Agree strongly. For things like vehicle status or configuration, the touchscreens are far superior to the old method of strange things like holding down the "unlock" button on the driver door for ten seconds and then pressing lock twice to enable flashing headlights when remote locking the car, or messing with the fuse panel for the same purposes.
Configuration settings like "always try bluetooth first for audio and just wait for it to connect instead of falling back to FM radio" are too subtle to be done by switches, and seat adjustments seem like another easy one where better UI would make a big difference.
At the same time, I think if it could be done securely [1] then having an app-based configuration would be much better; like configuring a consumer router or similar. You just use an app or a browser on your phone to make all the necessary static settings for your car, and the car then needs very little interactive UI.
[1] Although most likely it cannot be done securely. Cars are too mission-critical to move very far down the security/usability tradeoff curve.
I have nothing against an interface with menus, but nothing can beat physical buttons for input, IMHO. Put 4 pushbuttons down each side of a screen, have a set of hierarchical menu options that I can memorize, and that's the best of both worlds. Those buttons near the screen are fine to have overloaded functionality.
For critical things like all the normal vehicle functions, they should have dedicated controls that aren't overloaded.
Oh, and a big damn volume knob that shuts off the radio/entertainment system.
Configuration settings like "always try bluetooth first for audio and just wait for it to connect instead of falling back to FM radio" are too subtle to be done by switches, and seat adjustments seem like another easy one where better UI would make a big difference.
At the same time, I think if it could be done securely [1] then having an app-based configuration would be much better; like configuring a consumer router or similar. You just use an app or a browser on your phone to make all the necessary static settings for your car, and the car then needs very little interactive UI.
[1] Although most likely it cannot be done securely. Cars are too mission-critical to move very far down the security/usability tradeoff curve.