A button! A button! My kingdom for a button!

Good Touch, Bad Touch: The iconic iPhone interface tarnishes the legacy of Steve Jobs

I'd say overall it's a good article, and touch does need to be implemented carefully just like any other interface.

Two points I can make after reading it:

1. With the Nano, I agree that it's annoying that the basic play/pause turned into a touch action. I think it's a bit of a mistake similar to the buttonless Shuffle they backed away from. One potential fix without changing the device would be to bundle the iPhone earbuds with the control buttons with the Nano, instead of the iPod earbuds. They control volume, play, pause, and can also skip tracks without interacting with the Nano touch screen.

2. Car touch screens. I also agree that touch interfaces here can be really bad for the environment they are used in. When I had my CarPC, I was glad volume control was handled by dedicated buttons I could feel on the unit. Most cars seem to have volume as a button on the steering wheel along with a few other controls, and I hope those stay if a touchscreen is in the dash. One useful way to handle other functions with Streetdeck was via touch gestures. I could slide my finger anywhere on the screen left to right to skip to the next track. Top to bottom was play/pause. And a few graffiti like gestures let me go into different sections like music, radio, etc. These were all workable without having my eye on the screen.

On car touch screens, I'm really concerned for Tesla on this. They do damn near everything on that giant touch screen. There are secondary hard buttons on the steering wheel, but a whole lot of Tesla drivers are going to spend non-trivial time staring at the damn screen. That will cause accidents.

A while ago we were working with touchscreens in a helicopter. In that environment (violent maneuvers, vibrations, etc) it was easier to keep using the thumb controller. The touchscreen made it a lot easier to select the wrong 'thing' on the screen in that environment.

My problem with the article is that it complains you can't pause the music easily on a touch screen, ignoring the fact that they've built that functionality into a physical button on the headphone cord these days.

Sure, if you happen to be listening on the right set of headphones with the button. I often use my phone to listen to music without headphones at all.

Anyway, I don't think the presence of a play/pause button on headphones really undermines the point of the article, which is that touch screens have their use, but we've gone way too far in making everything a software button.

And the right set of headphones (however crappy they may be) is included with the product. And I've seen plenty of aftermarket headphones with the buttons built-in, too.



And in those cases, it's in a situation where the touch screen is out in the open and more usable. The article's complaint was the specific situation of having to fumble the iPod out of your pocket to pause the song when you are listening on headphones.

I'm just saying that, while I agree with the article's main thrust of "touch screens are overused", Apple's not a good example to give because they still provide their users with a physical button.

Actually, they aren't, Apple sells them as a separate accessory. Only the iPhones, and the buttonless Shuffle have come standard with earbuds with the remote buttons and mic. Hence my quick fix comment earlier being to include the ones with the remote buttons.

Wait, you're saying the iPod Touch and iPod Nano don't come with a button on the earbuds? If that's the case, then you're right, that's pretty bad.

He right, iPod touches arrive with std earbuds.

With those, I've found simply pulling the plug from the pod stops the playback.

Hi,

On the positive side, the Tesla cars have an awesome amount of torque.

I asked a guy I know to take my son for a short ride in one for a birthday surprise. He loved it, a little tight inside, by it really moves. He has a Mercedes S55 AMG and he said the Tesla had much higher torque than the S55.

Ross