> I know most people resist change especially when it impacts their muscle memory. But I think that change is good for the brain.

In a car you want muscle memory, not "good for the brain"

Agreed, but heck any appliance. Email client moving sruff around? It should be for a reason, I don't want my daily tasks opting me into their idea of neuroplasticity training.

I would also be irate if my coffee maker or microwave rearranged it's buttons. Any argument that it's "good for you" is inherently hostile.

Update for your blender 3.5: swapped the location of the blade and the button to start it

Think of all of the real good devs could be doing instead of rearranging UI components and especially the wasted time of making vehicle interfaces require more screen interaction for prior one tap actions.

What a waste of brainpower and education.

Thats why touch screen controls are bad for a car. At least for the main controls. A gps pannel is different but auxiliary to the main controls.

The fact that they've proliferated so quickly without any regulatory intervention is insanity. I'm sure the Musk-loving techbros will disagree, since they only ever have to drive from gentrified bar in SF to gentrified dispensary in SJ, but for anyone who has worked a trade, had dirty hands at the end of the day, or lived in a less than ideal climate, the notion of all-touch controls for climate and other critical vehicle functions is irredeemable.

Change is good for the brain? That's your entire argument for arbitrary interface updates?

Good news: due to constant UX stimulation won't get Alzheimers.

Bad news: worst-case scenario with bad car UX also prevents Alzheimers.

But +1 in part for suggesting an interesting-sounding book.

> Bad news: worst-case scenario with bad car UX also prevents Alzheimers.

To make it clear: with bad car UX you may not live enough to get Alzheimers.

Gotta keep the users on their toes. Helps with the engagement metrics.

Also UX designers employed!

I see no proof that apple is any better at this. I run into all kinds of issues on my apple products including downgrades in features and bad UX.

I agree. I'm really struggling how the latest Podcast app is an improvement over the last one. Last few 'upgrades' to their Podcast have been horrible.

Apple gets a lot of pass on a lot of stuff, but their UI is pretty terrible.

What they're really good at is overall device integration.

What did you think about the book?

It's a quick read and an interesting peek behind the curtain at Apple during the development of the iPhone, with a focus on designing elements like the keyboard and predictive text.

What I took away from it is that the design decisions at Apple are in the hands of a few. The chain of command is small, it takes countless iterations until it "feels" right and you obviously can't consult with too many people when it's a secret project. A/B testing is out of the question.

And if they had tested the keyboards with any multilingual users they'd have found the new ones are broken. They overloaded the Fn key as the "switch language input" key so trying to do any Fn features like Fn+Right for End or Fn+Down for PgDn now has a 50% chance of changing languages.

(Straying a little off topic to provide the following hint:)

There's a setting for this in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard. My recollection is that this was previously a checkbox that toggled the "double-Fn to invoke Siri" function on and off, but as of Big Sur (at least) this is now a popup menu control, where the choices are "Change Input Source", "Show Emoji & Symbols", "Start Dictation (Press Fn Twice)", and "Do Nothing".

My test M1 machine was set up from scratch last year (i.e. no account migration) and has "Do Nothing" selected here, so I can't confirm that "Change Input Source" is the default for new users, but its position as the first item on the menu is suggestive.

i use the caps lock key to swap keyboard languages. it’s a default option in the keys’ advanced settings, and it works wonderfully well (you can still invoke caps lock by long-pressing the key, too).