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which_chickMy 2006 Ford Ranger (daily driver for work) and my 2007 Honda Fit (personal car) and my 2002 F-250 diesel (tows the horse trailer) are obviously not modern-ish cars. I do not generally drive modern-ish cars. But, the Ranger is in the shop so I'm currently driving my dad's 2019 Subaru Outback. It is one of the newest vehicles I have ever driven.
While at first I thought the touchscreen thing might be nice, I no longer think this.
1. It has absolutely no haptic feedback. (Haptic feedback: uses physical stimuli, such as vibrations, motions, or forces, to create a sense of touch for a user.) It's a fucking flat screen and you have to LOOK AT IT to find the options. Like, you have to STARE AT IT WHILE PUSHING YOUR FINGER AT A BUTTON DRAWN ON A COMPLETELY FLAT SURFACE because you have absolutely no other way to tell if your finger is going to the right place. If a set of car controls has knobs or buttons or something, after a while of driving you know what they all are and where they are located and how much turning is needed to get the desired effect because most of the car knobs I have experience with have like a click or something to let you know that they have rotated a notch, they do not turn super smoothly. A touch screen gives you fuck-all except a beep.
2. It's broken AF. There are numerous known problems with the Subaru Starlink blah blah and when you drive it (a) the touch screen doesn't fucking work most of the time and (b) it randomly switches between assorted menu options going beep beep beep and fucking with the screen all the time. (He's had it back to the dealer more than once about this and they can apparently do nothing about it.) It acts like some ghost is in the car trying to push options on the touch screen.
3. It's bloody distracting. While I can now tune it out, there was a chunk of time where I kept looking at the fucking thing every time the screen changed and (since it is broken) the screen changes quite frequently for no reason.
4. It should not take me like forty five minutes to get the fucking FM radio to work and another ten to tune it (without any indication of what station I am on) to a station I can tolerate.
This touchscreen bullshit is completely useless and, since it doesn't fucking work, it doesn't fucking work for... driver presets, radio, other entertainment media, any other control stuff that is available, maps, etc. All the stuff that is run exclusively through the touchscreen DOES NOT FUCKING WORK. I mean, I guess it could work if the touchscreen worked but since the touchscreen doesn't work, there is absolutely no way to control these adjustable things.
Grade for touchscreen interface on a vehicle: F.
I do not know what mouthbreathing yahoo came up with this shit, but in a vehicle you are supposed to be looking at the road, not at the screen on your dash. This is very bad design for a car.
While at first I thought the touchscreen thing might be nice, I no longer think this.
1. It has absolutely no haptic feedback. (Haptic feedback: uses physical stimuli, such as vibrations, motions, or forces, to create a sense of touch for a user.) It's a fucking flat screen and you have to LOOK AT IT to find the options. Like, you have to STARE AT IT WHILE PUSHING YOUR FINGER AT A BUTTON DRAWN ON A COMPLETELY FLAT SURFACE because you have absolutely no other way to tell if your finger is going to the right place. If a set of car controls has knobs or buttons or something, after a while of driving you know what they all are and where they are located and how much turning is needed to get the desired effect because most of the car knobs I have experience with have like a click or something to let you know that they have rotated a notch, they do not turn super smoothly. A touch screen gives you fuck-all except a beep.
2. It's broken AF. There are numerous known problems with the Subaru Starlink blah blah and when you drive it (a) the touch screen doesn't fucking work most of the time and (b) it randomly switches between assorted menu options going beep beep beep and fucking with the screen all the time. (He's had it back to the dealer more than once about this and they can apparently do nothing about it.) It acts like some ghost is in the car trying to push options on the touch screen.
3. It's bloody distracting. While I can now tune it out, there was a chunk of time where I kept looking at the fucking thing every time the screen changed and (since it is broken) the screen changes quite frequently for no reason.
4. It should not take me like forty five minutes to get the fucking FM radio to work and another ten to tune it (without any indication of what station I am on) to a station I can tolerate.
This touchscreen bullshit is completely useless and, since it doesn't fucking work, it doesn't fucking work for... driver presets, radio, other entertainment media, any other control stuff that is available, maps, etc. All the stuff that is run exclusively through the touchscreen DOES NOT FUCKING WORK. I mean, I guess it could work if the touchscreen worked but since the touchscreen doesn't work, there is absolutely no way to control these adjustable things.
Grade for touchscreen interface on a vehicle: F.
I do not know what mouthbreathing yahoo came up with this shit, but in a vehicle you are supposed to be looking at the road, not at the screen on your dash. This is very bad design for a car.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-14 03:10 pm (UTC)This is hilarious to me, but I'm not trying to drive this monstrosity!
Your point about haptic feedback is excellent, and explains exactly the thing I've noticed missing on the screens in my Prii. Even the touchscreens on the old dumb PLATO terminals in the 1980s had haptic feedback.