BMW announces the arrival of the new generation of its iDrive system

Infotainment systems have evolved enormously since the first ones reached the market, always in step with new screens that, through digitalisation, keep getting bigger. These systems have gone from offering basic information or functions to being practically tablets fitted to the dashboards of our vehicles, offering occupants a multitude of possibilities. An example of this is BMW with its iDrive system, which is about to reach the market in its latest generation.

“Today, BMW iDrive is more than an infotainment system: it is a digital world of experiences that allows the driver and the car to interact and exchange information.” There is no better definition than the one given by Stephan Durach, Senior Vice President of Connected Company and Technical Development Operations at BMW, which can be applied both to the iDrive system and to any infotainment system we currently find.

With the new curved display featured in BMW models, the new generation of the iDrive system offers a permanently displayed home screen user interface with graphics, although, logically, there will also be other fully configurable graphics. Broadly speaking, the new iDrive offers a concept they call “flat menu“, in which all relevant functions and information are shown on a single level so that there is no need to access a submenu. Thus we will find widgets arranged vertically, which can be selected and configured individually.

The new iDrive system also features the “QuickSelect” function, with which we can directly select entertainment programmes, contact lists, vehicle settings, start interaction with the intelligent personal assistant and activate other menu options with a single touch, so that, once the settings we need have been chosen, we can return to the home screen by simply pressing the icon at the bottom edge of the screen.

With all this, BMW has sought to draw inspiration from today’s electronic devices, thus making operation easier for any type of person, since thanks to this flat structure selecting functions and settings is much faster and simpler, all with a layout designed to improve driver concentration by presenting information in the right place and at the right moment.

The great advantage of the new iDrive system is that it can be used with the BMW ID8 operating system, since it is an optimisation of it, which is fitted to current models equipped with the curved display and is based on the latest generation main infotainment units, which are also responsible for graphics processing. The BMW ID8.5 operating system will be introduced from July 2023 (on the BMW 7 Series, BMW iX, BMW i4, BMW X5, BMW X6, BMW X7 and BMW XM, as well as other models later) and will remain based on Linux, and it can also be combined with the larger curved display.

Finally, taking advantage of the BMW ID9 operating system, the brand is developing a new digital experience based on the Android Open Source Project software specifically for the curved display, which will arrive from November 2023 (on the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer and BMW X1, together with other models later).