Coming to join the c8 forum

[AT.]

I realise from your posts that you are not a fan of touchscreens in cars, however for now they are becoming the norm.

It's not so easy

I have no problem with a touchscreen in general, if I'm not forced to use it in a car, mostly during driving.

If there could be the MMI buttons in the driver's armrest, and I could do what I want from there, then I don't care if the screens have a touchscreen function. Who likes these will use that option, but who don't likes this "feature" - why to force to use it, like in a Suzuki?

If you see it from my view, the central MMI console was the "very first touchscreen" in the cars, which was introduced in this way in the A6/C6. So, if Audi removes the buttons from the dashboard, but left the MMI console in the armrest- who cares? You almost never pressed that buttons, it's not a big deal to replace these with a touchscreen. It's cheap, it could look like a KIA, there is no problem with it at all. To look for a better car is always a good thing. Or else, what??? No. To looke like a cheaper car, or to look like a competitor is never an advance as it's the death of genuinity.

Upon this, I have no problem to replace the buttons in any other area of the car.

To replace the rear passanger armrest buttons with touchscreens is a good, but a very old idea. To add a touchscreen for the media in the headrest for the rear passangers - well yes, what else? So, as you can see, I'm not against the touchscreens, but I'm against a not safe, not correctly positioned, hardly accessible touchscreen in the C8. I'm agaisnt to remove the very handy, useful, easy to use MMI system - and to replace it with a dangerous one.

Dangerous? Well, yes.

Let's talk about the mobile phones. You can't hold these in your hand during driving, as this is a well known safety risk. And now Audi try to tell me, that the use of another touchscreen is an advantage against to use a button? What?

IMHO, it's not a solution, but it was only a try to let the C8 interior look like more modern then the competitors, but they forgot, that the competitors have the safer solutions for the driver, as they didn't dropped this options, as they looked for the interor with a safety look, and not only in fashion or a financial based aspect.

And now you can see my point:

If an ordinary car maker removes the buttons, and replaces these with touchscreens, than it will not change their interior. However if you do it in a large car, or a luxury car, which had additional features in the armrest, than this solution will be less safer then the former one. If you use a button, then you don't have to look down while you press it, because you can feel it, but you have to look down for a touchscreen, as the haptic response is not a safety thing, but a vogue thing. And exactly that's the reason why the use of the mobile phones is banned. By this, to call it as a feature by Audi, is not an acceptable explanation for me.

And let me say about something else.

The whole touchscreen and buttonless idea came from Tesla, BUT Tesla added the Autopilot feature into their cars.

This means, you can look down to an ergonomically GOOD installed huge display, as the car will do it's job during this period. This can be done in an A8 which HAS this feature. So, in that cars, a solution like that could be good, and if you take a look for an A8's interior, than you will see the far more touchscreen compatible design. Also, there is another fact. If you remember, then even the VIM was disabled in the C7 for safety reasons, while the C7's display was on the top of the dashboard. With that logic, you should for sure disable all the touchscreens during driving.

By this, IMHO, it's not a very easy thing to talk about the advantages of a touschscreen system without talking about the safety factors. If we talk about the C8 against to the competitors, than maybe we can talk about the design, but compared to the C7 I can talk about the less safety first.

So, in short, the question is not about the touchscreens, but for me it's about the complete loss of the central MMI console.

Time will tell if I change my mind.

I wish you my very best, and I hope, you will enjoy every seconds with your car

[potz1024]

I have to agree here, having lived with a touch screen in a car (Volvo XC90) for 2.5 years now, I struggle to see how any manufacturer can see them as a good idea from a safety perspective.

Muscle memory soon learns where a button or knob is, but this cannot be applied to a touch screen. For example, heated seat and steering wheel come on automatically in the XC90 on a cold day like today, which is great, but after a while you either want to turn them down or off. So, you need to hit a 'seat' icon at the bottom of the screen, which then shows two further icons, one for seat heating and one for steering wheel, which you then need to move up slightly to hit, which switches the wheel or seat off, then hit it again to bring it back on at level 3, then again to drop down to level 2 and again if you want to go to level 1, then do the same for the other (wheel or seat). They go completely off after one press, to save you having to cycle through each level before getting to off, but that means to drop seat and wheel down one level involves 6 taps on the screen, in the right place, or 8 taps if you want to go to level one. All the time you are trying to keep one eye on the road, and one eye on the screen to see where you are hitting. Want to make it a little harder, not a problem, just do it on a twisty and lumpy B-road, where you are trying to level your hand before hitting the screen, so as not to activate the wrong thing!!! If it were a button, you soon remember where it is, reach down, rest your finger/hand on the button while you feel if you are on the right one and press, all while keeping both hands on the road.

The mew Audi system is at least an improvement by introducing the click and haptic feedback, at least you can touch the screen and position your finger before pressing, without pressing the wrong thing!

Touchscreens do have their uses, not least for scrolling and zooming a map, which is much easier. And, to be fair, if you put someone in front of a Volvo touchscreen, an Audi MMI and a BMW iDrive, who hadn't previously used any of them, I would bet they would be up and running sooner with the touchscreen, they generally are more intuitive than learning a rotary control driven menu system. IMHO of course.

I think BMW have got it right at present, rotary controller and touchscreen, best of both worlds and I seriously hope they keep it that way.

And for those who believe its all fine, in a few years time cars will do the driving while we look at our touch screens, you clearly don't live in the countryside, where roads are narrow, have no markings, are often single track, require you to get onto the grass verge while a tractor barrels through in the other direction.... Not a chance in cars coping with that, decades and decades away, if it ever happens.

And this is indeed one of the things that is pulling me towards a Q7 at present, while you still can get a rotary MMI controller!

I really like the new A6, and am tempted back to an estate, but I wish they hadn't gone completely touchscreen.

Just my opinion.

:wq