for infotainment systems. I own 2 Mazdas and a Toyota. Every time I get in the Toyota I hate that I have to touch the screen for everything.
Mazdas also focus on providing the best driving experience for the actual driving part. Their infotainment is actually kind of mediocre compared to others, but I don’t care about that because I just need CarPlay and my phone does the rest.
I agree. I only need a screen that is capable of CarPlay and lots of physical buttons, which Mazda has. Then I want the rest of the car to be a blast to drive, which Mazda is known for and definitely delivers on. I’m a Mazda fanboy and will keep buying them unless they decide to move away from the driver experience.
We’re looking for a vehicle and the Mazda design language really hits above the price point. The CX-90 is just beautiful with the fabric layer on the dashboard. Very impressed with it.
My opinion is that touch screens should be for passengers only. Display screens are fine, but if physical buttons are so unacceptable, then we need voice control that actually works.
Also, I’m surprised no one has started a company to retrofit buttons and switches into modern cars. Whatever kind of headache that would be to design and install, I’d like to see it work.
A lot of these cars are starting to get massive touch screens too. I’m looking at buying a Prius and several of the trims have a 12 inch touch screen. Why would I ever need that as a driver? Why would I ever possibly want that? Pedestrian and cyclist deaths keep skyrocketing and we continue to out these massive screens in cars that in many cases can’t be turned off. Lawmakers really need to make auto manufacturers responsible for the part they are playing in enabling distracted driving.
And then they double as GPS, but they’re installed so low that you can’t see the GPS out of the corner of your eye, and therefore need to look away from the road. Great design!
As someone working in the industry I dislike it as well. Many of the features have some really good usecases but the problem is just that they’re enabled/available for every user even if most people only use a small subset of features so the settings/interface gets so cluttered.
In my opinion though, the move away from physical interfaces towards touchscreens is way worse than the clutter.
The car as a device to transport one from A to B has been developed to completion. Any car is capable of fulfilling that task. The next stange of developement is that the comfort features in cars are being replaced with a universal control unit: a touchscreen (-computer).
All physical buttons (air condition, radio, etc.) are being phased out and are accessible over the central touchscreen, hidden in menus. This way it is easier to get customers into subscribed services (e.g. for the ability to lock your car remotely or to use the heated seat feature you have to subsribe to this particular service in order to use it).
Also, when features are controlled over a software interface like those touchscreens instead of physical buttons, it it easier to give access to users - or restrict them from it:
IIRC at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Tesla remotely enabled their cars by allowing free supercharging as a helpful measure to help people to escape from Ukraine. Pretty nice of Tesla, isn’t it? Well yes, in this particular case, but this kind of remote software interference from the manufactor can also work in the other direction. They can easily restrict the functionality of your car. Functions your car still would have if they weren’t controlled remotely.
Cars become a Software-As-A-Service product.
Edit: spelling
This way it is easier to get customers into subscribed services
It’s also just flat out cheaper to remove physical buttons. Remove a handful of buttons and you might save a few dollars per vehicle once you add up the cost of each switch, connector, and associated wiring. That’s huge when you’re producing tens of even hundreds of thousands of vehicles.
They tried getting away with this crap to save a few bucks without passing on the savings but you’re seeing some pushback. VW, for instance, has stated they’ll be migrating some functions back to physical buttons soon.
In addition to my comment I leave this article here:
https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/post/723755486547181568/autoenshittification
This article sums up the ongoing enshittification with cars and other devices, backed up with further sources.
No joke, I walked into vw dealership couple years ago to test drive the ID.3, nearly ready to buy it by end of 2021 (replace my eGolf).
The interior controls and their ergonomics were shockingly bad. Unlit touch strips for volume and temp, touch buttons on steering wheel, mirror adjust switch that freely rotate so you don’t know which mirror is adjusting, only two power window switch to control four windows on driver door, gear shift that’s totally hidden by steering wheel…
Just awful.
Jesus, touch buttons on the steering wheel it’s the most asinine type of control ever, you’ll be activating this by accident all the time.
Maybe if you havea heath condition that makes your hands thrash around uncontrollably, but then you shouldn’t be driving in the first place.
Dude, what’s wrong with you?
