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Comment by fasteddie31003 | Hacker News Reader

I'll be the contrarian and say I prefer touchscreens. To get some system into a touchscreen you need to digitize the whole system which allows you to control it through automation which creates a more versatile system. The system could be digitized and then have a physical control to change the state, but then it's not necessary at that point.

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I'm pretty pro touchscreen to a point. Any driving critical control should be physical. Lights, turn signals, horn, steering wheel controls, etc. Physical controls with physical feedback. Everything the driver should mess with should be either on the wheel or immediately around it and should be physical.

Other than that, I really don't care. When I'm punching in the address on the navigation system, give me a massive screen. When I'm stopped and trying to look up something in my media collection, give me a massive touchscreen. When I'm trying to quickly glance at the map, make it a giant screen so I can see it all quickly. Or better yet a HUD or have it on the instrument cluster.

"Could" being the keyword here. We're not there yet.

Also the touchscreens break muscle memory habits and don't give any feedback. These things are actually extremely important f.ex. in a car.

Also, when it comes to cars, and probably other devices/vehicles in the future, they are increasingly operating themselves. You can buy FSD for Tesla and drive for hours in mixed highway and city streets without having to intervene. When you do intervene you can take control for 15 seconds and then give back control to the system. At that point, why put in buttons to optimize the experience for human drivers? This is true for other cars as well, but to a lesser extent, but the direction is clear.

> At that point, why put in buttons to optimize the experience for human drivers?

Less optimization results in more accidents, injuries, and deaths.

Not if the car drives itself 99% of the time.

It doesn't though, and it never has, and I'm doubting it ever will. FSD is flawed from the conceptual stage. Roads are complex, constantly changing, and difficult to navigate. Other types of transportation, like rail or air, are trivial to automate in comparison. And then at a hardware level, Tesla also messed up. Pretty much any idiot could've told Tesla that a camera-only system won't work, but here we are.

FSD is a very small step above adaptive cruise control. It's more of a novelty than anything. I certainly wouldn't trust using it, and I don't really care what numbers say either. Tesla doesn't really play fair, being deceptive is a core part of their business. It's no surprise then that FSD auto shuts off right before accidents. We actually have no idea how safe it is, and I'm not going to be listening to what the guy selling them has to say.

Here is FSD navigating Manhattan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD3KSD620qk

"FSD is a very small step above adaptive cruise control"

Yeah right

However much time the person spends driving, less optimization for their driving will result in more negative outcomes.

There's a interesting middle ground, programmable button that is also a rotary button that gives feedback, the KeWheel by KEBA. I'm sure that are similar solutions from other manufacturers.

You probably meant other industry but this is a terrible mindset for cars for example. Touchscreens are so terrible premium manufacturers ignored them for a long time since its obvious downgrade in comfort and safety, yet people kept buying teslas despite this, even bragging how cool some cheap ipad is.

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