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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.

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[-] Zephorah@discuss.online 4 points 1 day ago

Feeling nostalgic for the blackberry?

[-] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 points 9 hours ago

Blackberry insisted on a 3-row thumboard on the face of the device. I want a 5-row slider, like Samsung's Relay.

[-] GrindingGears@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

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.

[-] k0e3@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 hours ago

Yeah I don't care for tactile keyboards because swiping is so much faster.

[-] drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago

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.

[-] Zephorah@discuss.online 3 points 16 hours ago

Maybe the answer is the same as the cases for the iPad mini. A little Bluetooth keyboard case that snaps closed over the screen, with capacity to flip the phone unit around, in case to lay screen up on top of it while closed.

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
86 points (93.0% liked)

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