The new iPhone 3G has cleared the way for many interesting application that will make us use our phone in different ways than before. Obviously, the iPhone became a more powerful tool since Apple decided to release their code to the developers’ world and therefore, we can take advantage of some amazing applications.

One of them that was recently released onto the iTunes store, it’s an application called Dynolicious.

What is Dynolicious and how does it work?

Dynolicious is car performance meter that is available for the iPhone and the iPod Touch as well. It uses the accelerometer built in to your device to sense the motion of your  vehicle and to measure the performance characteristiscs of your car.

Here are some things you can do with your iPhone and Dynolicious:

• 0-60 MPH
• Other Speed Tests (0-10 MPH through 0-100 MPH in 10MPH increments)
• Quarter Mile Elapsed Time
• Quarter Mile Trap Speed
• Elapsed Time and Trap Speed for standard intervals (60′, 330′, 1/8 Mi, 1000′)
• Lateral G’s (current and peak)
• Braking G’s (current and peak)
• Wheel Horsepower
• Estimated Engine Horsepower

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With hundreds of jaywalkers fined in just three weeks and tons of money to spend, the Dubai authorities are looking into reinventing the crosswalks.

In order to accomplish this, they turned to the latest technology available and of course, not the cheapest at all. As you can see in the photos below, some high end video projectors will  display an image of people crossing the street. Of course, the “imaginary people” are portrayed in red colors, to reinforce the stop light.

No idea how much such a system might cost, but I’m pretty sure it’s more expensive than the paint you see on the street

Josh, our dear editor here at BMWBlog, came up with an interesting article on his blog, rawautos.com, in which he talks about 10 fun cars to drive that will not break your bank nor suck up a lot of gas.

The interesting aspect comes from the fact that all these cars are priced below the $35,000 mark, so they are quite accessible to someone that is looking to waste invest money on cars. We don’t condone excessive spending, but we all know that we have our own needs when it comes to cars

So, we all know that Josh is quite a BMW nut, but in the same time, he is fair when it comes to car reviews and I know that he pretty much loves the Mustangs as well, which btw, didn’t make this top this time. Two BMWs managed to sneak into his top and as expected, one of them was the fairly new BMW 128i coupe that was released earlier this year.

I won’t reveal the other one and I will let you read his detailed and interesting article, he put a lot of work into it, so it’s worth giving it a few minutes of your time. Please feel free to comment here or on his blog if you disagree, agree or if he missed any other car that could have been in that top 10 best fun MPG cars under $35,000

10 Best Fun MPG Cars for Under $35,000

Gas here in North Carolina, at least at the beach, is well over 4.27 a gallon for premium. That sucks for a lot of people. I love sports cars, and I love to drive spirited at times. But these days if you drive too spirited you’re just hurting your wallet at the pump a few minutes later. So what do you do if you want something fun, sporty, luxurious, but still easy at the pump? Well, you could possibly try and buy one of the 10 cars I say you should buy. They are in no particular order, so just read the info that I have for you. I included only cars that could have options on them and still cost less than $35,000. As much as I would have loved to include my favorite 135i, it bases out at $34,900. Some people will buy the base model, but you still have to include the documentation fees along with taxes and tags that would put the car well over 35 grand…

Full Article Here

Hello guys,

as you might know, I am currently in Munich, and obviously I took the time to visit the BMW Welt and the BMW Museum. Thinking of you I took tons of pictures and of course you get only the best of them. They are all available in high resolution and if you need one or more of them in the original resolution feel free to write that in the comments, I will mail you the original as soon as possible. I will start in this article with the architecture of the BMW Welt and there will be articles of the cars in the BMW Welt and in the BMW Museum as well in the future. But now, finally, I begin with the picture. Enjoy!

BMW Welt exterieur architecture:

BMW four-cylinder and Museum shining in the glass of the BMW-Welt

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A few months back I posted an article about the E-Series code BMW’s, or as I titled it “Secret Code“. I hope it helped. But, now, as the new 7-Series BMW is upon us, we have a new coding system that will start to label all BMW’s present and future. It is now an F with two numbers after it, just as it was with the E code.

Yes, I know it can get quite confusing. But have no fear, Josh is here… I know, corny. But here are the new codes that you will see start popping up. Hopefully you can learn them and have them in your memory so that you can help others know.

F01-7-Series i

F02-7-Series Li

F03-7-Series Protection

F10-2010 5-Series Sedan (more…)

I have been meaning for a while to put together an article on what BMW is preparing for us next year. A while ago, more exactly in January this year, we published another roadmap for '08 and '09, but I think it's time to revise it a little bit, even though the previous roadmap proved to be quite accurate.

BMW 7 Series

It will be launched in the first quarter of 2009. The new 7 will be launched in its both version, F01 and F02 and one of the few options missing from the beginning will be the AWD.

BMW 3 Series

The BMW 3 Series sedan and wagon facelift will be released this fall as a MY09 model. As mentioned before, it will indeed get the new redesigned iDrive along with a few small but necessary exterior changes. The BMW 335d will be launched in the same time, as being the first 3 series diesel to be launched in the States. No news on the coupe or convertible models, but we do expect some slight changes next year. Stay tunned for that.

BMW Z4

The highly awaited and expected new BMW Z4 design will be launched in 2009 as well. We have just learned yesterday that the Z4 will stop its U.S production soon and as expected, the manufacturing process will move to Regensburg, Germany. Expect the Z4 to come in a single version(yes folks, no coupe or M models) and with a single choice when it comes to the roof: hardtop. Back in April, BMW was planning on having a soft top version as well and many bimmer fans were excited about the news, but unfortunately, the soft top version never made into production and most likely it was used as a testing mule against the hardtop model. 

BMW X1

It will be unveiled at the Paris Auto Show in October, but the secrecy around this new interesting model is fairly high, no clear spy shots and no other official information. 

BMW X5

The X5 diesel will make its debut along with the 335d and they will share the same engine. Expect some models to arrive in dealerships before October. The expected petrol engine refresh is in works as well. The BMW X5 3.0 liter twin-turbo will be featured in the 2009 models, but we just don't know YET if they will be launched later this year or sometimes in the second half of '09. We're working on that as well.

That's it for now, these dates are pretty much set in stone and accurate. Of course, there will most likely be some 2010 models released later next year, but we can't offer any exact dates nor information at this point(BMW 5 Series, PAS..etc..)

It was released earlier today that BMW is the United Kingdom's cleanest Premium Auto Maker. Premium is a key word here. But still, it wasn't Lexus, it wasn't Mercedes-Benz, it wasn't, okay, okay, you get the point… 

The study was done by an independent green company called Clean Green Cars. The study was done for all over the industry and labeled the BMW brand of cars the cleanest and the greenest of all premium cars sold on the U.K. BMW was found to have, from January until June of 2008, to have only produced an average of 161.64g/km. Lexus, owned by Hybrid toting Toyota, recorded 194.85g/km. Ouch! Supposedly the greenest automaker in the world is suddenly producing the least. Audi and Mercedes-Benz even did better with 177.36g/km and 192.85g/km. Jaguar went over the 200g/km mark and Porsche did an average of 275.64g/km. In all fairness, Porsche has the smallest line-up of cars and only makes sports cars. (more…)

I have always been fascinated with vintage advertisements and I have been an enthusiast collector of those old ads. I am also fascinated by the design quality and futuristic vision of older printed advertisements, ads that were created in an era where there is no internet and no online marketing campaigns.

As I have mentioned before many times, I am always impressed by BMW's marketing department and their vision in portraying their products in the best way possible, creating effective ad campaigns that draw attention. Just to refer to a recent marketing campaign launched by BMW in Moscow, Russia, Never Stand Still, you can clearly see the visionary ideas that are "cooked" inside the BMW headquarter in Munich. From my understanding, the BMW marketing campaigns are most of the time outsourced to ingenious marketing firms, while others are created by their own employees.

So, to get to the point, the other day while looking for some older BMW ads, I came across an amazing thread on Germancarzone.com. The topic was started by one of their long time members who goes by the screen name BMW Power. With his permission, we are going to show you some amazing design work that will impress even the non-BMW fanboys. While browsing through the same topic, I noticed even more ads posted by the guys at bmwe36blog.com, owned by Tony, one of our long time readers. With this ocassion, I would like to thank him also for the great reserach work in finding all those vintage printed ads. In our compilation below, we included some newer advertisements as well, to show the full picture here.

To conclude this short introduction, I hope you will enjoy them and if you have any more ads that we missed, hidden somewhere on your hard drive, please feel free to email them to us at

Don't forget to leave a comment here telling everyone which one is your favorite ad.

Continued

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The German magazine Auto Motor und Sport had an interview with BMW's Chief of Development, Herr Klaus Draeger. Here are some key points taken out of the interview:

• There will definitely be a hybrid version of the F01/F02 7 series- There won't be an electronic engine for the 7 series. According to Draegerelectronic cars are only useful for short distances like those driven within cities.He talks about a maximum of 150 kilometers per day.
• BMW is very happy with the sales-numbers of it's X-Cars.
• BMW won't build a supercar or a rival for the Audi R8. BMW concentrates on the strategy of reducing emissions and fuel consumptions and is not planning to waste any money on supercars.
• There will be no M3 CSL
• The BMW PAS will be something similar to the Mercedes CLS, but it won't be marketed as a four-door-coupé.
• The CS Concept was "close to reality", so maybe it will be built, he does not really confirm it.
• The next Rolls Royce model is ready to be launched (the small one I guess, but no information about it in the article)

Interesting news regarding the M3 CSL, especially since for the past few days, many reports came in that BMW is indeed going to launch the M3 CSL sometimes in 2010, and just a few months back, the car was spotted on the 'Ring. Take what you want from this

In a surprising move, BMW has filled the X5 M and X6 M for trademark registration with USPTO. There were many rumors in the past that BMW is working on a X5 M version, but each time BMW has denied that claim and assured that there will not be any M version of its popular SAV. 

The rumored BMW X5 M or a sport version of the X5, has been spotted in several occasions, here, here or here. But even our sources confirmed in the past that the X5 sport version will probably be taking a different name, and not using the M brand. Has BMW changed their mind?

When it comes to the X6, there were several reports before claiming that in the near future, BMW will have an X6 M coupe that will take advantage even more of the car's handling capabilities. So, it absolutely makes sense for BMW to register the X6 M trademark here in the States.

Also keep in mind, that these could be pure speculations and it's perfectly normal for many companies to register trademarks that they won't be using, but nonetheless, it's interesting in this case.

[Source: germancarzone ]

The guys at Scoopz.com have some bad news for those of you that upgraded your iPhone to version 2.0 or recently purchased a new iPhone 3G. As we reported earlier also, the new iPhone seems to have some issues with the BMW's navigation system or the factory kit. 

The 2.0 update will stop your BMW iDrive from seeing your iPhone’s contacts list. Basically, all the iPhones running the 1.0 to 1.1.4 software version should connect perfectly to BMW's integrated bluetooth and the contacts should appear on your iDrive screen or on your radio display, for those of you that did not order the BMW Nav System.

Scoopz has checked the compatibility between the first generation iPhone running the 2.0 software and his 2006 BMW M5, which accordingly to previous reports, it works flawlessly with the iPhone.

I will let them take over from here and explain to you more about this issue and the steps they have taken trying to sync up the two systems.

Full Article with photos

Thanks for the tips and the great photo.

P.S If any of you experience the same issue or found any solution to this problem, please let us know and we will pass on the info further to BMW.

I am one of the "Apple junkie" that absolutely had to buy the new iPhone 3G the moment it came out. I did avoid the craziness on Friday, but Saturday I broke down and went to the Apple Store early in the morning. An hour later, I was the proud or not, owner of a black 3G iPhone. As I posted on Thursday, I was wondering about the new iPhone 3G and its compatibility with the BMW bluetooth or navigation system. 

Last year in June, we posted an extensive article on the first generation iPhone compability with a 2007 BMW 328xi. Unfortunately when I bought my new car, I decided to give up on the bluetooth option so I wasn't able to test it myself yet, but I will do so this week.

In the mean time, one of my friends let me play around with the iPhone and BMW factory integration kit. Most of the functions work fine, it will play and control the iPhone. So, the integration seems to be flawless, until you realize that your phone is NOT charging when using the A/C adapter. This has to be a deal breaker for a lot of people, especially those that were looking to upgrade their iPhone 2G which works perfect. 

At this point I am not sure if it's mostly a hardware related problem or just simply a software bug that can be corrected through an update, but we intend to follow up on this and see if any solutions will arise.

If you guys discover more bugs, please share them with the rest of us.

In case you haven't been surfing the internet in the past year and missed all the millions of articles and searches on the iPhone 3G, then I'm letting you know that tomorrow the second generation iPhone 3G will be launched. 

Last year, we were the first website to report the compatibility between the iPhone and a BMW 3 Series. One of our readers offered to show us in photos the process of pairing his new iPhone with the 328xi. The article became extremely popular and we had and stil have over 90 comments, many of them becoming very helpful to people that were having issues pairing the device or having other technical problems.

Tomorrow with the launch of iPhone 3G, we have a new challenge for you: whoever send us first some photos and a small report on the compatibility between the iPhone and a BMW, will receive an original BMW hat and a keychain, along with some cool BMWBlog decals.

Our email is:

Looking forward to the first photos!

Thank you.

Early last week, we posted an article on which we thought to be a teaser for the new BMW 7 Series. www.never-stand-stiil.com is a website created by BMW and it represents a countdown to an event that will be held in Moscow's Red Square. 

In the preparation for this special event, BMW has built a huge hourglass that has been filled up with 180,000 balls. In the latest video, that could be found on the www.never-stand-still.com website, we learned that there are another 172,000 balls to go, so this clearly tells us that the event will be just the beginning of a project that BMW is working on….or the beginning of a new technology….or maybe a new engine? 

Many speculations are floating around, anywhere from the unveiling of the BMW M3 CSL, or 1 Series tii to a new urban car and hybrid technology(X6, 7 Series). Looking at all the hints, I would have to go the hybrid route or an improved new technology that will set a new standard in the auto industry.

Even the terms "Never Stand Still" implicitly state the need to change something and always look for progress or in this case…a new technology maybe. I think something along this line will be revealed today and it will be a long term project hence the 172,000 balls left.

What do you guys think?

Zach, a member of Bimmerfest, posted a unique experience with a BMW Dealership in his State. According to the post he has taken his BMW in to have a tire looked at. He was then asked to come with some of the Dealership employees who then confronted him with print out of some rather unpleasant things Zach had posted on Bimmerfest about the dealership.

You can read the whole saga here. But long story short it has a good ending. Don Flow, the owner of the dealership, actually posted on the thread a sincere apology, did his best to rectify the situation and implemented new procedures in the Dealership to make sure this does not happen again.

Kudos to Don Flow for posting and taking responsibility for the mistakes that were made and learning from those mistakes.