[filoleg]

This. There will always be a niche of people who want barebones single-purpose old-school experience out of any given device.

Goes for literally anything, from cars to phones to music equipment. I definitely fall into this category for some of the things myself. However, it is important to remember that this is not representative at all of what the majority prefers.

[throwaway_pdp09]

This is a better post than its parent, and in some cases, sure I agree. I can't argue with someone who wants the new & shiny, if it works for them, great. But it's being pushed on us so such luddites as myself have no choice any more - it's all touchscreens now. It's become marketing driven. The choice is gone.

> this is not representative at all of what the majority prefers

I was very careful to not to project my desires on others in my original post, but you're telling me about what "majority prefers". So back this up. I don't think you can.

[filoleg]

>you're telling me about what "majority prefers". So back this up.

Do you see dedicated single-purpose barebones MP3 players having a high demand? Or do people just use their smartphones for that purpose? When you walk into a room and ask people if they would find an MP3 player device useful and would like to get one, what answer do you expect to hear?

Also, try asking the same question from people about smartphones vs. single-purpose cellphones. Yes, there is obviously a niche of people who want to "disconnect" and not have to deal with smartphones. But they are in a tiny minority.

While market isn't a perfect representation of what people want, it is a great proxy, in a lot of cases. And for this situation specifically, it looks like the market has clearly expressed what consumers want.

[throwaway_pdp09]

I asked you to back this up with actual figures. Please do so. Now...

> Do you see dedicated single-purpose barebones MP3 players having a high demand?

I can't buy them. When I looked for a new one, there was none available I could find. I did ring the companies too. There's no choice so actual demand is difficult to ascertain.

Smartphones... OK, that's a good point.

> what answer do you expect to hear?

Irrelevant - give me figures, not asking what I expect to get. Facts please. And if you read the comments here, there's quite a few expressing preference for physical controls.

> But they [non-smartphone users] are in a tiny minority.

A minority or a tiny minority? Give me figures please. Don't just talk at me, throwing words around. Facts please. And BTW I'm one of these minorities. FYI.

> it looks like the market has clearly expressed what consumers want

What's your job?

[filoleg]

>What's your job?

It is on my HN profile, I write code for living.

>Facts please.

The fact that you called up a bunch of companies, and none of them were producing dedicated barebones MP3 players, kind of speaks for itself. If there was a significant demand, why wouldn't they jump on this easy money-making opportunity, given that they would have pretty much no competitors?

>give me figures, not asking what I expect to get.

I don't have numbers, and neither do you. In the absence of actual numbers, anecdotal evidence is the second best thing. Do you have anecdotal evidence of talking to an average person and asking whether they would be willing to pay for a dedicated MP3 player? I do, which is why I asked you to imagine how that scenario would play out in real life.

If your scenario played out the opposite of mine, then we would be at a stall, as anecdotal evidence is nothing against opposing anecdotal evidence, only factual numeric evidence can beat anecdotal evidence. But if it played out the same, I feel like it would only act in support of my hypothesis.

I can also bring out hard factual numbers for the sales numbers of dedicated MP3 players going down as smartphone proliferation increased, if you want, but you probably already know how those numbers look.

[throwaway_pdp09]

> The fact that you called up a bunch of companies, and none of them were producing dedicated barebones MP3 players, kind of speaks for itself.

Not really. From here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23405591

"It is fascinating just how poorly modern touch interfaces do compared to older vehicles" with a response of

"I can't figure out how to turn the HVAC system on in a newish car"

This proves that the market is demanding worse interfaces, otherwise why would people have to deal with them?. That's how your argument goes, and it's bunk. Remember the cries of pain over windows 8? That's because people liked pain. The market spoke, right?

> I don't have numbers, and neither do you.

Then again I only spoke for myself. Whereas you "...this is not representative at all of what the majority prefers" & "it looks like the market has clearly expressed what consumers want" believe you can speak for others. Nope. Facts please.

> I can also bring out hard factual numbers for the sales numbers of dedicated MP3 players going down as smartphone proliferation increased, if you want, but you probably already know how those numbers look.

Irrelevant. I spoke about dedicated MP3 players, and if you'd bothered to read what I said, I actually said yours was a good point. Still, dedicated MP3 players have a market because they are still being sold - https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3... So a market for them still exists. It's not about smartphones vs dedicated MP3 players, this is about interfaces and choice.

[filoleg]

>"I can't figure out how to turn the HVAC system on in a newish car"

That says nothing about touchscreen interfaces themselves, it says about their poor implementation in certain cars. Just like touchscreen interfaces on phones, they were all various degrees of trash for daily usage, until iPhone came out with touchscreen-oriented UI and lead by example of what touchscreen-oriented UIs for phones are supposed to be, as opposed to just regular phone UI with touchscreen functionality bolted on.

A similar thing can be observed in cars. I had so many hellscape-ish experiences with touchscreens in cars, I can rant about those for days. But then I had an opportunity to extensively test its implementation in Tesla cars, and it was extremely pleasant.

Not that your criticism of touchscreens in modern cars is invalid, it totally is valid. Touchscreen interface implementation in modern cars, on average, is totally inferior to the older physical control interface implementation. Which makes sense, as we had over half a century to perfect that.

However, as demonstrated by the Tesla interface I experienced (hybrid touchscreen+physical controls on the steering wheel), those issues are not inherent to all touchscreen interfaces. The other manufacturers just need to catch up (for some of them, I can already seem them being very close). You cannot just bolt a touchscreen onto the interface designed with physical controls in mind and call it a day. Because that's pretty much why those touchscreen interfaces in most modern cars are awful to use.