The upcoming 2016 BMW 7 Series will also introduce a new generation of BMW’s iDrive infotainment system.
BMW’s famous iDrive will also be receiving an overhaul, with the addition of both touchscreen and gesture controls. The touchscreen controls will be available as well as physical buttons, so it won’t be fully controlled via touch. Touchscreens aren’t all that new, however, gesture control is. A 3D sensor will be able to detect certain, predefined hand motions, for commonly used controls, such as adjusting volume or answering phone calls.
These predefined hand motions can be set up to control a variety of iDrive or navigation functions by the user. These gesture controls are an optional alternative to standard physical controls and do not replace them. There will also be a symbol prompted on the iDrive display to indicate whether or not gesture controls are available, depending on the situation.
Here is an hands-on video showing some of the capabilities of this new iDrive:
The finger swirl to raise and lower the volume made laugh unreasonable hard for some reason…
Horatiu– I know the iDrive originally started on the 7-Series back around 2000, which was silly– why not start new tech w/ cars that a younger group would buy??… any chance the 3-Series LCI will have touchscreen nav, too, or will the youngest / biggest BMW-buying demographic have to wait another 3 years?? thanks for any insight you have!!!
From what I know, there won’t be that touchscreen in the facelift. So I would say, 3 more years
that’s too bad. seems a no-brainer for younger buyers, who are most comfortable … any word on when BMW will at least have Apple’s CarPlay available in most/all vehicles..?? :-D
that’s too bad– seems like a no-brainer to offer touchscreen for the vehicles that attract the younger buyers and sell the most… will the 3-series LCI at least come w/ Apple’s CarPlay?? thanks again for your insight!!
It might have something to do with cost also, maybe it will make more sense in the future.
No word on CarPlay, I’ll try to find out at next auto show
THANKS!! :-D