Technology and car companies, including Apple, are bringing old-fashioned features back to the gadgets and cars that customers love

Technology and car companies are ditching touchscreens and returning physical buttons to their products.

Even though touchscreens have been appearing in devices more and more over the years, some of the world’s largest technology companies are going back to basics.

For many people who made the transition to touchscreen, the transformation could be seen as assimilation to modern technology.

However, experts suggest that the adoption of touchscreens had more to do with cost than any other factor.

Copper CEO Sam Calisch is sad: “Now that touchscreens are the cheapest option, they’re being used everywhere, even where they shouldn’t,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

While the touchscreen has many versatile uses, it is often found in places where it can easily fail, such as induction cookers with touch controls.

The changing look of touchscreens has also impacted the “sleek” designs we see with high-tech products like Apple.

This also caused problems, even when buttons were present on the device, they were often as flat and unobtrusive as possible. This means that although they were again cheaper to produce, these buttons often did not recognize well enough that they had been pressed, or jammed easily.

However, this switch was not only dictated by operational errors, but also for safety reasons. Touch screens in cars, while versatile, require much more attention than buttons and knobs.

Cars like Tesla use a full touchscreen, with all controls operating through a screen interface.

According to the WSJ, a large number of customer complaints have prompted companies to reconsider their designs.

The European New Car Assessment Program has even declared that for a vehicle to achieve the highest five-star safety rating, it must be equipped with buttons.

Director of Strategic Development Matthew Avery told The Verge: “Touchscreen overuse is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle manufacturer moving key controls to central touchscreens, forcing drivers to take their eyes off the road and increasing the risk of distraction-related crashes.

Companies such as Volkswagen have said they are restoring physical controls for features such as air conditioning in response to customer complaints.

In 2022, in the opinion of Jay Capsian Kang in the New York Times titled “Touchscreens in cars solve a problem we didn’t have” wrote: “I can’t think of a better way to describe the frustration of the modern consumer than to buy a car with a feature that makes you less safe, doesn’t improve driving comfort in any significant way, saves the manufacturer money, and is sold To you as an essential advancement in connectivity.

BMW is also working on physical controls for its MINIs, with the goal of providing full control without the driver having to take their eyes off the road.

Their head of product and marketing at MINI USA, Patrick McKenna, said these features include a scroll wheel on the steering wheel and access to controls via voice assistant.

Among those companies that are returning to old-fashioned features is Apple, which has announced a new “action” button and a touch strip for camera control in its latest version of the iPhone 16.

According to WSJ, Apple also gave away the old physical function keys of the MacBook Pro in 2021 after switching to the Touch Bar.

The company said the physical keys “returned the familiar, tactical feel of mechanical keys that professional users love.”