# BMW iX: 10 Things You Need to Know



## JeanLloyd (Mar 19, 2021)

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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

Here's an "eco-friendly" idea for BMW.... 

Sell driver's side floor mats separately, instead of having to buy all four when only the driver's mat is worn out. Or better yet, buy their floor mats from the same supplier that made the ones in Frau Putzer's old Honda Accord. At 100k miles, they were just starting to show wear.


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## Zeichen311 (Mar 31, 2011)

That center console is an ergonomic nightmare that extrapolates the weaknesses of the G30/G20 controls to their (il)logical conclusion. Has BMW fired or retired every interior designer and engineer who understood the importance of differentiating controls by touch and memory, without looking?


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## kspenser (Sep 18, 2019)

Zeichen311 said:


> That center console is an ergonomic nightmare that extrapolates the weaknesses of the G30/G20 controls to their (il)logical conclusion. Has BMW fired or retired every interior designer and engineer who understood the importance of differentiating controls by touch and memory, without looking?


This is hilarious...the center console design is the only one left in the industry that actually takes ergonomics into account...there are literally only 4 different corner buttons around the iDrive control dial/wheel...that's too hard for you to remember which button is which?? Try driving an Audi with dual-touch screens so you have to reach and take your eyes off the road EVERY TIME you need to do something...or in the A4/Q3/Q5 (new model year) where there is 1 big touch screen, no dial or wheel to navigate and nothing on the steering wheel either to move around with...or Volvo-same thing-one touch screen, no screen control without having to reach or look away from the road...Mercedes had to redesign their entire center stack because they added twice the buttons with a touch pad and dial/wheel underneath and there was TOO MUCH input...now it's a touchpad like Lexus-which is also terrible. Even in the new S-Class and upcoming C-Class the redesigned center screen which I think it is beautifully angled, placed, and thought out, still has a touchpad to navigate.


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## Zeichen311 (Mar 31, 2011)

kspenser said:


> This is hilarious...the center console design is *the only one left in the industry that actually takes ergonomics into account*...there are literally only 4 different corner buttons around the iDrive control dial/wheel...that's too hard for you to remember which button is which??


Which is exactly why it's so maddening to see them drifting down to the level of the competition. The number of controls is not the problem. Look again at that panel: It's all one smooth surface, with no cues to locate the "buttons" blindly. This is new. I've spent lots of time in a wide variety of BMWs of the past 20 years, including multiple generations of iDrive. None of them had this failing. Seamless, undifferentiated control surfaces have their place but the interior of a non-autonomous vehicle isn't one of them, IMO.

Now, if the new "haptic" controls are built to provide some feedback upon contact (_i.e._, a light touch) but require a substantial push to activate...well, that might mitigate the problem a bit. It would also be hugely over-engineered. It's worth noting that BMW tried haptic feedback before, in the earliest iDrive generation(s)--and ditched it as problematic and failure-prone.


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## Zeichen311 (Mar 31, 2011)

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## Eli Madero (Feb 9, 2021)

Zeichen311 said:


> Which is exactly why it's so maddening to see them drifting down to the level of the competition. The number of controls is not the problem. Look again at that panel: It's all one smooth surface, with no cues to locate the "buttons" blindly. This is new. I've spent lots of time in a wide variety of BMWs of the past 20 years, including multiple generations of iDrive. None of them had this failing. Seamless, undifferentiated control surfaces have their place but the interior of a non-autonomous vehicle isn't one of them, IMO.
> 
> Now, if the new "haptic" controls are built to provide some feedback upon contact (_i.e._, a light touch) but require a substantial push to activate...well, that might mitigate the problem a bit. It would also be hugely over-engineered. It's worth noting that BMW tried haptic feedback before, in the earliest iDrive generation(s)--and ditched it as problematic and failure-prone.


I get what you're saying but when you look deeper into the iDrive 8 system it might make more sense. At least it does to me. They're purposely trying to avoid more buttons and putting more emphasis on driver interaction with the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant. The interaction with that and how the system learns the drivers preferences and stores them in the BMW Cloud with the BMW ID, the engineers are trying a system that should minimize the need to make adjustments at all. Heavy reliance on AI with the system.


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## Gorczany (Aug 9, 2021)

Honestly, I fell in love with an i3 for example the minute I first drove it and this is when my heart turned towards everything bmw i. Although the design of iX is being hated like it's been designed by hitler, I think the back looks definitely nice and in teh real world it has a chance of looking better than on pics...


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## twka90 (Aug 2, 2021)

Eli Madero said:


> I get what you're saying but when you look deeper into the iDrive 8 system it might make more sense. At least it does to me. They're purposely trying to avoid more buttons and putting more emphasis on driver interaction with the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant. The interaction with that and how the system learns the drivers preferences and stores them in the BMW Cloud with the BMW ID, the engineers are trying a system that should minimize the need to make adjustments at all. Heavy reliance on AI with the system.


Are automakers able to write software now? Or make non-laggy touchscreens?  They weren't particularly good before at either. 

I can tell you with certainty why all the physical buttons are gone (my tongue is only slightly in cheek here). I disassembled the central console on an Infiniti QX60 couple months ago to hack in an after-market CarPlay board. That car has a few dozen buttons in the center stack. Behind the shiny surface it's ALL WIRES, ALL THE WAY DOWN. Which makes sense, if you consider the fact that each button requires two wires to work, and all the connectors have to be sturdy enough to survive ten years worth of road vibration. (For reference, the hardest part of the whole job was fishing new wires through the existing mess). If you eliminate all the buttons, you also eliminate all the associated wiring harnesses, which makes the thing cheaper and easier to build.


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## mylincolnportal (Sep 25, 2021)

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