Update: 2009 BMW 3 Series WILL NOT get the new iDrive system

Shucks!

now they figure out that nobody likes the overcomplicated control system anymore. good riddance

Just give me a few multi-function buttons please. You can keep the Idriveunuts controller.

That's strange that the picture shows it in a 3 interior, not anything resembling a 5 interior. I guess the 5 interior is dramatically changing too.

go ahead and de-boost me, but I love the current (most up-to-date) version of i-Drive. You can do nearly anything in the car's entertainment or nav functions without taking your eyes off the road. Maybe I'm nuts, but I found it very intuitive to use also.

Exactly. Only grandfathers complain about idrive.

There is a slightly larger learning curve when first using iDrive as opposed to buttons, which frustrates many people who do not want to learn a new system. Many simply prefer pressing ONE button for a function, instead of rotating a wheel back and forth and clicking 5 times for the same function.

Yes, it is nitpicky, but also understandable.

But when you get used to idrive, life without it seems difficult. Especially ones with a million buttons on the dash!

With each new iteration of iDrive, BMW answers the question "How many times can you polish a turd?"

Well you can blame Microsoft for the poor usability.
It made it.

> Well you can blame Microsoft for the poor [iDrive]
> usability. It made it.

Really? My understanding is that it's a BMW specification, and BMW design, and that the hardware and operating system are Microsoft. Based on this, it's like blaming Microsoft for every bad app that runs on a Windows PC.

Most, but not all, of the people who do not like the current version of iDrive are people who do not own a car with it. They base their judgements on one or two hours of exposure to it. We found after some time, that iDrive is very powerful. Sure, Acura's are easier to use, but they don't have half of the functionality as a BMW with iDrive.

I would say the majority of people who bash iDrive hacve never even used it, they just read an article in a magazine from some journalist that used for an hour and concluded it was crap. :/ There's a learning curve with iDrive and most people just aren't bothered putting in the time to do that. The majority of people who have put in the time to learn the system really enjoy using it and would never go back to a dash clustered with buttons.

In the mid 1980s, musical instrument synthesizer manufacturers first started deploting the iDrive approach to their user-interface, and that is relatively few controls, a large LCD screen, and a menu-driven, parameter-value entry system. They did it for exactly the same reasons as BMW: To reduce control clutter, to increase functionality, and to lower costs.

It didn't take long for manufacturers to detect a trend: Most of these synths that came in for repairs had the factory settings! That was because they had become too complicated to program for most musicians. But the biggest downfall, was that musicians used to use all those knobs and sliders on the old synths for spontaneous, real-time control inputs, and the new approach really sucked for that.

Fast forward a few decades to iDrive. A big complaint that users have of iDrive, even the several-generations-later, dummied-down-for-our-simpleton-drivers version, is that it is too complex to learn for most people. And yes, I agree with some posters, that there are people on this forum who are adept at it. But by comparison, there are frightfully few people who own computers, and who can set them up and maintain them themselves. Most computer users feel computers are complex.

But the bigger issue, is that iDrive, like the synthesizers from 20 years back that first ventured in this direction, is a user-interface into a rich "programming" environment, but which is very suboptimal for real-time user-control of a device. Put into laymens' terms, it sucks at doing stuff in real-time. For example, in the old days, if you wanted to turn down the bass on the radio (not invoke a specific equalization preset), you would turn a knob counter-clockwise. This was true even if you had just finished changing the air-conditioner fan speed. With iDrive, you have to navigate several menus to get out of the climate control "page" and into the radio "page", select the "bass" paramter, then decrease its value.

Some will argue "no big deal." And for you, it's not! But it *is* a big deal for people who think this is complex. It's also a big deal if you're a MMI (Man-Machine Interface) specialist, who can articulate with great detail and specificity, why the iDrive approach, and iDrive specifically, is suboptimal for real-time user-control of motor vehicle functions.

please use TOUCH SCREEN instead. Hopefully they didn't sign 20yr contract to Microsoft.

I hate touch screens compared to systems that use a mouse like controller. Touch screens are a pain in the ass & they get dirty, I've got one in my Jeep & I hate it. I can't tell you how much I prefer the i-drive in my Bimmer, it was way easier to learn how to use, it has a better interface, & it's basically like scrolling through an i-pod.

Now granted Chrysler/Jeep has about the worst, or at least one of the most complicated Nav systems in the industry, I've spent plenty of time in my buddies Acura TL & while it's Navi's way easier to use than the Jeeps, it's still less convenient than the i-drive.

:-(