this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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Technology
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Thank fuck. So glad I managed to dodge the cars with all touch screen controls. I got one as a loaner after my Civic was totaled in an accident (Thank u for buying me a new car, uninsured, out-of-state white supremacist with a truck too big for any reasonable use!) and it used the touch screen to control the climate control! I had to look away from the road to change the heating!
Just stupid.
Give me simple buttons and knobs I can feel and fix. Capacitives, touch screens, all that nonsense should stick to phones.
I'm okay with the phone being a touch screen. The rest can go back to normal.
I want buttons on my phone too.
Counter proposal: dynamic tactile buttons.
The tech already existed in 2013, just develop it further.
https://www.robaid.com/gadgets/tactus-technology-haptic-feedback-on-dynamic-user-interface.htm
I am still pissed off about losing Force Touch on the iPhone. Haptic Touch is so much worse and slow. I loved using various pressures with good feedback for things that made sense. It was so much faster and more deliberate than the stupid replacement.
It felt like a great step in this direction, but instead of improving, they just shitcanned it for something much worse.
I want my iPhone button back. It was better. Swiping fucking sucks and it doesn’t work half the time.
I got 3 (Volume rocker and power) and it feels like plenty.
It's been so long since I had more than 3 and I'm curious. I had an iPhone for work, that had a 4th, the home button on the bottom center of the touch screen and I hated that. What do you want from physical buttons on the phone?
I would like dedicated back/home/recent keys, like on early Android phones. The back button also functioned as a "disconnect" button for phone calls, which was nice. I still miss it.
I want the power button on my phone to protrude like an actual button so I can actually press it. The thing's like 4mm wide and I'm supposed to somehow push this thing through the gap in the side of my case with my thumb that's ~~5x~~ ~10x (just checked) the width of the button.
As for other buttons, I wouldn't mind physical buttons for the Android controls at the bottom, but not really a huge deal to me tbh.
Mine has the 2 for volume and 1 for power, as well as a toggle switch to change from silent, vibrate, and sound for the ringer which I quite like.
Feeling nostalgic for the blackberry?
Blackberry insisted on a 3-row thumboard on the face of the device. I want a 5-row slider, like Samsung's Relay.
I'm nostalgic for it, but at the same time, I'd be nostalgic for 3.5 seconds if I used one again. People tend to forget how frustrating those devices could be too. I had several iterations of the blackberry, and everyone of them came with a lot of quirks that modern phones just don't have. Sure, I sort of miss the tactile feel of buttons, but it was also a lot of work punching out long emails on them, and pocket lint did a real number on those things too.
Yeah I don't care for tactile keyboards because swiping is so much faster.
My last phone before my first smart phone was basically a sidekick (it wasn't actually a sidekick, but I don't remember the actual name of it and the sidekick has a similar enough formfactor).
That thing's texting keyboard was fucking rad. I could type so fucking fast on that. I really want a smart phone with that keyboard.
Maybe the answer is the same as the cases for the iPad mini. A little Bluetooth keyboard case that snaps closed over the screen, with capacity to flip the phone unit around, in case to lay screen up on top of it while closed.
In colder parts of the world you actually drive with mittens on. I have no idea how’s that going to work with modern touch screen cars.
Heated steering wheels
Yeah, that would be nice. My previous car had a diesel engine, so you can imagine how much I would have loved to have a heater in there. Also, the windshield was totally old-school too, so no heating there either. Just start the engine, and start scraping. Every. Morning. Well, at least the seats were warm, but literally nothing else was.
I've seen gloves with tips on the fingers for using touch screens!
Yeah I have those gloves too. They’re ok for mildly chill weather like 0 °C, but when the inside of the car goes below -10 °C you really begin to miss proper mittens. When it’s -20 °C, mittens are the only realistic option.
They also just don't work at all when they get wet. This tends to be a problem when your car is covered in snow and ice, of course.
LOL. Several levels deep in first world problems…
I mean, my car is an older Corolla, so almost entirely physical buttons. My phone, however...
I have some. They really suck ass. You can muddle through but it's not really an ideal solution.
You either have to purchase special capacitance-enabled globes (like silver) or else take them off for every button press that you want to make. :-(
I would have brought it right back and asked for a different loaner, since the HVAC is clearly and visibly missing.
@TheAlbatross I hear ya. My Civic was recently totalled, too. My newer 2024 Civic, ironically enough, has psychical buttons for the heater. The touchscreen is used for other stuff.
I got a '21 VW Golf and, similarly, it's physical controls for everything I really want and touch screen for the GPS/media center. I can still change volume and tracks with physical buttons on the steering wheel, so that's all fine.
Kinda miss the Civic. I love the hatchback on the golf and it is a delight to drive, but I think it's like half a ton heavier than the Civic and that's not as nice. Still gets phenomenal milage tho
I'm of the opposite opinion. I'm tired of dashboards just absolutely smothered in Technicoloured buttons. I much prefer the touchscreen where everything is centralized. I find it less distracting, personally.
Cars are a very intimate personal thing though, and I understand others frustrations with it. Guess I'm the outlier.