Touchscreens Are Out, and Tactile Controls Are Back

Sunshine (she/her)@lemmy.ca to Technology@lemmy.world – 1518 points –
Q&A: Rachel Plotnick On the Return of Tactile Controls
spectrum.ieee.org
349

You are viewing a single comment

I've been around just long enough to suspect that this will be part of a cycle going back and forth between tactile controls and touchscreens.

That is, give it a decade and touchscreens will be the in-thing again. And another decade and someone will have the "fantastic new idea" of bringing tactile controls back.

And there'll be a combo breaker of some sort where a new technology comes along (probably no screens, or controls, only voice control) which a small few will absolutely love - due to sunk cost fallacy mostly - and no-one else will buy (compare: 3D TVs), and the cycle will begin again.

Bonus points for: 1) Manufacturers managing to have cycles out of step with others because the market forces aren't quite enough (people not having the money to buy new cars) to bring them all into line. 2) External factors like, say, the world ending, breaking the cycle.

The new cars have been coming out with voice commands also so you don’t have to look at the screen while driving. They even have a tactile button for it on the wheel.