alt Hacker NewsI have this knob and I don't understand your point. With the knob or the touch screen, you need to look at the screen to see what you're doing. The knob merely controls a cursor.
I find the knob considerably more distracting. First you have translate the motion of the knob to the cursor moving on the screen. Secondly, you have to cycle through all the options so you have to spend even more time looking at the screen. It's significantly faster and less distracting to just reach out and tap the button you want.
Other physical buttons are great but the knob is a terrible UI.
Yes, you still need to look at the screen but could pause this in any position of the selected item and continue after looking back at the road. I was driving an F150 with just a touch screen and it was much worse when I needed to find an item on the screen and try to touch it on a far-located screen in a shaking car.