Mazda provides physical buttons for 90% of the controls you need on a daily basis but there's no realistic way to use apple carplay without looking at a screen. Were you expecting mazda to have a "Search for a song" dedicated button on the steering wheel?

In my view Mazda's modern interface is almost as safe as you can get while still having modern features that require a touchscreen. I only wish there was a button to physically turn the entire screen off when driving at night (you can do this but it's buried in a menu).

In my 2020 CX5, the screen is actually a touchscreen as well, but it only works at low speeds which may be safer but is not very convenient when a passenger wants to control it at speed.