The tyranny of touch screens may be coming to an end.
Companies have spent nearly two decades cramming ever more functions onto tappable, swipeable displays. Now buttons, knobs, sliders and other physical controls are making a comeback in vehicles, appliances and personal electronics.
In cars, the widely emulated ultra-minimalism of Tesla’s touch-screen-centric control panels is giving way to actual buttons, knobs and toggles in new models from Kia, BMW’s Mini, and Volkswagen, among others. This trend is delighting reviewers and making the display-focused interiors of Tesla and its imitators feel passé.
Similar re-buttonization is occurring in everything from e-readers to induction stoves.
I don’t know where the author got their information, but they name Minis as one company doing this, and it’s absolutely not the case. I just checked to be sure, and the 2026 minis have the same 5-button, one touchscreen setup as the 2025s. My 2020 mini has 15+ physical buttons and toggles.
Fuck yeah: Buttons! Keyboards, expandable storage, and swappable batteries next please. I miss being able to accurately touch type on my phone without looking.
Virtual keyboards have never been great and the mainstream ones are getting enshittified more and more (Heliboard is OK with some minor modification, but it’s open source).
Yeah I’m not really a fan of virtual keyboards that are basically querty on the screen. The compact size of the phone kinda demands a different approach.
I use flickboard which helps me minimize typos. My all time favorite virtual keyboard was the now defunct minuum. I was able to reliably touch type with it. I stopped using because it wasn’t open source (but miss it despite that).
https://www.cnet.com/reviews/minuum-keyboard-review/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dZh8r-xErGE&pp=0gcJCR4Bo7VqN5tD
That article reads like it was AI written.
I actually think it was. The 2026 mini is the same as the 2025 mini in having almost no physical buttons, and a giant touchscreen, yet they call minis out by name. Completely incorrect, but got published.
Thank fuck. So glad I managed to dodge the cars with all touch screen controls. I got one as a loaner after my Civic was totaled in an accident (Thank u for buying me a new car, uninsured, out-of-state white supremacist with a truck too big for any reasonable use!) and it used the touch screen to control the climate control! I had to look away from the road to change the heating!
Just stupid.
Give me simple buttons and knobs I can feel and fix. Capacitives, touch screens, all that nonsense should stick to phones.
I’m okay with the phone being a touch screen. The rest can go back to normal.
@TheAlbatross I hear ya. My Civic was recently totalled, too. My newer 2024 Civic, ironically enough, has psychical buttons for the heater. The touchscreen is used for other stuff.
I got a '21 VW Golf and, similarly, it’s physical controls for everything I really want and touch screen for the GPS/media center. I can still change volume and tracks with physical buttons on the steering wheel, so that’s all fine.
Kinda miss the Civic. I love the hatchback on the golf and it is a delight to drive, but I think it’s like half a ton heavier than the Civic and that’s not as nice. Still gets phenomenal milage tho
I want buttons on my phone too.
I got 3 (Volume rocker and power) and it feels like plenty.
It’s been so long since I had more than 3 and I’m curious. I had an iPhone for work, that had a 4th, the home button on the bottom center of the touch screen and I hated that. What do you want from physical buttons on the phone?
Feeling nostalgic for the blackberry?
I’m nostalgic for it, but at the same time, I’d be nostalgic for 3.5 seconds if I used one again. People tend to forget how frustrating those devices could be too. I had several iterations of the blackberry, and everyone of them came with a lot of quirks that modern phones just don’t have. Sure, I sort of miss the tactile feel of buttons, but it was also a lot of work punching out long emails on them, and pocket lint did a real number on those things too.
My last phone before my first smart phone was basically a sidekick (it wasn’t actually a sidekick, but I don’t remember the actual name of it and the sidekick has a similar enough formfactor).
That thing’s texting keyboard was fucking rad. I could type so fucking fast on that. I really want a smart phone with that keyboard.
In colder parts of the world you actually drive with mittens on. I have no idea how’s that going to work with modern touch screen cars.
I’ve seen gloves with tips on the fingers for using touch screens!
Yeah I have those gloves too. They’re ok for mildly chill weather like 0 °C, but when the inside of the car goes below -10 °C you really begin to miss proper mittens. When it’s -20 °C, mittens are the only realistic option.
I have some. They really suck ass. You can muddle through but it’s not really an ideal solution.
You either have to purchase special capacitance-enabled globes (like silver) or else take them off for every button press that you want to make. :-(
I’m of the opposite opinion. I’m tired of dashboards just absolutely smothered in Technicoloured buttons. I much prefer the touchscreen where everything is centralized. I find it less distracting, personally.
Cars are a very intimate personal thing though, and I understand others frustrations with it. Guess I’m the outlier.
I would have brought it right back and asked for a different loaner, since the HVAC is clearly and visibly missing.
I’m fine with the phone as is, but vehicles need tactile control panels.
As for tablets, I just buy a keyboard case that folds open and closed like a laptop. That screen will twist around and lay flat to use as a proper tablet, if need be.
I don’t really want to sacrifice screen space on either mobile device, to buttons.
Unfortunately the buttons are likely still controlled by the central computer rather than having standalone functionality.
When I was a kid if I wanted to turn off the radio I simply hit the “off” button.
Now in my Subaru when I start the car I have to wait for it to wake fully up, while it could be blasting out music very loud (think: if the music when I turned off the vehicle was softer, but now a commercial is the very opposite of soft) until pressing the off button finally thinks through all the ramifications of what it means (in the context of prioritization in relation to other tasks) to actually turn the sound “off”.
I love my car but I definitely prefer the older approach when off = “off”.
So button vs. touchscreen is only part of the underlying set of issues related to computerization and, for some vehicles, the increasing trend towards SAAS.
Good, they should’ve never gone away in the first place.
The push to re-physicalize interfaces has even led to an unexpected side gig for Dr. Plotnick, the academic authority on buttons. Companies are tapping her to consult on how to improve their physical controls.
Well played.
Great. Now do it with phones too. I don’t want to turn the screen on and look where the media controls are just to skip songs
Finally! I was hoping to see some better haptic feedback systems but this is great too
