After the announcement made at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas last January, BMW today presented the details of the new generation of the iDrive interface which - said Frank Weber, board member of the Munich Group with responsibility for research and development - "brings driver-vehicle interaction into an even more digital and intelligent future."
Thanks to the latest release of the Operating System 8 developed directly by BMW and to the increasingly extensive application of Artificial Intelligence (AI), iDrive has the opportunity to actively engage in the relationship with the driver and passengers, carrying out tasks as a digital, intelligent and proactive partner in every situation.
The new iDrive will be gradually introduced in all BMW model families, and will debut later this year in the brand new iX electric sav before being also present in the future i4 sedan.
The ability of the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant to adapt to the driver's needs and habits, as well as to the momentary situation, makes it - more than ever - the central operational element of man-machine interaction.
The system is designed to work with natural language alongside that via tactile control on the curved BMW display.
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Bmw iDrive, the key to the future of car travel
But that's not all: iDrive includes the Great Entrance Moments function, which brings emotion to the relationship between driver and car when getting on board.
Entry into the vehicle is accompanied by a carefully choreographed sequence.
Attention to the individual, this, which also continues during the journey, taking advantage of the new My Modes that interact with various functions to create special moments through the combination of the vehicle's operating characteristics and the adaptation of the interior environment.
The iDrive system recognizes repetitive situations, learns from them and makes suggestions on how to activate the functions accordingly.
In addition, the remote software update allows BMW cars to benefit from regular improvements over the air, to integrate additional functions and to always stay up to date.
The full demonstration of the advantages offered by iDrive will come aboard the new fully electric BMW iX sports activity vehicle, which - reminiscent of the Munich manufacturer - has been developed from the inside out.
The wishes and needs of those traveling aboard the iX are at the heart of the way this revolutionary new model has been designed, transporting the advances made in digital design to the human-machine interface to the last pixel.
A perfect example of this is the BMW Curved Display, which brings together the information screen and the control screen, offering a futuristic interpretation of the traditional attention to the driver in previous generation BMW models.
In this ergonomic solution, the 12.3-inch and 14.9-inch display areas merge into one unit.
And the distribution of data, alerts and other communications is done on the 'Act, Detect and Inform' principle which ensures that information is distributed clearly and only if relevant to the driving situation.
