The rise of over-the-air updates means car touchscreens are here to stay
Editor Paul Barker thinks the return of physical buttons in cars isn't likely to happen as manufacturers are now focused on over-the-air updates
A chat with some Volvo software experts last week opened up a new dimension to the modern car touchscreen debate.
As someone firmly in the camp of screens having gone way too far in terms of controlling the most basic of functions, I’m a big advocate for the return of the humble button. Being able to change temperature, volume, seat heater or other functions by feel alone when behind the wheel was a pleasure that I never appreciated while we had it. New cars today seem hell bent on reprimanding you for taking your eyes off the road to perform activities made too complicated by the very system that’s scolding you.
But Volvo’s software gurus, while admitting that things had gone too far, explained that screens are here to stay for one simple reason. As over-the-air updates become smarter, there’s so much more car makers can do to improve their vehicles once they’ve left the factory. And owners, who are familiar with smartphone updates, are getting increasingly used to their cars doing the same – adding new features or making their lives better in some way overnight.
You can completely overhaul the functionality of a touchscreen from a lab thousands of miles away, moving different elements nearer the top menu or changing layouts as a result of driver feedback. But a row of buttons is a row of buttons, marooned in time until the model gets a mid-life refresh that even then will only benefit new customers, not those already living with cars.
Over-the-air updates are going to be an increasingly used tool to both rectify problems and add clever new features. Volvo’s chief engineering and technical officer Anders Bell put it well when he told me: “I agree that maybe we went over the top as an industry; I’m just concerned about the knee-jerk saying we need to go back to the 1990s, which is not the right answer.” He described modern cars as the “most complex consumer product known to mankind”, and the tech push doesn’t seem to be slowing, regardless of if we like it or not.
Whether touchscreens being here to stay – and missing that muscle-memory ease of use we had before with physical buttons – are prices worth paying to access a world of constantly updating cleverness is a question for drivers everywhere.
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