BMW iDrive Still Sucks

Its been over one year since I wrote about “BMW iDrive Really Sucks”. Since then, I’ve received a firmware update to the iDrive system when I took the car in for a failed fuel pump service.

While a few things have been improved since the update (ie. Phone number and street address of POIs are finally available, improved bluetooth connection, etc.), I am still not pleased with my user experience. The straw that broke the camel’s back is this trip I am currently on driving from NYC to Mystic, Connecticut. The iDrive made me missed a few important turns and got me so mad that I’ve decided to write another complaint session while I am on my vacation.

The problem I continue to have with the iDrive is its slowness and poor visual UI design. While these problems impact every aspect of the iDrive (Radio, CD, System Menu), the iDrive’s slowness in responding to my GPS commands or changing traffic condition continues to make my driving experience very distasteful. There are so many times where I have followed iDrive’s GPS instruction into a turn but I need to make another choice of move(s) immediately (ie. a fork or on ramp), the iDrive is still displaying a turn instruction from its previous step. This usually leaves me in a state of panic and abruptly making a choice before the system can react. Of course, right after I make that choice, the system will display the right instruction seconds too late.

So I have been thinking, what can BMW engineers do to improve this situation? Well… beyond stepping up the hardware specs to improve speed and response time, they can improve the visual UI design of the instruction window (right side of the LCD Screen) in the following area:

1. Give the option to see as little as three (3) steps of upcoming traffic instructions otherwise known as “list view”. Currently, only one (1) next move is displayed; with so many situations where two or more turns are required back to back, this can be very helpful. If we have the option of previewing at least three moves ahead, even if the system is delayed to update the next move, I can still read in advance enhancing my driving experience.

2. Give a better visual display of arrows and roadways. iDrive has the most basic monochromatic graphics, usually involving a basic drawing of a curve/line and arrow of the direction you need to turn on top. I’ve seen OEM systems (ie. Honda/Acura) give colorful 3D arrows overlaying real-life like drawings of a fork, onramp or lanes giving the driver more confidence before engaging in the next move. This is something one aftermarket GPS company is famous for; Navigon's Reality View goes as far as drawing out the 3D roadways and show you which lane to go or what the exit looks like and how you should exit.

3. Simplify the roadway name on screen. If the instruction is for me is to take the GW Bridge, then only display that on the screen. iDrive is currently displaying the entire but incomplete/acronym(s) road sign description on screen, See first image above: I95/Triboro Br/Geo Washington Br. While I understand iDrive’s logic in pulling the entire data feed of each freeway road sign, it makes it very difficult/dangerous to take my eyes off the road to read and decipher through all of the text sequence. In the end, I just need to know I need to look for George Washingon Br..

I find myself continuously frustrated with my experience using the iDrive. My view of the system has not changed since my original post. I find it difficult to document my experience in writing as so much of the interaction takes place on the road, but the general census is that it is just a cumbersome design. I hope future firmware updates can offer more improvement. Until then, I may just rely on my Nokia N95 w/ integrated GPS and Google Maps to get me back to NYC.

(On my way back while driving southbound on the West Coast Highway, the instruction window doesn't even bother to display the road name I need to turn. Another marvelous surprise from the iDrive)

BMW iDrive Really Sucks

(Update 3/2/2008: I got another round of complaint here!)
We’ve recently picked up a brand new 335i sedan. While picking out the options, we’ve decided go for the GPS navigation system, which is controlled by the infamous iDrive. The iDrive in theory is suppose to be very smart. It’s the same system that is controlling pretty much the entire vehicle’s electronics, including: automatic door-lock, day-time running light, audio, navigation, and much more settings.

Unlike most GPS systems found in Japanese vehicles, the iDrive is not touchscreen-based. Its based on a round jog dial selector; like a joy-stick, it moves 8 directions (at least it was suppose to, I could never manage to get it to shift the map diagonally). I have been cursing at the damn system everytime I drive. Here is why:

1. Too Slow: The iDrive is too damn slow to react… I constantly find myself sitting in a parking spot idling five+ minutes for the system to load up the information from the map in the DVD drive (which is badly located in the middle of the dash with an eject button exposed and sits right beneath the actual audio CD drive, this was a real bone-headed design). I think the new Mercedes C class sedans will be equipped with built in hardrive to eliminate this problem. I’d figure BMW would atleast run on a faster CPU or provide a bigger cache to store and recall map data much faster.

2. Crappy Control: The iDrive counts on the jog selector for almost everything, between rotating the knob and selecting in 8 directions, this is how you scroll through the menus, input street addresses and more. It is often that you find yourself scrolling forever to go back and forth between the alphabets or and numerical values. As mentioned earlier, because the system is so slow, I often pre-select faster than what the system can keep up thereby causing it to take me to the wrong menu screen or inputting the wrong value. BTW, if someone decided to pull that jog dial off the console, I’ll have no access to anything… because so much is relied on that one little dial. When a list of results come back, the iDrive's mechanism often stops it from rotating because it thinks I've already reached to the bottom of the list, even though its because it was not fast enough to know the system is still pulling more reference data off the DVD drive. Another part that really sucks is sometimes, as you use it to rotate for FM stations, as it approaches to the end of the spectrum, it would not always go to the high spectrum channels, yet it does some of the times. Very unpredictable. I fear I'll break the mechanism sometimes because I don't know what to expect from it.

3. Not Informational: The iDrive is so freaking useless, while searching for a destination or Point-of-Interest (POI), it wouldn’t display the physical address or phone number for your confirmation, your only option is looking at approximately how far it is from your current position (which is often off) and select it as destination. For me to verify, I have to add that location each time to the address book (which takes forever as mentioned in point 1 above.) Again, if I want to verify the location by scroll on the map, the DVD is often too slow to react to my demand in zooming the map in or out and scrolling it in my directions… plus, the diagonal direction from the job dial never seems to work right. In addition, if you want to find common POIs like ATM/Gas/Food, you can’t! I could never get the “real time” traffic information to do what I want… it doesn’t always re-route for me all the time.

In hindsight, I should have just opted out of this GPS system and bought a Garmin Nuvi with touch screen. Its portable and has gotten nothing but good feedback and would have cost me less.