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I have a new miata, the touch screen is disabled above a certain speed. It's the worse of both worlds. Touch screen sometimes, jog wheel other times. The cursor on the screen lags so you're looking at the screen trying to figure out what is highlighted vs taking 1 second to touch the button you want. It's so bad I ripped out the screen and installed a 3rd party wireless carplay screen before the first car payment. It's 1000% better now.

Their new models allow you to enable it all the time (CX-50, I assume CX-90 and the upcoming CX-70), which I do think is a good idea.

Not even just for the driver to be touching it, but if you have a passenger you can let them deal with putting in directions or managing your audio and the wheel is a lot less obvious than a touchscreen to someone who isn't familiar with it.

And as a driver, it felt like there were some things where it'd be easier to just touch the screen too. Like for the buttons scattered around the corner of Maps, scrolling through a list or a grid is easy to navigate, random stuff all over the screen you'll have to learn the order.

Learn it, it takes 5 minutes, I know because I’ve done it. As a passenger dealing with the knob is easy enough, no need for touching the screen.

I'll usually be driving with a visually impaired passenger, so it'd be more like "lean up close to the screen to try and find where the little selection highlight is and then reach backward to try and use the knob to move it around" so for us in particular a touchscreen would be easier. Realistically I would just end up doing everything myself instead, but a touchscreen option would be nice.

Apparently the Japanese market version for 2024 is getting a 10.25" screen which I'm guessing is the same part as the CX-50. That could mean adding touch for CarPlay, but none of the articles mention it one way or the other. Maybe I'll wait and see about the US update before making any buying decisions.

Let's say like the FAA now, if an auto has a distracting touchscreen interface, a navigator in the passenger seat is mandatory, and must be well-trained on the user interface. That legislation should go over like a lead balloon!

FWIW I've never had an issue with the wheel in my CX5. I don't use the touchscreen at all, even at low speeds.

A have a 2016 Mazda3. The infotainment is useless, so I just leave it on the home page usually. I've ordered a CarPlay retrofit that uses the stock screen, wondering if the enabling/disabling behaviour will be the same it CarPlay.

All hail Mazda. I love the spinny wheel in my cx5.

The screen far away from arm reach is something they deliberately did because they argue you shouldn’t touch a screen while driving, you should only use the knob as that minimizes time you don’t look at the road.

It has physical volume and climate controls, including seat heaters - I don't mind this?

Personally, I'd rather have the rest of the HVAC controls on buttons/knobs (for that matter, I'd rather have the temperature on knobs instead of buttons), and the screen is really low. The top edge of a map on that screen is going to be under the bottom edge of where a more dashboard integrated screen would be.

actually that seems fine. there's probably >30 physical buttons in that picture, not including the touch screen. and it has physically buttons for volume and climate. I'mn pretty happy for most other things to go into the screen.

The Mazda software works ok with the wheel, but using something like CarPlay with it is almost impossible without taking your eyes off the road for a long time. It’s worse than touch-screens in that respect: what will the spinning knob select next on a screen which has three separate panes?

Is CarPlay really that terrible? I don't have issues using Android Auto easily with my Mazda, it all takes a few very learnable clicks.

Yes, it's terrible, CarPlay was designed to with touch in mind. You spend more time looking at the screen to figure out where your "cursor" is. I found the Tesla touch screen to be much safer to use.

I have no issues with it in my Mazda3 on iOS, it’s all muscle memory, and Siri isn’t even that terrible once you learn the most effective commands.

I use carplay in my CX5 and have no issues (my cx5 does not have a touch screen at all, 2022)