Yeah, I don’t even think the Ferrari touchscreen is analogous to the Keurig situation anyway. I would be very surprised if Ferrari actually chose the screen as a way to cleverly earn another $100 of profit on a $200K+ car, of which they sell between 6,000 and 7,000 per year. You buy a 200-mph supercar because you want to go very, very fast, not because of how smoothly the Bluetooth works. Cars like that sometimes don’t even have carpets. Some of the stripped down Porsche models don’t even have proper door handles on the inside–just bits of fabric to pull the door closed with–all to save weight and increase performance. They could sell cars like that without any in-car system at all.
That’s the same argument people make when confronted with any number of different products, and yet people still pay the premium so they don’t have to do X themselves. Think of any plant that is grown commercially–all you need is seed, water, sunlight, and soil. Granted the 
DING:notes: “It’s ready!” chime will happen substantially later but like most things (foods, at least) the finished product tastes much better than store-bought, and OH the satisfaction!
While I don’t doubt the review, and I’m well aware that standard resistive touchscreens are worse than standard capacitive touchscreens, I also would say that the best available resistive touch screens are pressure sensitive (enabling different levels of touch force to have different effects, for example) and can actually outperform capacitive touch.
In addition, requiring a minimum force level to register prevents accidental touches. If I know my car’s system really well, I could start my finger in a corner and move it to a desired location to press without looking - harder to do that with capacitive touch.
Hmm. I own a Keurig machine, and am neither lazy nor spendthrift. I am, however, the only coffee drinker in the house.
Then again, we have 4-5 “Eco-Brew” reusable K-cups, and use them for not just coffee, but tea. . . and again, I’m the only Earl Grey drinker, the wife likes Lemon Zinger and the oldest is an English Breakfast enthusiast.
Rob, you MIGHT want to check your assumptions about consumers and their choices at the door. I don’t like the idea of wasting an entire pot of coffee, when I only wanted a cup. . .
I just use a stovetop espresso pot.
• Hey let’s snark on Keurig coffee because it tastes like shit right? Am I late on this one?
• Resistive touch screens. Because often times in winter, people who drive cars wear gloves. Also, it’s not just Ferrari. Most cars with touch screen systems, and most standalone Nav systems have resistive touch screens. But Fuck the richies who drive Ferraris right?
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A drip machine will make a cup for very little more effort than the Eco-Brew cup. A drip cone will make a cup without a machine, for only a bit more effort (progressively trickling in the hot water – or you can dump it all in at once but the extraction isn’t as good).
Yes, there’s something to be said for not having to do anything more than push a button, and not even having to fill a tank. I’ve sometimes pondered a having a tea-temperature water tap installed… And the pods do let you keep a wider variety fresh and in grab-and-go form, if that appeals to you.
Certainly the Keurig and its cousins (there are other cartridge machines) are a good choice for office environments where demand is varied and unpredictable, and people are bad about refilling or dumping the tired stuff or keeping the equipment clean. I can see similar advantages for entertaining purposes, depending on your crowd’s caffeine habits.
The question is just whether the convenience is worth the costs (financial, ecological, etc.). If you feel it is, damn the doubters; buy what meets your needs.
For me, it’d be not exactly overkill but sorta orthogonal to my own requirements. Then again, I compost my coffee grounds and I prefer running the dishwasher to giving guests plasticware, so I’m clearly not their target market.
LATE EDIT: Actually, the fast-lazy way to use a cone for very thorough extraction is to dump coffee loose into a cup, add hot water, stir, then pour through the filter into another cup. Does mean one more object to wash, but that’s why God invented dishwashers.
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I absolutely HATE the idea of Keurig. You’re absolutely correct, it’s ALL about vendor lock-in. Not to mention the majority of K-cups are not biodegradable and will contribute millions of new tons of garbage in our landfills. And the quality is pretty terrible – weak coffee and the advertised shelf life of the K-cups is years but the pre-ground stuff is just oxidized and nasty by the time you pull a cup. Also high quality vendors like Peet’s charge you out the ass for (once again) grounds which have deteriorated to the point of tasting just like a cup of Folger’s.
That said, this morning when I crawled out of bed an hour earlier than normal (thanks you fucking fantastically ridiculous idiots who developed DST) and pressed the button and got a cup of coffee all under 1 minute’s time, I was kind of inline with the whole Keurig philosophy.
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