[andrewla]

In the context of operating a vehicle I'm going to stick with "just as bad".

When you aren't driving, if you have to set up something (like configure the doors to auto-lock when when you shift into drive or something) then a touchscreen is clearly superior. You can navigate to a menu and read the options and select the appropriate one. But like the camera shutter button, this is a situation where you can afford to pay some attention to the task at hand.

While operating a vehicle, if you're trying to turn up the fan on the A/C, then using a button to switch to climate controls, then using a button to switch to fan settings, then clicking the up button three times, is just as bad as a touchscreen, because if you switched to climate but didn't yet switch to fan settings, and you have to put more attention on the road because you're exiting, you've lost context and can no longer know where you are in the navigation with looking and assessing the situation.

So dedicated climate controls >>>>>> touchscreen or context-buttons. The difference is close enough to be indistinguishable.

If you get a popup saying "there's traffic ahead click here to accept a new route" then dismissing it by jabbing the screen and dismissing by jabbing a button, it's really hard for me to see a lot of air.

[romwell]

Sure, I don't disagree with you here. Climate control should be dedicated buttons.

There's a place for middle ground though: sequences of button presses.

For instance, keying in 1-3-4 to enable this or that feature (where the buttons are 1 to 5).

It can be done purely by touch, but it'd be hard to discover and memorize such sequences without a screen. However, once you discover them, you don't need to look at the screen.