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Posted by teleforce 5/3/2026

Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons(www.drive.com.au)
862 points | 510 commentspage 2
tris_timb 5/3/2026|
I saw the new Ferrari dash and infotainment controls. They struck such a nice mix of digital and analog. Reminded my of the iPhone Dynamic Island and coincidentally designed by Jony Ive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv1btxCjVE

rconti 5/4/2026||
I'm looking at buying a used Porsche Macan. Through 2021 they were absolute button-fests, with a console absolutely littered with physical buttons.

In 2022, they moved to a piano black console with haptic "buttons". It also seems like there are somehow fewer of them; I'm not sure if more functions moved into the touchscreen or what.

Anyway, needless to say, I have no interest in the 2022+ with the haptics.

tim333 5/4/2026|
My 2010 merc is a button fest. About a hundred of the things and no touch screen.
WalterBright 5/3/2026||
Unmentioned is touchscreens frequently don't work. I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers. The same with swipes. Since there is no audible or tactile feedback, this cannot work well while keeping your eyes on the road.
satvikpendem 5/3/2026||
That's pretty weird and indicates your phone or its touchscreen might be defective, you should get it looked at, because other than with old resistive touchscreen phones I've never had capacitive touchscreen phones need multiple presses.
l72 5/3/2026|||
I have Raynaud's which causes loss of circulation in my fingertips even when the weather isn't that cold (so even in a car with the heat on). Then this happens, touch screens do not register correctly, and I end up having to use a knuckle or do what my sister does and use the tip of the nose
Paradigm2020 5/3/2026||
While still available I'd recommend getting a galaxy s / note from lateryear with the stylus.

Response time, accuracy etc near perfect.

Hope it helps

SauntSolaire 5/3/2026||||
I assume you're young? Finger capacitance can reduce quite significantly with age.
AnimalMuppet 5/3/2026|||
I worked on a (desktop) telephone for the hard of hearing. It had a touch screen. Our customer base tended toward older people. We had problems with them being able to register a touch on the screen. We called it "cadaver fingers" (not in front of the customer). Yeah, it's a real problem.
WalterBright 5/3/2026|||
You can tell that most touchscreen interfaces are designed by young people.
bigstrat2003 5/3/2026||
Not just young people; young people who have lived in a high tech bubble their entire lives. Most designers are completely out of touch with their users these days.
a96 5/4/2026||
The users that are young people who have lived in a high tech bubble their entire lives?
WalterBright 5/3/2026||||
I've had multiple Apple touchscreen products. The same on all of them. Sometimes I have to lick my fingertip to get it to register.
eep_social 5/3/2026|||
My understanding is that as people age their skin stays drier and causes this issue.

The parent post is a chef’s-kiss-perfect illustration of the problem with modern tech.

2143 5/3/2026|||
We’re going off track, but I’m curious as to whether you experience this problem only on Apple devices, and not – for example – Android devices?

(btw, it’s an honor to be able to reply to you; hope you’re doing well :) )

WalterBright 5/3/2026|||
I have a cold, but all in all I'm doing very well. Thanks for asking!

My portable electronics devices are Apple. But there are other touchscreen products I have, like the thermostat and the one in the car. Sometimes they work, sometimes not.

Of course, buttons wear out. The membrane cracks or the conductive material rubs off. It happens with my computer keyboard. Fortunately, the keyboards are cheap and I replace them regularly. For my car with the touch screen, the service manager at the dealership told me that if the touch screen went out, the car would be totaled (!).

2143 5/3/2026||
Wow.

> I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers.

This makes me really curious.

And you seem to have a problem with all your Apple devices. That’s why I wondered whether you’re experiencing that only with Apple or whether it happens with Android devices as well. Perhaps you could borrow a friend’s, or try using a demo phone at a store etc.

Also have other people use your problematic devices and see if they experience a problem.

I’d love to dig into this further with you (because, curiosity), but alas we live in different universes.

Wishing you a speedy recovery from your cold.

WalterBright 5/3/2026||
Thank you for the kind words. I haven't had a cold in several years, and this one seems to be a bit persistent. It's annoying, but not a particular problem.

I do have a samsung tablet, and have not had issues with the touch screen.

The swipe up thing on my iphone is particularly irritating in its unreliability.

a96 5/4/2026|||
IME, Apple is (as usual) the worst. A Samsung I could even use with work gloves on. A Pixel not quite as well, but it still works great with gloves off as did LG and Sony and whatever else I've used over the years.
tokai 5/3/2026||||
Try working with you hands for a living. Not all of us has warm, pliable, moist hands constantly.
not_your_vase 5/3/2026|||
Touchscreens need to be used in a specific way. Most people does it already instinctively, but it is very easy to do it wrong. E.g. if you try tap on a button, but you move your finger 2mm on the screen, that tap becomes a swipe, and nothing happens.
sethammons 5/3/2026|||
The older you get, the dryer the skin, and the less capacitive contact available.
ryandrake 5/3/2026|||
Or if, heaven forbid, it's cold where you live and you need to wear gloves.
NetMageSCW 5/3/2026||
Most new gloves include touch screen support today.
wat10000 5/3/2026||
I think something might be wrong with your phone. Or your finger.
pixl97 5/3/2026||
Ah yes Jobs, just hold the phone right.
jmyeet 5/3/2026||
Whenever you add a touchscreen to something it makes the UI/UX a software issue instead of a hardware issue. You can ship updates. You can cheap out on UI/UX designing because you can ship it later. So you find commonly used features buried 4 menus deep. You also find that the positions of things in menus will randomly change by OTA updates.

Touch screens are (IMHO) terrible for cars because there's no tactile feedback that allows you to use them without looking at the screen. Dials, buttons and switches can be felt and used. It goes beyond being lazy. It's unsafe.

The only reason we got trouch screens in cars at all is cost-cutting.

Scene_Cast2 5/3/2026||
What I'm surprised by is that cars are chock-full of ornate, unique parts (cupholders are a good example).

I would have imagined that car infotainment controls would be a small fraction of the BOM, so I've been wondering if it's not really a cost thing. Sort of like small phones or 3D TVs from the early 2000's.

garyfirestorm 5/3/2026||
If you can save a dollar on a part, and that part goes into millions of cars per year… then it will be on the chopping block. That cost and weight savings are then passed onto other things, better rear camera? More electrical current to charge your phone faster. Quicker HVAC operation? Everything is a compromise and tradeoff.

Source - I work in an OEM.

joe_mamba 5/3/2026|||
>If you can save a dollar on a part, and that part goes into millions of cars per year… then it will be on the chopping block.

Mate, they're saving fractions of a cent on a part, let alone a dollar. You're probably getting promoted to CEO if you manage to save a dollar on a part. I've seen them cut 2mm of copper wiring in the ECU for the cost savings. 2mm!

Also worked for an OEM.

everdrive 5/3/2026|||
>better rear camera? More electrical current to charge your phone faster. Quicker HVAC operation?

Modern vehicle luxury is disgusting and decadent.

SpicyLemonZest 5/3/2026|||
Yeah, I have to agree. People always talk about it that way, but to me it seems clear that removing buttons is just people trying to chase Tesla’s ball. There’s genuine consumer demand for buttons to go away in phones, kitchen appliances, etc., I’m not sure how obvious it was without hindsight that cars wouldn’t go the same way.
HPsquared 5/3/2026||
Also it's the basic user interface of the car, it must figure highly in purchase decisions.
DeathArrow 5/3/2026||
Please bring back physical gauges, too. I don't want to stare at a lcd while I'm driving.
trinix912 5/3/2026||
This! The LCDs are a big eyestrain for me driving at night. I've dialed down the brightness but it's still nowhere near as pleasant as the old red-illuminated physical gauges.
wincy 5/3/2026|||
My 2024 Sequoia has the heads up display and I really like it. Shows the mph, integrated turn directions with Apple CarPlay, and shows what song is playing without me having to take my eyes off the road. The only problem is since it’s a projector my wife and I have to use vastly different settings in order to see the HUD while driving. She didn’t realize it existed for nearly a year since we’re about a foot height difference and I’d set it up when we got the car.
cf100clunk 5/3/2026|||
For 4x4 pickup trucks, bring back physical transfer case shifters and get rid of the idiotic menus for that. Also bring back transfer case Neutral mode so that flat towing again becomes commonplace. A Jeep Gladiator pickup is a great vehicle but doesn't replace larger pickup trucks that have lost those great transfer case features.
macintux 5/3/2026||
Or automatic transmission shifters that behave differently than every previous car you’ve driven. RIP Anton Yelchin.
AnimalMuppet 5/3/2026||
Argh. I just rented a car on a trip. It had a big central dial on the dash, which was not the speedometer. It was the fuel economy gauge. The speedometer was a digital readout in the center of that.

Given the history of car user interfaces and what they have taught users to expect, it was a terrible design.

SilverElfin 5/3/2026||
I’m seeing some brands say they have physical buttons but they aren’t the same. They’re more like touch based buttons that are not in a screen. And I feel they’re just as bad. I want to be able to use the button without looking. Like one car had a touch based slider for operating the air vents. Ridiculous
speedgoose 5/3/2026||
Previous legacy car manufacturer to say so, that I remember, was Mazda in 2019.

They now resell a Chinese EV with a very Tesla model 3 inspired interior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_6e#/media/File%3AMazda6e...

I didn’t find the original press release but you can find a lot of copies like the following article.

https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-rid-...

01jonny01 5/3/2026||
This is sensible. My Mercedes has 3 different methods of using the touch screen, each one is fiddly. It's like the juice isn't worth the squeeze, just give me a nice tactile button like the good old days.
BrenBarn 5/4/2026|
This is sort of like Microsoft saying they're making Windows better. It's just undoing a change that should never have been made in the first place, because it made things worse.
a96 5/4/2026|
Along with adding some even worse changes.
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