[hedora]

The jog dial is great. I don't have to watch my finger find the right thing to press on the screen. This more than halves the time I spend looking at the screen.

Also, our car (BMW i3) has 8 programmable buttons (like old-school radio presets) that let me jump around in the user interface to frequently used screens.

Some niche things I use frequently (check my email for new GPS destinations, bypass FM auto-tuner, and advanced energy efficiency monitors) are buried two or three menus deep, so I created shortcuts for them. I use buttons 1, 3 and 8 all the time.

I use the jog dial more frequently than the shortcuts though. The menus provide fast access to more commonly used stuff (pair bluetooth, choose podcast / artist / album, control GPS zoom and routes, turn off screen). You can skip audio tracks and initiate phone calls to people in your phone book with dedicated buttons and a thumb dial on the steering wheel.

There are dedicated buttons and knobs for climate, and eco drivetrain modes.

[mulmen]

Does it still have a touchscreen? My 2010 BMW has iDrive which works great for almost everything. It only falls down with text entry because I have to scroll through the alphabet. It does do predictive entry so I don't have to type the whole address but it is the one time a full keyboard would be nice and even I admit that's too much in a car.