[Tag]

Nico DeMattia
January 10, 2023



Since the 2023 CES (Consumer Electronics Show), there’s been some confusion about the future of BMW’s iDrive. While at CES, during a tech panel, Stephan Durach, BMW Senior Vice President Connected Company Development, spoke about iDrive 8.5 and 9, two new versions of iDrive that would have different user interfaces and upgraded functionality. However, neither system will make it to every BMW and there was some confusion as to which models would be getting the upgrades. As it turns out, very few. For now.

BMW iDrive 8.5

On their faces, BMW’s iDrive 8and iDrive 9 are basically the same thing. They’re going to look the same and they’re going to have the same UI. The only caveat: the Android-based iDrive 9 will get access to the Android Apps Store. However, they’ll have some functional differences, which are hardware related. The lesser iDrive 8.5 is going to be used in basically just one model for now—the 7 Series. The new 7 Series currently uses iDrive 8 but it has an upgraded, Linux-based head unit behind it all, which gives the 7 Series greater technological capabilities than every other BMW on the market.



That means the rest of BMW’s current cars will be stuck with the current iDrive 8 or even iDrive 7, depending on how old they are. Not every BMW has been switched to iDrive 8, as cars like the X3, 5 Series, Z4, X5, and X6 are all still using iDrive 7. However, some of these cars will either be updated to iDrive 8 soon (thanks to a facelift X5 and X6) or be replaced entirely in the next couple of years.

Some current iDrive 8 models will be given the new head unit that allows them to run iDrive 8.5, such as the BMW iX. However, as most cars get replaced, they’ll skip over 8.5 and move straight to iDrive 9. Which brings me to the next section.

BMW iDrive 9

At the moment, there’s only one U.S. car planned to iDrive 9—the BMW X1. It gets a bit confusing because the current X1 still uses the older Linux-based head unit, so X1 models currently on the road won’t be able to get upgraded to iDrive 9. However, the new X1 will soon get a head unit upgrade, to a newer Android-based one, and that will allow it to run the all-new iDrive 9.



There’s much more information to come about both systems but, for now, the most important thing about both new systems is that they’re going to be quite exclusive for a bit. To start off, the 7 Series will be the only BMW with iDrive 8.5 and the X1 will be the only BMW with iDrive 9. The rest will stick with iDrive 8 until they’re replaced with new models or get new head units.

Source: BMWBLOG

[BMWCCA1]

Hah! You used the word "stick" and "iDrive 8.5" in the same paragraph.

Ask me which I'd rather have.

Who really gives a shit and why are they driving BMWs in the first place???

[dangerus_car]

when will the new X1 get the iDrive 9? Cause it’s just now the all new X1 just released. I don’t think in a year time, they will change the iDrive version?

[DanG]

BMW hasn’t upgraded older BMWs to the latest idrive for some time. My 2018 M2 has idrive 6.

[KevinC]

I'm forever "stuck" at iDrive 6 and couldn't be happier.

[Rob_G77]

I'm mostly happy with ID7. I still have the physical buttons I WANT and a nicely integrated dash display. I don't want to ever have to rely on BMW voice recognition.

Me: "Call Luanne"
My Car: "Ok I am opening the weather app"

Rob

[dangerus_car]

Originally Posted by KevinC

I'm forever "stuck" at iDrive 6 and couldn't be happier.

in my opinion, the best iDrive is 7 even though i own the 6. 7 still integrates the needs of digital and touch with analog such as AC panel, etc.

[heavyD^2]

Originally Posted by DanG

BMW hasn’t upgraded older BMWs to the latest idrive for some time. My 2018 M2 has idrive 6.

I think the Supra is still rocking ID6.

[DavesZupra4]

Originally Posted by dangerus_car

in my opinion, the best iDrive is 7 even though i own the 6. 7 still integrates the needs of digital and touch with analog such as AC panel, etc.

ID7 is best. It looks good and the unit is integrated so well especially in the z4 and from someone in a another car beside you looks amazing and premium.

The new ID8 with just 2 screens like a tesla feels so cheap. They just stuck on 2 displays after market style. Yuck 🤮, and the fact buttons went away is really awful as I use buttons all the time. I can't imagine ac controls, media controls, and the shortcuts being gone permanently it just feels cheaper with the appearance of being more "luxury" until you drive it and realize how good the buttons are

[KevinC]

I think a good argument can be made that 7 was peak, though I'm fine with 6. Funny that it was possible to buy a new car in mid-2021 that still had an optical drive AND a spinning hard drive in the head unit. All but gone from everything by then.

iDrive 9 is going to Android OS and also is apparently losing the iDrive controller, that's been with us almost 20 years now. Then what - reach out and touch the damn screen for EVERYTHING? And BMW has such a crappy track record with software issues and slow response to fix problems, that is getting worse as the software gets more complicated. And now they're dumping the old platform and starting anew with Android? What could possibly go wrong? LOLOLOL

[DavesZupra4]

Originally Posted by KevinC

I think a good argument can be made that 7 was peak, though I'm fine with 6. Funny that it was possible to buy a new car in mid-2021 that still had an optical drive AND a spinning hard drive in the head unit. All but gone from everything by then.

iDrive 9 is going to Android OS and also is apparently losing the iDrive controller, that's been with us almost 20 years now. Then what - reach out and touch the damn screen for EVERYTHING? And BMW has such a crappy track record with software issues and slow response to fix problems, that is getting worse as the software gets more complicated. And now they're dumping the old platform and starting anew with Android? What could possibly go wrong? LOLOLOL

Which car had a cd drive? X1? 7 series? A spinning hard drive slows things down thays for sure, but there may be some hardcore leftovers that use cd.

Personally I used cd's in my f22 235i way back to upload music in the I drive 4 hard drive..but even as far back as 2014 I wasn't using CD's either they were obsolete then and especially now

[G30M]

Tesla!

[KevinC]

Originally Posted by DavesZupra4

Which car had a cd drive? X1? 7 series? A spinning hard drive slows things down thays for sure, but there may be some hardcore leftovers that use cd.

M2 Comp had NBTEvo to the end of production (6/21). Optical drive and Toshiba 400gb automotive grade spinning 2.5" hard drive. You would think they would have replaced it with flash memory at some point, but the Toshiba drive soldiered on till the bitter end.

The Supra still uses iDrive 6 but there's no optical drive so that would imply the entire head unit is different.

[Mason Hatcher]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

Ask me which I'd rather have.

Who really gives a shit

There ya go

[10"]

In my list of criteria about a car—-infotainment system is not even in the top 50 things I care about. Utterly irrelevant!

[IcewaterPete]

“There’s much more information to come about both systems but, for now, the most important thing about both new systems is that they’re going to be quite exclusive for a bit.”

There is nothing “exclusive” about any iDrive system. Add me to BMWCCA1’s who gives a sh.t.

[Patton250]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

Hah! You used the word "stick" and "iDrive 8.5" in the same paragraph.

Ask me which I'd rather have.

Who really gives a shit and why are they driving BMWs in the first place???

I sometimes think to myself how grateful I am that some of you here on this forum aren’t on the design team at Apple. Because if you were, I’m quite confident we would’ve never made it past the iPhone one.

[BMWCCA1]

Originally Posted by Patton250

I sometimes think to myself how grateful I am that some of you here on this forum aren’t on the design team at Apple. Because if you were, I’m quite confident we would’ve never made it past the iPhone one.

At least we'd still have the headphone jack instead of some dongle adapter that saps the frequency range at the expense of accommodating wireless ear buds!

I swear sometimes the young-uns out there never got to experience Hi-Fidelity and simply settle for what they're offered by Apple. The real sadness is that some think Beats are Hi-Fi.

I'm so out of touch I'd prefer an in-dash CD player and my Music Collection hard-drive in my E82 to anything BMW produces today.

Since you brought up Apple—I started with an Apple IIe and have had nearly every form of MacIntosh ever made including the first one which was the third sold in my hometown. Same goes for nearly every iPhone. It wasn't until Apple started leaving the optical drives off their MacBooks that I really knew the end was near but, prior to that they made it impossible to run their own external optical drive on any MacBook that had an internal optical drive. Now that I'm forced to own a MacBook Pro without the internal optical drive, all of a sudden that old external drive works again. But then I remember when floppy drives first got left off Macs, followed by serial ports, and now we have laptops without original USB ports.

Us old-dogs can adapt. But a car is for driving. What's next? No window switches? We've been hearing about too many buttons since the advent of iDrive.0 with the haptic 8-point controller. How well did that work? We laughed when BMW told us the "i" stood for "intuitive". Anyone ever see pictures of van Hooydonk actually driving, much less enjoying a BMW on a road other than the Autobahn?

Remember, multi-tasking on my phone is a separate activity from driving my car. And it should be for everyone.

[Tejas1836]

Gonna be a lot of wrecks attributable to trying to use the touchscreens

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by DavesZupra4

The new ID8 with just 2 screens like a tesla feels so cheap. They just stuck on 2 displays after market style. Yuck, and the fact buttons went away is really awful as I use buttons all the time. I can't imagine ac controls, media controls, and the shortcuts being gone permanently it just feels cheaper with the appearance of being more "luxury" until you drive it and realize how good the buttons are

Originally Posted by Rob_G77

I'm mostly happy with ID7. I still have the physical buttons I WANT and a nicely integrated dash display. I don't want to ever have to rely on BMW voice recognition.

Originally Posted by spuntyb

Here’s a neat idea: put physical buttons back in the cabin. Thx.
https://www.edmunds.com/amp/car-news...r-buttons.html
("Volkswagen Is Bringing Back Physical Buttons")

Originally Posted by dbvallett

Wouldn’t mind the physical buttons back…

Indeed, further to negative feedback by owners and road testers about laggy systems, important functions buried in touchscreen menus and physical annoyances like capacitive sensing buttons or badly lit sliders, Volkswagen plans to reintroduce (more) physical buttons from 2024 onwards (starting with the next-gen VW Tiguan model rumored to be premiered late 2023, going on sale in 2024).

https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-ne...reen-problems/
("VW shakes up infotainment touchscreen UX to fix mistakes of the past").

Actually, it would be a welcome 'plot twist' if car homologation authorities would start to refuse, for road safety reasons, to homologate cars featuring iPad style screens with as good as no additional buttons/dials and a zillion submenus. Declaring those things unfit for road use could finally force car manufacturers to reintroduce (more) physical buttons, dials and sliders.

IMHO operating features with the BMW iDrive controller is safer (facilitates to keeping eyes more on the road), more practical and more intuitive. Bad choice by BMW to delete the iDrive controller on some recent models. Form follows function, not the other way around. It's a car, no mobile phone or tablet.

[Tejas1836]

But muh speech recognition may work on the 3rd or 4th try, maybe.

[Patton250]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

At least we'd still have the headphone jack instead of some dongle adapter that saps the frequency range at the expense of accommodating wireless ear buds!

I swear sometimes the young-uns out there never got to experience Hi-Fidelity and simply settle for what they're offered by Apple. The real sadness is that some think Beats are Hi-Fi.

I'm so out of touch I'd prefer an in-dash CD player and my Music Collection hard-drive in my E82 to anything BMW produces today.

Since you brought up Apple—I started with an Apple IIe and have had nearly every form of MacIntosh ever made including the first one which was the third sold in my hometown. Same goes for nearly every iPhone. It wasn't until Apple started leaving the optical drives off their MacBooks that I really knew the end was near but, prior to that they made it impossible to run their own external optical drive on any MacBook that had an internal optical drive. Now that I'm forced to own a MacBook Pro without the internal optical drive, all of a sudden that old external drive works again. But then I remember when floppy drives first got left off Macs, followed by serial ports, and now we have laptops without original USB ports.

Us old-dogs can adapt. But a car is for driving. What's next? No window switches? We've been hearing about too many buttons since the advent of iDrive.0 with the haptic 8-point controller. How well did that work? We laughed when BMW told us the "i" stood for "intuitive". Anyone ever see pictures of van Hooydonk actually driving, much less enjoying a BMW on a road other than the Autobahn?

Remember, multi-tasking on my phone is a separate activity from driving my car. And it should be for everyone.

I’m 53 years old. All I’m saying is there’s a whole bunch of new technology that I actually embrace and like. Believe me there’s much of that I don’t like. What I do like is Apple CarPlay, mostly because of WAZE that I use for countermeasures.

I know what hi-fi is :-) and my MacBook Pro doesn’t have a hard drive and I hate that. :-)