New iDrive - huh?
 

Unofficial poll of my friends as well as the lady I carpool with indicate I'm not alone on this one -

Why does turning the iDrive knob clockwise zoom out, wouldn't it be more intuitive to zoom in? Even my German wife agrees... :dunno:

I'm overdue for a rant and thought I'd choose some low hanging fruit.

Tim

Turn to the right (clockwise) = 400ft > 800ft > etc. The numbers get bigger. Maybe.
:dunno:

Annoyed me the first time but I got used to it.

Correct. For all the effort BMW claims to put into the design of their controls and i-drive, it is amazing the obvious things they miss. Like, why does pressing the "UP" arrow on the steering wheel moves you to a lower channel number with Sirius, while pressing the "DOWN" arrow moves to a higher channel number?

It's like they are sometimes intentionally trying to frustrate the driver.

I think in this case they are relating the steering wheel button selection with the selection on the screen. You press down on the button, and it moves down from channel 1 to channel 2 on the screen. I prefer it this way, although I'll never get used to it because they are backwards from my 5-series... But I still like the new way.

Could be, but I mostly use the steering wheel buttons with Sirius when I don't have the channels on the screen. When I have the channel screen up, I typically use the idrive control. So at least for the way I use it, it seems a bit odd... although I do see the logic of your explanation.

There is one thing I will give BMW some credit for, although I doubt they did it on purpose... for many things there are 2 or 3 different ways to do the operation, so you can choose the way you prefer.

One thing for sure, IMHO, the new iDrive is vastly superior to the old system, both in design and speed. The resolution of the screen when you get the nav is incredible.

100% in agreement

Yeah it sure is. Would be nice to have some sort of upgrade available for older iDrives.

Honestly, didn't even cross my mind. Played with it and thought - "ok, that's how it works".

annoys me but I got used to it... still annoys me.

I understand the button logic, although I think the right solution would have been to resort the list on the screen. Zoom - counterintuitive!!! I always get it wrong. At list it is quick to fix as the hdd-based nav is very fast.
I don;t have a benefit of the old i-Drive bootcamp, but the new one is still too complicated and requires too much attention from the driver. My old acura had the same type of a selector and it was much more intuitive. Kudos for the graphics quality and speed! Much better than what I expected.

Coming from a Lexus, with touch screen and very intuitive, this Nav is not very easy to use. I am quite disappointed.

I tried to simply do a search for a Verizon store near me and got frustrated and just used my phone.

Maybe a firmware update will come, but I doubt it.

Touch pad instead of iDrive controller
 

I still can't get used to the zoom, its totally counter intuitive. Also wouldn't a touchpad mouse with a scroll area on the side by much easier than the iDrive controller. Most of us a used to that using a computer.

I am also finding the voice command difficult to use. There need to be some hot / universal commands like address and then saying the address or skip to "next track" for the music etc. Everything is based on the context of the menu and the voice recognition is poor IMO. Needs to have a training feature to train it to your voice pattern.

My 2 cents worth of rants.

I totally agree, frustrates the hell out of me every time I use it. I wish there was a way to customize the controls like in a game console ;) Can't expect Germans to do high tech well, machining and mechanical tech., that's different ;)

- mouse controller would be the same attention needed as a touch-screen which would take slightly more coordination when you should be concentrated on the road. This is why they lock you out of touch-screens when moving. I like how it's done now actually.

- voice command is inferior to even Mercedes COMAND... that thing is very good when it comes to recognizing and inputting via voice. They actually show on screen the words available to you for that particular screen.

- the search continues to frustrate me. I couldn't even get it to locate an Autozone near where I was... wtf category is it? Not under car services, not under businesses... :dunno: I really hate the category thing.

Just leave categories to "All" (default) and do a name search? That's what I do if I know the name of the place I'm searching for.

I just noticed the zoom thing the other day. Totally agree.

In the LR I can touch or scroll the screen w/my finger to see what's off screen. Really like that.

Still annoying me!

If you're talking about the new idrive, I don't have that. ;) Don't think there's an "all" in the old one. Desperately needs one. Good to know they've fixed it though.

I find the new iDrive amazing compared to the older version. However, I don't get a couple of things that maybe someone can shed some light on.

• All my contacts are being inverted to last name/first name. Is there someway to reverse this. Are you guys seeing the same thing?
• We are suppose to be able to enter the entire address in a single voice command. Can't get that to work.
• On the old iDrive, I could say "call John Smith from anywhere in the system, and it dialed it after confirmation. Now it has no idea of what I'm saying unless I first say phonebook, and then call John Smith.
• When using voice commands, I can't get out of certain sections no matter what I say. Even the words "back" or "entertainment" aren't recognized. This seems to depend on where you are in the system.

I also have tried it and cannot get it to work. From the little that is documented, you need to say the address in town, street, numeric address order, but as much as I have tried, it has never worked.

Doh! I have the same issue in my '08 535. It really bugs me.
I love the new iDrive.

I wonder if the knob direction for zoom feels "right" to right hand drivers turning the knob with their left hand?

Well, as a passenger using my left hand for iDrive, it feels pretty natural.

I think it is more just that clockwise is normally how you screw something in, or make it move down, while counter-clockwise is how thing normally screw out, or up. I'm left-handed turning the know with my right hand and still feels backwards to me.

I got screwed up on the up and down shifting in manual mode and almost redlined the engine once. Since, I have given up trying to figure out why the designed everything to be opposite