Mazda already wised up and removed the touchscreen in their newer models, everything in the infotainment is operated by a little rotary/dpad-thing located near the gearshift. I think it's quite nice, input wise.

Software wise it's a complete mess. The software itself is actually pretty OK, the navigation is just very verbose and it's strange that I can't just update it myself. The startup is also quite annoying. It's an embedded computer in a car, it should be instant.

Android auto support is a trashfire. It occasionally (when i drive for more than an hour) crashes the entire infotainment system, forcing it to reboot (a 1 minute process). Thankfully it resumes from where it left off after the reboot.

> Android auto support is a trashfire

Well that's disappointing. As I pointed out in another comment, as of March 2020, Android Auto became wildly unstable in my 2015 Mazda. However, I put the blame on it having a version of Mazda AIO Tweaks from 2018, and possible version incompatibilities with the Android Auto on my phone. But... perhaps there are software issues at a deeper level here, if even the newer ones which officially support Android Auto are so unstable!

For me, Android Auto will crash frequently if using maps or Pandora, and will almost always crash instantly if I try to use both. It wasn't nearly as unstable before March 2020, though.

I had this issue, too. It helped to replace the AA headunit module in AIO with a binary having this fix https://github.com/gartnera/headunit/pull/174. Since then, AA works great for me

They've had those dials since their first touch screens. It's the biggest reason for my brand loyalty for mazda. Touch screens allow you to make really complicated interfaces, but if your screen can only be navigated by a dial, they can't. Which is way better than everyone else.

It is a touch screen, but the "touch" part generally only operates while stopped and in navigation. I think they might also allow touch for android auto/apple car play, but I'm not sure.

>android auto

No, they don't allow any touchscreen input on AA even when parked.

The touchscreen is still there on my 2020 model. but I always use the roulette to navigate. It's a bit akward at times but it's much better than taking my eyes off the road to try and line up my finger on the touchpad. It's disabled in Android Auto mode, and probably in CarPlay but I never used it.

I too had problems with Android Auto when using my old phone, it constantly crashed. When I switched to a Pixel 4a in 2020 I no longer had any issues. It works like a charm.

So I suspect it could be your phone, or something related (the cable, the type of USB plug, etc.).

For me, I tried a Pixel 3 and a Oneplus 7 Pro, with two different cables, and the instability issues were the same. So it's not clear to me that the issue is outside of the head unit.

For the first 2 months of me owning my car (it's a 2021 mx5), I had to force close spotify immediately before plugging the phone into the car (It was like a 30 second window) or the car would refuse to output any audio. Without any change to the cable or the car, and with the same handset, the problem suddenly disappeared. The only thing I think of that could have fixed it is an over the air update for my phone.

Either way, it's branded "Android Auto". I'm going to blame Google for anything that doesn't work optimally. If they cared, they could certify their product.

Yup - the common element between my phones is the underlying Android software / Android Auto software.

I misread your previous comment has the problem originating _inside_ the headunit. Just wanted to clear that up since my response probably seemed pretty superfluous.

No, you read it right. I mean - clearly I don't know the origin. My Mazda OEM head unit was slow and unstable out of the box, and continued to be so when I installed Mazda AIO Tweaks (with Android Auto.)

Specifically running Android Auto became more unstable in March 2020, without being the head unit updated. In other words, probably the phone (Android Auto) was updated. Possibly in a way that was backwards compatible with OEM Android Auto, but not the AIO Tweaks version.

That's a long of saying, there's probably multiple potential sources of problems and failure; not clearly the hardware/software of the head unit, and not clearly the Android Auto software. But a bad combination of the two.

But it's all guesswork on my end! When I see others having the same issues with OEM Android Auto, it does make it seem more of a clear Android Auto software issue. (And we haven't really ruled out idiosyncrasies of the handsets and USB cables.)

really! This definitely makes me note to be sure to strongly consider mazda next time i'm in the market. I don't want any of that stuff.

All US cars now come with a screen, because backup cameras are now legally required. So I guess most of them say if there has to be a screen anyway, of course it should be a touch screen with controls, or it's just sitting there useless when you're not using the backup camera.

I don't want a backup camera or a screen at all, but if I have to have one, at least don't make it a touch screen, please.

It's a real shame that "computerizing everything" meant taking all the shit we hate from computers, like long bootups, complex failure conditions, constant restarting, and complicated inferfaces and putting that into everything while making nothing better.

I'd recommend giving Mazda's infotainment a chance. It's not pretty, but it gets out of your way enough that you get to enjoy the car. That was kinda the point of getting a miata in the first place.

I once had a GMC (that was in most other ways terrible), that embedded the backup camera screen behind the rear view mirror glass. There was a direct connection between it and the backup camera. The backup camera was triggered by the backup lights, so no head console integration was required.

That was nice. Hopefully, some manufacturer will cater to the touchscreen backlash crowd,and it'll become popular.

like it replaced the rear view mirror, you didn't have a windshield-mounted mirror anymore when backup camera was engaged?

I guess that makes sense -- I'm kind of surprised it's legal!

although I guess the windshield-mount rearview mirror isn't actually legally required anyway, for instance in trucks/vans/other situations with obstructed sightlines to back of car.

Anyway, what you describe sounds really cool and subtle in a good way, like the kind of thing we imagined we'd get in the future, when we imagined the future would be designed well, instead of the hacky poorly designed terrible UX future we've got.

I had a rental three row SUV (was supposed to be a compact, but when the first two assigned cars weren't in their spots, they gave me something that was there) with a video augmented windshield mounted mirror. It would run during forward operation too, and it was kind of nice --- couldn't see much with that long of a vehicle and tinted rear window, but it was hard to use, because going from long focus looking forward to short focus looking at a screen a foot away, and going back to long focus forward was weird. Also, it was distracting because you could kind of see the actual mirror image if you looked at the mirror while your eyes were long focused.

> because going from long focus looking forward to short focus looking at a screen a foot away, and going back to long focus forward was weird

You don't normally find this a problem with windshield-mounted mirrors? I wonder what the difference is, and if you'd get used to it if driving regularly.

Could likely get used to it, but not in a few days. Once I turned it off, I felt a lot better.

I don't notice a focus change going from looking out the windshield to looking through the mirror. There almost certainly is one, but it's not as drastic, because you don't focus on the surface of the mirror... and, as you note, it's what I'm used to.

It makes sense. I wonder if a higher-res screen would also not have you focusing on the surface; shouldn't a high enough res screen be to your eyes just like a mirror? I'm just curious now why it's different!

I think you'd need a lens arrangement to make the image appear inside the mirror. It's not just related to binocular vision either, if you have focus a camera on an object appearing in a (flat) mirror, the focal distance is going to be pretty close to the distance from the camera to the mirror + the distance from the mirror to the object.

Now, I don't think you need to get this exactly right, but if you could make the video image appear at a focal depth close to to the length from the mirror to the back window, it would be a lot easier on the eyes than the image appearing at a focal depth of about a foot. I'm not good with optics though, so don't ask me how to do that! :D

I had a rental with a video rear view mirror (you could turn it off it and became a regular rear view mirror) and I actually liked it - the car had a small rear window so you got a wider field of view from the video, and it was clearer at night with less glare.

my similar system in a Toyota only replaces the left-most ~1/4 of the rear-view mirror, so it's still pretty usable as a rear-view mirror when it's active.

The rotary dpad thing is worse than a touchscreen IMO. instead of just touching the thing you care about, now you have to scroll around to find it, which is very dangerous when driving

> At some point a manufacturer will get wise and start selling manual controls as an upgrade.

Will they really?

Most consumers invest very little effort in researching most of their purchases, and are remarkably tolerant to specific kinds of annoyances. I wish that they invested more effort, but based on my observations of my friends and family (who will spend e.g. about 20 minutes researching their $600 phone purchase), they won't, with a few outliers.

An imperfect comparison might be the amount of effort that the average techie spends on purchasing a MicroSD card or USB drive (usually on Amazon). How many people, even programmers, will spend time looking for durability or third-party performance benchmarking numbers? How many will look for child/slave labor in the manufacturing of the device, or rare earth materials sourced from areas in conflict?

I, personally, know that I should do the above, but I don't - partially because Google is so incredibly bad at finding the information, but also because I know that because most other people don't care, a lot of the above information might not exist at all.

I think most people look at it in a cost/benefit way. If it takes them three hours to research, they've spent 3x $hourly_rate + $item_cost—which in many instances may be more expensive than just selling off an item they can't stand and getting a different one. (To the extent that people do this even when it would pay for itself, I think it's mostly the result of just being in the habit.)

I try to view it instead as being paid (albeit at a lower rate) for my off time. (And if you do this for everything, you'll tend to spend less, have more in the bank, and the amount you get 'paid' will increase over time.)

I think a car is definitely one product that the typical consumer does at least some research on, given that it's such a large purchase. Consumer Reports certainly grades infotainment systems and maybe that's having some impact in manufacturers choosing better options. Although maybe that's less impactful from the sales boost that comes from dealers showing off "neat" features of the touchscreen.

The change would more likely be driven by regulation than market action as the dynamic is not one which is readily assessed by individual buyers.

That said, it's regulation which has driven the present problem....

That's the same reason I bought the base model of my last car. Besides the steering wheel, you end up interacting with the center console the most. It really should be one of the top considerations in buying a car vs fancy wheels, a cool spoiler or a turbocharger, etc. After all, a lot of body components & engine modifications can be added after market. You're going to have a much harder time "fixing" that center console...

It’s too bad the manufacturers don’t just make APIs with swappable standard sized hardware instead of integrated systems.

An average car lasts 12 years. How many 12 year old tablets do people want to use?

My first car was a 15 year old beater with a tape deck. It was trivial to rip it out and put in an (at the time current) CD player. I pity the poor kids who are going to be stuck with these cars down the road.

Similar thing with the touch bar on macbooks. I would pay extra to "upgrade" to one with physical F-keys instead.

You can, the new Macbook Pros go back to no touchbar and physical f- keys again.

Upgrade = Replace in Apple-land.

Ironically Mazda got rid of their touch screen for their new cars.