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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?"
A nice system, definitely. Mind you, I like the one in my Prius: press button on steering wheel. "Say voice command." "Temperature, x degrees" "Temperature set to x degrees.", or "Restaurants" "Showing all restaurants in area.", or "Cruise Control, 60mph." "Cruise control set, 60mph."
I have a Canon Rebel, which is a film SLR, but it has the interface you just described.
My parent's 1970's Canon is soooooooo much easier to use, it has knobs for the settings, it has a field-of-view diagram on the lens (I have to guess with mine), a split for perfecting focus on what you want in focus (I have to trust the autofocus or just eyeball it) and I know it's been dropped onto rocks in a flowing stream at least once and survived (I have not tested that with mine).
My camera's interface is a tiny LCD and microscopic buttons. You can see the settings more clearly when you look through the viewfinder, but then you can't see the tiny buttons you need to press. And the worst part: if stop pressing buttons long enough to arrange your shot (10 or so seconds) the camera times out and deletes all the settings you spent the last 5 minutes perfecting.