At least there's a good reason there - they're easier to clean. That's not much of a concern with microwave controls.

But I disagree with the idea that we don't need precise times on a microwave. The article / book disagrees with that, and the think I most regularly microwave (milk for my kids) needs 1 minute 50 seconds. 2 minutes and they'll reliably complain it's too hot.

The real problem with microwave UX is that the interfaces are often simply bad. People think the power/time dial interface is good but that's because it's difficult to mess it up (though they usually manage anyway by having them go up to 30 minutes or whatever).

It's really easy to mess up a button interface but you can also do it well. My microwave is close to doing it really well. You press a high/med/low button, then 1s/10s/1m/10m buttons to the desired time, then start. The only things they got wrong are that it requires pressing the power when 99% of the time you want high, and you could probably get a more useful distribution of time increments (I'm literally never going to use the 10m button).

But apart from that it's nicer than dials, which are often very cheap and imprecise.

I noticed, it's an unfortunate regression.

What's amazing is how the vibe of using the microwave completely changed. Before it was:

"Okay, how much time?? I've gotta get this right, I only get one shot. Think!!"

to:

"Probably 2 minutes." moves knob, cooking starts "Eh, maybe 90 seconds actually." moves knob again

That alone probably reduces the error rate, and it certainly reduces annoyance.

With the new stoves, I've noticed people are starting to dread using their stove the same way they dread the microwave. Hopefully we can fix both.