[kaishang]

If you go on to the general BMW forum most of the posts are from North Americans and opinions of iDrive/Nav seem to range from "nice, but expensive" to "my Garmin works better when I need it".

On this UK thread, iDrive/Nav seems more like a must-have with people rejecting used cars that don't have it.... even if they could buy a 6-cylinder instead of 4-cylinder car for the same price.

[BanziBarn]

There is no doubt that a TomTom is better than the built in Satnav.

However, the Idrive is so much more than just satnav and as somenoe who loves gadgets there is no way I'd be without it!

[toxicnerve]

I don't really get where all the bad sentiment surrounding the iDrive routing comes from.

I've never had a problem with it, either in the UK or in France, where it saw me through a 2,000 mile round trip last summer. It got me to every one of my destinations with no fuss.

However, I do have the newer "CIC" system...which may be better than the older generation?

[Gazi]

I almost left it out...as most people were telling me it is just a sat nav. I would have spec it anyway as I think in a few years time everyone would be looking for a car with sat nav (or idrive)... but after hearing about the safety features with the BMW assist and telematic I know i definitely made the right decision!

[BarrySt]

Recently bought a new 330d with the BMW professional media package so it has all the bells & whistles and apart from the Nav which works well the rest seems utter garbage and waste of time:

- It has internet capability but restricted so that only google search works (in other countries I think they get more)
- There is some sort of concierge service where you can phone a call centre and get address/directions sent to the Nav: Tried this but could not locate the "downloaded" directions
- Can use google maps on a PC to plan a route and then have that downloaded to the car nav - what's the point when the car has nav built in anyway?
- The split screen view selection seems to randomly not have some options that I've seen before
- The iPod connection works OK but you can not download the contents to the car from an iPod, just a memory stick.
- The gracenote music database is not up to date to recognise recent album ID's - and can not be updated by the useless cars internet connection. And no album artwork is shown unlike the iPod.
- the office connection is only for Blackberry and no iPod4 phone cradle even yet.
- bluetooth does seem to work at least for voice - yipee but hardly state of the art
- And the sound quality is quite poor despite the 400-pound BMW business speaker upgrade option!

I could go on and on - I have a couple of months familiarity now and still can't find anything more than basic nav and music to be of use.

Barry

[doughboy]

Its the seemless integration and the fact you can operate and set everything form the idrive controller and see the results on a proper screen is the biggest benefit, without it you are left to access a greatly reduced set of options with dozens of differing stalk presses and twiddles, all in secret code, and try to peer at settings in a tiny little orange LCD row on the radio. Agree the nav might not be as good as the very latest tom tom etc, (it does have the clearest and best graphical display though) Tom Toms seem to use some sort of 1980's vector graphics on their puny screens.

Any nav addresses / contacts sent to the car, either from google or BMW assist thingy, pop up as a 'message' symbol on the status bar. You access them in 'messages' where you read all your phone text messages etc.

The download to USB facility is meant for 'backing up' prior to a vehicle software update and will work to any device which can act as a 'mass storage device' (usb stick, usb drive, many Mp3/media players, cameras, etc) the fact you can't transfer to an ipod is a limitation of the ipod and not the car IMO.

Believe it or not, some people don't use an ipod

Agree the connection is slow, but its only a 2G GPRS link, about time they changed that I think.


Newer vehicles do have album artc. TBH I listen to R4 so not too bothered!

[BarrySt]

Originally Posted by doughboy

Its the seemless integration and the fact you can operate and set everything form the idrive controller and see the results on a proper screen is the biggest benefit, without it you are left to access a greatly reduced set of options with dozens of differing stalk presses and twiddles, all in secret code, and try to peer at settings in a tiny little orange LCD row on the radio. Agree the nav might not be as good as the very latest tom tom etc, (it does have the clearest and best graphical display though) Tom Toms seem to use some sort of 1980's vector graphics on their puny screens.

Any nav addresses / contacts sent to the car, either from google or BMW assist thingy, pop up as a 'message' symbol on the status bar. You access them in 'messages' where you read all your phone text messages etc.

The download to USB facility is for 'backing up' prior to a vehicle software update, not for transfering between device really. Why would you want to transfer from car to ipod??

Agree the connection is slow, but its only a 2G GPRS link, about time they changed that I think.


Newer vehicles do have album artc. TBH I listen to R4 so not too bothered!

Thanks - the BMW assist call centre guy could not correctly tell me where to look for the downloaded nav - and I could not see it anywhere - but I think I did at a later date find it in messages as you say - not obvious to me and not explained anywhere

I do not want to download music from car to iPod - the other way round - from my music collection on iPod to the car: That's impossible unless a memory stick is used. And album art is not shown for music held on the car HD drive or playing on CD. Just when an iPod is connected. I have the very latest car version, Oct build.

[225_AB]

my ipod downloads to car fine.

[225_AB]

"Can use google maps on a PC to plan a route and then have that downloaded to the car nav - what's the point when the car has nav built in anyway"

I use this all the time as it is easier on a pc and I can often be using pc for searching for things at the destination.

Overall I love it but agree that it does have limitations, but then what system doesnt.

[kdiz]

Originally Posted by doc_ab

"Can use google maps on a PC to plan a route and then have that downloaded to the car nav - what's the point when the car has nav built in anyway"

I use this all the time as it is easier on a pc and I can often be using pc for searching for things at the destination.

Overall I love it but agree that it does have limitations, but then what system doesnt.

Can it do that on the standard iDrive? Thats really good, I like if you want to drive a set route or a quick blast down random roads for fun and force it to take you down them rather than guiding you round them.

[sattapaal]

i was thinking of buying the iDrive dashboard, and just sticking my tomtom in the little satnav area.....they go for around £250.

[doughboy]

Originally Posted by BarrySt

I do not want to download music from car to iPod - the other way round - from my music collection on iPod to the car: That's impossible unless a memory stick is used. And album art is not shown for music held on the car HD drive or playing on CD. Just when an iPod is connected. I have the very latest car version, Oct build.

You don't download to the car anyway, there's no point. the transfer is so slow, you can't control the folder / file structure and you only have 12GB to use on the car.

with Ipods the data is left on the device and the car reads it as it plays it, but it doesn't need to 'save' in on the car HDD.

I use a 64GB stick, but you don't want to download it to the car, just play it from the device itself IMO.

[225_AB]

Originally Posted by kdiz

Can it do that on the standard iDrive? Thats really good, I like if you want to drive a set route or a quick blast down random roads for fun and force it to take you down them rather than guiding you round them.

No sorry misled you. It cannot download the route only the destination which is a bit of a pain I agree. It could and should be miles better but as someone said earlier I love gadgets.

Whilst I was in France I called up the information centre via the idrive and spoke to an operator who sent me info on the nearest go kart circuit which was cool.

[edowen]

- There is some sort of concierge service where you can phone a call centre and get address/directions sent to the Nav: Tried this but could not locate the "downloaded" directions RTFM: Main menui, BMW Services, Messages.
- Can use google maps on a PC to plan a route and then have that downloaded to the car nav - what's the point when the car has nav built in anyway? RTFM again: Find an address on google, right click on the pin, "send to car. Massivly useful, quick and easy. Find as per instruction 1.
- The split screen view selection seems to randomly not have some options that I've seen before. Dont understand the comment.
- The iPod connection works OK but you can not download the contents to the car from an iPod, just a memory stick. Blame Apple for using a proprietary system, not BMW.

[BarrySt]

Originally Posted by edowen

- There is some sort of concierge service where you can phone a call centre and get address/directions sent to the Nav: Tried this but could not locate the "downloaded" directions RTFM: Main menui, BMW Services, Messages.
- Can use google maps on a PC to plan a route and then have that downloaded to the car nav - what's the point when the car has nav built in anyway? RTFM again: Find an address on google, right click on the pin, "send to car. Massivly useful, quick and easy. Find as per instruction 1.
- The split screen view selection seems to randomly not have some options that I've seen before. Dont understand the comment.
- The iPod connection works OK but you can not download the contents to the car from an iPod, just a memory stick. Blame Apple for using a proprietary system, not BMW.

Thanks for comments - Yes, can see the in-car google search could be v.useful at times. I'm most upset about the crippled internet access for anything else though, it seems criminal to have internet access but not be able to use it! Incidentally, I'm an avid manual reader but would hope to be able to locate most obvious functions without looking-up, especially whilst driving.

[edowen]

PS - I am not talking about Google in the car 0 I am talking about at work or in the house. Send to car....

[dxb335d]

An expensive looking car needs an expensive looking dash. Without the double hump
it looks bare.

When I purchase another I won't even consider ones without it!

[Dr G13]

I was very close to buying mine without pro nav, the car was a grand or two cheaper than the one i ended up buying and had less miles, but i think a car like this needs the pro nav if you want to sell it on with ease.

Don't regret my choice one bit, even though my car only has the 2007 idrive/pro nav, I love it, ok I don't really ever use the nav itself as I mostly know where i'm going but the other features are great, audio features, trip comp etc all something I now could not live without in the future on anything smaller than the idrive screen.

Planning my next new car soon and already basically just adding around 2k to whatever the list price of the cars i'm looking at, imo it's a must have on any car over £25k new.

[225_AB]

As I said earlier I downloaded all my music from iPod to my car via the aux socket in the glovebox. Couldn't get my iPhone to do it but iPod was fine.


QUOTE=edowen;8736332]- There is some sort of concierge service where you can phone a call centre and get address/directions sent to the Nav: Tried this but could not locate the "downloaded" directions RTFM: Main menui, BMW Services, Messages.
- Can use google maps on a PC to plan a route and then have that downloaded to the car nav - what's the point when the car has nav built in anyway? RTFM again: Find an address on google, right click on the pin, "send to car. Massivly useful, quick and easy. Find as per instruction 1.
- The split screen view selection seems to randomly not have some options that I've seen before. Dont understand the comment.
- The iPod connection works OK but you can not download the contents to the car from an iPod, just a memory stick. Blame Apple for using a proprietary system, not BMW.[/QUOTE]

[chris330D]

Got my car in Spetember 2010 with the media pack and I am really pleased. To the OP, not sure what your problem is regarding album art. I sue an old iPOD through the USB connection and any album art on the iPOD shows on the screen. The split screen function works well and gives great combinations. The traffic info is good as well and works well on the motorway. Use BMW connected drive to plan routes and then download to the car, again a good function. The reason for using this and google maps is you can do this beforehand in your office/home and send to the car and when you get to the car it is there, no faffing with the NAV when you want to go.

[F31-340i]

Originally Posted by toxicnerve

I don't really get where all the bad sentiment surrounding the iDrive routing comes from?

It usually comes from people without it.......or journalists

[toxicnerve]

///ajd

Quite possibly. I appreciate that it's an expensive option (circa £2,000 for the pro nav/media IIRC) but it does add quite a lot of functionality. The way it integrates all your media/service menus etc is great.

And the nav itself is pretty good, it does the job for me. Ok it doesn't do 7-character postcodes, which is fucking retarded for a £2,000 option, however...you enter the first few characters and it will have it narrowed down to a handful ot streets.

If you don't know which of those streets your aiming for then I would say you probably shouldn't be driving!