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Death of the Button? Analog vs. Digital
mattnyc99 writes "Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds is sick of navigating menus to turn up the heat—while he's trying to drive. His take in the article (as well as a a no-holds-barred podcast) is that modern tech product designers should get back to analog controls before iPhone users get sick of looking down at their touchscreen everytime they dial without a dial. It may be up to you: Whither dangerous auto technology, or long live the touchscreen?"
from the long-live-the-knob dept.
Well, there's a sentiment we don't see every day.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Car, open the door!
I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do it.
I can speak to this somewhat, because I am a moon man from the future and have been dialing my phone via touchscreen for a couple years now.
My futuristic moon man technology is called a "Treo 650". You guys arent advanced enough to pronounce that correctly, but trust me, it's a complete rip off of the iPhone in every way. In my time only the richest kings of the undersea realm of europe can afford a true iPhone.
This device I speak of, has a touch screen, and dialing with it requires you to look directly at it.
However, it is fortunate I am so poor and underprivileged, as this device also has an analog keypad, with numbers affixed to some of the keys. The central of these numbers is marked with a little nib, enabling my advanced moon man fingers to dial by my tactile sense alone.
I wish you great success with your iPhone, this is a new technological age for humanity. You are about to behold the awesome power of "a phone that can play mp3s and also has a camera in it".
I pray you use this technology wisely.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
But what happens when you tell the car to "double killer delete select all"?
I tried "Arm photon torpedoes." on our Prius, but all I got was, "This command is only available on the map screen." I should bring up the tactical display first I guess.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Main Menu:
a: Accelerator (30%)
b: Breaks (0%)
c: Steering (+23 degrees)
d: Extra menu
Please select a control: [abcd]
I tried the same thing on my Prius, but it replied "Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?"
... and then they built the supercollider.
Well, that's better than "I'm sorry, El Torico, I'm afraid I can't do that." or the more curt, "Access Denied!" or the classic "Does not compute!"
Voice control is great as long as it doesn't get the Temperature and Cruise Control commands confused.
"Honest officer, I couldn't have been doing 75 in a 35 zone, I set the cruise control. You say there's frost on the outside of my windows?!"
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
My Hummer yelled "Yeeee-Haawww" and the car in front of me blew up.
We are all just people.