I didn't mean to infer that they were bad, only that they are used indiscriminately. Take a look at the fan control, for example. Toyota, it's a dial, Nissan is a slider, BMW is two buttons for increase and decrease speed. To open the trunk on a Toyota, you press a button, but other models, you pull a latch. On some BMWs, you unlock the doors with a button on the dash. Most cars have a button on the driver side door, but some will even have this as an on/off switch.

I'll stop there, but my point is that car manufacturers haven't been able to figure out a "universal interface". Apple was able to do this with the iPhone (touch screen), so I wonder now if they can do it with cars.

Car manufactures have figured out a "universal interface" (buttons) as much as iPhone figured out touch screen.

There is nothing universal about the iphone interaction except that you touch it, for example it doesn't have a back button which most other manufactures do. Behind that touch screen you have the same mess of buttons/sliders/dropdowns/checkboxes/toggles between different models, as in cars.

You mean, I will "slide to unlock" to enter my iCar?

Which of course, isn't necessary when the vehicle drives itself.

For me, I find myself sitting at a stoplight with my hand rested on the volume and seek buttons/knobs while I look around at stuff. It's nice to be able to do both without having to hover your arm and look at a screen. Even more so when the road isn't totally smooth (pressing the wrong button is sometimes more annoying than not being able to quickly locate it).

Of course everyone has different preferences and that's why they sell cars in more colors than just black.

I'm not sure I'd trade a very good, time tested interface for something that's both new and ostensibly worse in some ways, just because that new, worse way can now be accommodated.

That's like throwing away your physical keyboard for an on-screen keyboard because your company has adjusted their expectations downwards on your productivity. Sure you might be able to make it work, but that doesn't mean an on-screen keyboard is superior to a physical one.

True enough - at that point you'd get rid of nearly all UI. All that's left amounts to a charging station for your iTablet.

I agree, though I suspect the Apple car would rely on voice commands more so than touch. I haven't used CarPlay at all, but I thought I remember seeing that it was mostly controlled with Siri.

my 2016 VW has Carplay and it has Siri Integration, and it's pretty good.

Though having to use siri for everything like "set temp to 60" "Turn on defrosters" "use turn signal" would start to get irritating quickly.

Not to mention if you're havign a conversation.

And you want standardised controls before the late 20/30's cars had different layouts for gas clutch break etc.

A modern driver would have a hard time driving a Model T

Necessary yes, but interestingly legacy controls for a legacy practice.