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Comment by fridek | Hacker News Reader

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fridek

FWIW this is what Audi's MMI does. (Or used to do? My car is old.)

The control panel has:

* 6-8 buttons for switching between different MMI modes, labeled

* 4 universal buttons, function contextual to the current screen

* 1 return button

* Turn/press controller

I can navigate 90% of the menus blindfolded. Despite my older MMI not being a marvel of UX, I can access functions 5 actions deep, while driving, from pure muscle memory.

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Audi's phased out the entirely physical-button driven interface in favor of touchscreen and trackpad-based inputs. There was a generation in between that also had an odd and extremely large implementation of the legacy combination dial/joystick/button thing.

That sucks. Touchscreens have become so cheap (because economies of scale), Audi is probably saving manufacturing cost by not having physical buttons, simply because of the custom design cost of integrating buttons into a PCB and then programming it[1]. Touchscreens might even be cheaper than non-touch screens. They often have higher resolution. Audi is probably transitioning to using software stacks designed to build touch-screen apps instead of buttons and don't want their software devs to even think in that outdated mode of "buttons". It's completely self-serving and chasing the design trends, tripping after Tesla tech woo, not consumer demand.

[1] Which is totally ridiculous IMHO, because even with my completely amateur skills, wiring up a few buttons to an embedded chip is NBD.

I doubt design cost is relevant, and software stacks also don't really care. Support for hardware buttons is a very thin layer, and widespread.

I only drove an Audi once, and loved that little joystick thing. It was perfect.

I f'in hate this thing. I've used it on my partner's car, and it doesn't compare to a few real purpose driven buttons. Try adjusting which vents are blowing, or something like that. Total PITA!

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