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Acura skips the touchscreen for its infotainment system
It really started with smartphones. Once we started filling our pockets with touchscreens it was only a matter of time before our fingers replaced the touchpad, mouse and stylus on almost all devices. Eventually, our digits started interacting with the infotainment systems in our cars. It makes sense: It's easy to learn and navigate something you can poke and swipe. But is it actually the best way to navigate your car's display? Acura has an infotainment system built from the ground up and the one thing it doesn't have is a touchscreen, and that's totally fine.
Acura puts its 'True Touchpad' Android UI in the 2019 RDX
In 2016 Acura showed off its "Precision Cockpit" concept that included a touchpad with 1:1 mapping to a central display. It's supposed to improve on both touchscreens, which can require an awkward reach from the driver to somewhere out of their line of sight, and existing remotes that try to copy a mouse-controlled UI. Now the company has announced that technology is coming to the 2019 RDX branded as a "True Touchpad." This Android-based car OS is the first use of a touchpad with absolute positioning in a car, making sure that wherever the driver taps on the pad corresponds to what is shown on the central 10.2-inch screen, which is mounted high up, in the driver's line of sight. Combined with a new natural language interface and an interactive heads-up display for the driver, it's supposed to be easier to use than any car software we've seen before.
