ChrisCraft

I see a distinction between the keyboard to iPhone vs our current state of helpful touch balanced with frequent buttons/dials. I remember working at Apple when the first iPhone came out and at the time and the progression of the phone towards what it is now makes perfect sense since the trade off of tactile buttons and musle memory in favor of the ability to access endless content with software that can and is upgraded constantly on the same hardware is great. The difference is on an iPhone muscle memory and buttons aren't needed as much since you are able to look at your phone in general without concerns for your safetly. Where is in a car anytime you are not looking at the road you are greatly risking your safety. This is why iPhones for instance popup a warning saying you are driving and disable all functionality (though yes you can say your not driving to bypass it or disable it in settings).

If/when cars are totally self driving, then all touch and no buttons would also make a lot of sense, but also for it to make sense car makers need to continue to provide updates, new features and improvements without requiring new hardware all the time. Tesla does this but most all others do not other than minor tweaks.

New cars like BMW and Mercedes all have lots of touch screens that work well to access many features that would otherwise be cumbersome with buttons, but also offer buttons for things that the driver needs access to frequently without looking down. So hoping car companies will provide balance for using screens and touch where appropriate and buttons/dials where appropriate as well. But yes with autonomous driving being the future, all touch everywhere correpondingly is also the future, but the concern is full autonomous everywhere in all cars is a ways off but all touch is coming now in my humble opinion.

BigKutta

This^^

CountLaszlo

Considering how strict EU laws are I’m quite surprised these are qualified.

For me Voice Assist and AI is the answer to all of this.

And although it’s making its way into automobiles today in a few more years it’ll be far more sophisticated and the norm.

ChrisCraft

The problem with voice is two fold. First, assuming it was an ideal world where voice commands worked perfectly 100% of the time and allowed 100% control over all settings, then this would be very helpful but if I’m in car listening to family talk and I want to turn on heated seat, I d rather reach and turn on without thinking or interrupting conversation. Rather than having to say Car turn on drivers heated seat setting 3.

Also that while voice would seem to be much safer since your eyes are on the road most studies show that talking such as on the iPhone causes major distractions, vs once again using muscle memory for common actions.

Now back to reality most all car voice assistants are horrible compared to our phones and very limited and will be a long time until otherwise unless they use third party players like Google. Audi does but only for search for destinations.

Now if you use Android Auto with Google for instance which is the most reliable voice assistant overall you there will still be countless times it will get it incorrect any I like on your phone hard to see what went wrong without looking. And that you are limited to Android Auto or CarPlay and can’t control your car settings with those more reliable systems.

Volvo XC90 2020 will be the first car to run android so will also a tremendous amount of control with the system but still will have the downsides noted and so far no others especially not Audi have suggested they would replace their systems with an Android based systems.

So so in the end having touch screens in cars is very valuable for somethings and having a great voice system is great for other things but somethings are still best suited for buttons/dials so hopefully cars will continue to aim for that balance.

gsobol

Tell it to these people:

ChrisCraft

Exactly. All those people are very lucky they were walking while distracted vs being that distrated while driving since in general rather than an embarrassing fall, would have most likely been a fatality in most cases if on the highway for instance.

gsobol

We are on the same page. Cars should have physical buttons, period. Unfortunately, (and this is where my historical comparison came from) judging by the past, we are destined to loose them in favor of touch screen. Unless of course gesture control will become mainstream, in which case I have one gesture ready to go

CountLaszlo

Mind reading would simply put an end to it.

methodtim

I vastly prefer the current button setup to the Q8/A6/8 touchscreen so opted for 2019 model year on purpose even though I usually wait for mid-cycle refresh before buying. I’m sure I’ll have a pang of buyer’s remorse when the 2020 comes out, just knowing myself, but I know I made the right decision.

I think the biggest benefit of air suspension is the 4-wheel
steering. I can’t really tell if it’s working at high speeds, but at low speeds, it makes the car turn much much tighter and feel and act much smaller than it is. Makes parking so easy. This thing parks as easily as my wife’s Q5. My other vehicle is a Toyota Tacoma and that thing is a beast to park but roughly the same size.

Making the car go up and down for no good reason other than you can is cool too.

jahummel

Yesterday we bought a 2019 Prestige, Navarro Blue, loaded to include design package Murillo brown, black optic, night vision assist. Coming from port so should have it in a couple of weeks. I have never seen the wife so excited about a vehicle. The 4 wheel steering turning radius is simply unreal....tighter than A4 according the the rep who was along on the ride with us. So soon we are an all Audi couple with a son who works for Daimler and drives Mercedes. He actually thought that the Q7 would be better for us, as opposed to the new GLE 450 but said he would deny it at the hearing.