Switcheroo

Toggle switches on a car’s dashboard. Don’t know what kind of car it is, but I’d bet it’s fast. And expensive.

I heard on the radio the other day that Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo as we used to call it) was abandoning its touch screen system in some new model cars in favor of–guess what?–switches. Here’s a link with more on the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/business/after-ratings-drop-ford-reworks-touch-screens.html?_r=0 Seems that people find the system too hard to use and have to take their eyes off the road to work them. With a switch, once you learn where it is and how it operates, it’s pretty much an eyes-off business.

Well. What do I say, except sometimes the way to go forward is to go back. I’ve written in this space about giving up my smart phone (touch screen) because it’s too complicated to put in the commands. I’ve gotten a retro flip phone, and it’s the bee’s knees. And it has push buttons on it. They’re cousins to the switch, and I for one am glad they’re back in the house.