Holy Crap Found Something
 

Yesterday while on the phone sitting in a parking spot I noticed some dust on my radio preset buttons (1-6 under the CD slot) and with my finger hovering over the button/touching the button without pressing it my iDrive screen popped up some tabs at the bottom of the screen (kind of like Ecxel with its worksheet tabs at the bottom of a spreadsheet view).

Then after a second of holding my finger there without pressing the button, the screen said I can program a phone contact or entertainment option. It was way cool, I now have the most commonly dialed 4 numbers and USB audio and only useful radio station in my area programmed. They are awesome shortcut keys for making common calls without using iDrive!

This may be old news, but not to this dummy!

I know what you mean. That is a cool feature. I have nav destinations set as well as frequently called phone numbers.

did not know...thank you sir!

you sure this wasn't in the other thread about cool features you may not have known about? ;)

But I agree, the touch-sensitive buttons on otherwise-ordinary-looking console buttons was a nice touch.

I heard about this but not quite sure what page in the owners manual to refer to for programming

You can program those for anything.
My list:
1- 89.5FM (cool seattle station)
2- Traffic radio (AM station)
3- Map hover (useful to see what's ahead)
4- Turn off/on display
5- Grey map (traffic view on/off). Also looks cool against the grey/black dashboard
6- Night mode (on/off)

1 - home address
2 - frequented 2nd address
3 - aux for ipod
rest are radio stations since sometimes they don't appear in the horizontal line for some reason

1 & 2 are more for traffic avoidance reasons. Saved me just 2 nights ago. Lifetime traffic is sweet... MB and many other brands only offer 6mo. subscription via XM satelite. Before you say it - who really wants to whip out their smartphone and punch in coords just for that?

Yeah, a weaker signal station does not appear in the list, You have to manually tune, which is why I have that one saved.

Are you saying I will have traffic information even after warranty expires?

P.S. I don't plan to renew the Sirius when it expires. Same old stuff. Expecting Sirius to go bankrupt soon.

Why number 3? The diamond button on the wheel changes radio input source (at least thats the way I have mine setup)

Just make sure you remember to wipe all of these saved info from your iDrive, should you sell you E70.

A friend of mine who recently purchased a used E70 from a dealer, found them programmed with NAV destinations (incl. their home address it seems) and phone numbers etc. that I'm sure you wouldn't want the next person buying your car to know. :)