BMW and M Power Owners

[Ahleckz]

My 320i Tourer M Sport in Portimao Blue will be with me on the 1st March. They've advised there's no touchscreen but a £500 discount in lieu of it. No idea if the touchscreen is necessary, but I don't have one in my current car (GLC) so happy enough with the discount.

Order went in mid October, and arrived at the dealer yesterday.

 

[dlockers]

My 320i Tourer M Sport in Portimao Blue will be with me on the 1st March. They've advised there's no touchscreen but a £500 discount in lieu of it. No idea if the touchscreen is necessary, but I don't have one in my current car (GLC) so happy enough with the discount.

Order went in mid October, and arrived at the dealer yesterday.

It means my concern about Android Auto/Car Play ditching their 'non-touchscreen' input method (critical to my Merc) goes away

 

[rG-tom]

My 320i Tourer M Sport in Portimao Blue will be with me on the 1st March. They've advised there's no touchscreen but a £500 discount in lieu of it. No idea if the touchscreen is necessary, but I don't have one in my current car (GLC) so happy enough with the discount.

Order went in mid October, and arrived at the dealer yesterday.

Fox swears blindly that touchscreen is not needed, where as i personally use it all the time, particularly in android auto / car play, or if i want to just pan the map a bit to see a bit more. It would annoy me a lot, but what can you do?

 

[Housey]

I’m with Fox I don’t like fingerprint hell aka touchscreen. The swirl button works fine for me.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I'd happily take the 500 quid. Half the time I forget I can even use the touch screen in a G Series BMW, that's how unimportant it is to general operation of the system. But I rarely use Android Auto either and only tend to do so in situations whereby the standard navigation/entertainment/traffic isn't up to much which of course in a G20 with built in Spotify isn't a concern. Perhaps if I used Android Auto more often I'd come to prefer a touch screen. I am tempted to get a Carplay upgrade done in the MINI because the lack of usable traffic information on the car drives me mad, so maybe I'll be back in a few months moaning about not having a touchscreen.

I'm sure we'll all have no choice but to use a touch screen in 10 years time so I'm enjoying not having to for as long as possible. I've never driven a car where the touchscreen has enhanced the usability of the infotainment system.

 

[ShivP]

The positioning of the BMW screens doesn't lend itself to touchscreen use, something like the mk7 golf where the screen is lower does work OK as touchscreen. However, Android auto is crap without touchscreen

 

[Murf]

I used Apple Car Play in my F36, and the iDrive controller is the perfect interface for it. I honestly can't understand the push to touch in cars. Removing physical controls for climate etc, and forcing people to lean and touch a screen rather than use an iDrive controller seems like a step back in both usability and safety.

 

[MissChief]

I used Apple Car Play in my F36, and the iDrive controller is the perfect interface for it. I honestly can't understand the push to touch in cars. Removing physical controls for climate etc, and forcing people to lean and touch a screen rather than use an iDrive controller seems like a step back in both usability and safety.

100% agreed. A touch screen needs you to look at it, buttons and dials can be discerned and adjusted by feel alone without taking your eyes off the road.

 

[rG-tom]

I used Apple Car Play in my F36, and the iDrive controller is the perfect interface for it. I honestly can't understand the push to touch in cars. Removing physical controls for climate etc, and forcing people to lean and touch a screen rather than use an iDrive controller seems like a step back in both usability and safety.

Spotify in carplay for example you have to turn the dial about 20 times just to move across the screen vs just tapping. I absolutely don't advocate for removing the physical controls, i see it as just complimentary. Moving a map around even in default nav is so much quicker and easier by just panning a bit and then hitting re-centre than figuring how to turn it into pan instead of zoom mode.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Spotify in carplay for example you have to turn the dial about 20 times just to move across the screen vs just tapping

A non issue with idrive 7 as I can't think of a single reason to use Spotify on Carplay when the built-in app is so good.

How often do you find yourself moving the map around anyway? Almost never in my experience. If I want to have a good look around a map I've pulled over and parked and use my phone (which ironically in an Android auto setup you can't do as it seems to lock out google maps on the handset ).

 

[Amos91]

The touchscreen deletion also disables reverse assistant which can actually prove to be useful on occassions

 

[OllyM]

The main problem with the touch screen deletion is the lack of keyboard in my opinion - entering a destination via the touch screen keyboard is so much quicker than using the iDrive controller.

 

[Amos91]

The main problem with the touch screen deletion is the lack of keyboard in my opinion - entering a destination via the touch screen keyboard is so much quicker than using the iDrive controller.

You can draw on top of the controller and watch the car get it horrifically wrong

 

[[TW]Fox]

The main problem with the touch screen deletion is the lack of keyboard in my opinion - entering a destination via the touch screen keyboard is so much quicker than using the iDrive controller.

Just use the BMW connected app on your phone? It takes seconds and means there is no real need to ever use manual destination input.

You can type far quicker on your phone than you can on a touch screen in the car.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

So old fashioned using letters. Spoken words ie where it’s at.

Alexa…

 

[[TW]Fox]

So old fashioned using letters. Spoken words ie where it’s at

You can do that too. Another reason not to use a touch screen

 

[OllyM]

Just use the BMW connected app on your phone? It takes seconds and means there is no real need to ever use manual destination input.

You can type far quicker on your phone than you can on a touch screen in the car.

That takes longer, doesn't work if your driver profile isn't the one that's active - it's a faff. The BMW app doesn't seem to give the same search results either.

 

[mattyg]

A non issue with idrive 7 as I can't think of a single reason to use Spotify on Carplay when the built-in app is so good.

.

Plus it uses the Cars data and doesn't drain your battery.. Spotify and waze and my charger barely keeps up... The wireless one can't for sure and the phone gets red hot.

 

[Ahleckz]

Good to see most don’t see the touchscreen as being particularly useful.

Oh there’s no wireless charging either! I think I have the poverty spec of the poverty spec! At least it ain’t white…

 

[Maccy]

I must be in the minority as I use the touchscreen quite a bit.