[Fabio]

So is this really a BMW issue? Apple issue? Or both?

BMW issue! The wrong position is shown also by the MyBMW app which gets it from the server as given by the car. It is so disappointing that BMW tries to blame the phone. It seems they are trying to deflect responsibility rather than take ownership of their mistake. Also I’m surprised by all the people on this forum that question whether the issue is on BMW.

Apple made the really poor decision of of trusting data coming from the car. They likely though that surely a car with a proper GPS antenna on the fin, not impacted by the portability constraints of a phone and by RF interferences inside the car (especially for Wireless CarPlay), would have had a more precise position. And they likely thought that implementing a working GPS sensor in a car would not have been a problem given that nowadays they can be found in keychains.

Huge huge mistake by Apple. Clearly expecting a working GPS signal from the maker of the ultimate driving machine is an unrealistic ask. Only fancy Tesla can build working software. Apple do should what Android does, use the GPS of the phone all the time. If it where me, I would check the internal GPS data with the position provided by the car and show a big warning in CarPlay to tell the user that they have a poorly built car not even capable of providing GPS in 2022 and that CarPlay will have to fallback to the phone GPS.

 

[Fabio]

Good news folks! It seems that the X5 LCI is shipping with iDrive 8 (not 8.5 or 9). Given that the X5 is the most popular BMW model (at least in US), this will make significantly harder to not prioritize a fix.

 

[Fabio]

Nowadays CarPlay is working way more reliably for me than in the past.

I wonder if it is related to the weather. I saw a bunch of reports of Seattle people being affected and I’m in the PNW. Lately the weather has been gettin better here andI wonder if that is related.
Btw this update is taking ages. I wonder if the Tesla Roadster will be released before the update 🤣

 

[Fabio]

So what can we do to get BMW’s attention? Earlier, I suggested bombarding their Twitter feed. But if there’s more we can do, I’m game.

Tell all your friends that see your new fancy i4 to avoid iDrive 8 like the plague if they care about CarPlay or reliable software. Tell your CA that your friends love the car but they are scared by BMW software problems. 🤣

 

[Fabio]

After 38 pages of this, I really don't see why anyone is still not using the native nav?

Many reasons.

The main one is Siri. I can ask Siri to start navigation to any POI or contact in my phone and in the vast majority of cases it just works. BMW’s voice recognition is very bad. I think it never worked even once for me. I don’t like to have to stop the car just for typing where I want to go. When I don’t want to risk navigation going crazy due to the “drift” (which is a sudden distraction as the maps start spinning as they constantly re-route and the car keeps suggesting me to steer in a wall), I ask Siri to start navigation to a POI and the use the share icon to hand it over to BMW Maps.

Also BMW maps seems to have decent data, but definitely doesn’t have all the information of Apple Maps (or Google Maps). Apple Maps has all the POIs, streets in my area of the world are accurate to the line markings (which is insane to me), and ETAs are precise to the minute. Also I suspect the traffic information is better.

Apple Maps have a better UI which is more readable and easy to understand at a glance. It even shows the streetlights so I can easily understand in what exact block of a city I have to turn. Even the animations are way smoother.

With CarPlay, I can use any other mobile app like Goggle Maps or Waze, if it works best for that route.

Ultimately, BMW Maps is just 4 or 5 years behind of mobile navigation apps. I bought the electrified version of the ultimate driving machine because I wanted the state of the art of driving comfort with that sweet electric torque. I want to experience the electric Renaissance of automotive tech. So I’m not happy to be stuck in the Middle Ages of navigation.

 

[Fabio]

Maybe it is time to start a Reddit community similar to https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla. All of these folks disillusioned by the lack of basic manufacturing quality might jump ship thinking we don’t have so glaring issues. Somebody has to temper they expectations and inform them that basic software functionality, such as getting the correct GPS location found in Nokias from 20 years ago or manually pre-warming the battery, should not be taken for granted.

 

[Fabio]

Mod request: I think I'm going to draw a line here. If you get new information on this issue, please post. If you learn something or have a contact at BMW or otherwise can move us forward in this process, please do post.

But...

Let's stop the various complaints here, since we can't do anything about them.

Thanks

Agreed. Complaints do not help. New user reports (that show how widespread the issue is), new data about resolution, and organizing groups actions helps and can make the difference.

If this becomes big enough and we make our voice heard to the point this puts pressure on the right executive… this will be fixed very quickly. It is possible that many parties (e.g. managers, product manager, third party software and hardware supplier) at fault have the interest of letting this slide under the rug. This can and do happens in big companies.

 

[Fabio]

The CarPlay GPS data is apparently correct 100% of the time for most owners of cars with iDrive8; otherwise there would be way more complaints.

I think you’re over estimating the number of users of iDrive 8, that use CarPlay, are tech savvy enough to understand the issue to be caused by iDrive 8, and motivated enough to report it online. I have seen multiple reports on Twitter, Reddit, here and in the iX forum. As far as I know this issue affects all iDrive 8 users.

 

[Fabio]

Does anybody know what an “I Level” is?

 

[Fabio]

I have experienced CarPlay connection issues as well. In my case they happen mostly when leaving from my house with no apparent deterministic trigger. One time happened while I was driving like in your video. This issue for me is rare and generally auto resolves after ~1 min. So personally it affect me less that the GPS issue. But I think it is important to document it as well even if likely it is caused by a different problem as it is telling of the overall quality of iDrive 8.

 

[Fabio]

agree with you, but I’m more optimistic that a workaround can be found, before bmw fixes the root problem

Agreed. BMW NA not acknowledging with @FLR2DEN the issue, when 5 mins of Google Search can quickly confirm how widespread it is, is very concerning. Any car maker, especially a top level class brand like BMW, should be take responsibility of these issues. Issues are part of complex modern software/electronic products. It is fine, mistakes can happen when there is so much complexity into play. However, playing ostrich and ignoring the issue, is simply not acceptable. While buying the car I didn't consider buying a Tesla because they are too aggressive with unrealistic promises about auto pilot and this is why I bought the i4, but BMW is quickly eroding my trust on it.

If this is a business process where they ignore and don't support customers once the car is out of the door with software issues, then this is really concerning. Our nice and shiny toys will not look so shiny in 4 years. If this is a issue with the specific team supporting iDrive 8, BMW needs to look into why that team is under delivering. This a software or hardware issue and somebody on their side just needs to look into it. To me this is very likely a software issue, I estimate that looking and fixing it will cost BMW somewhere from $5k to $25k, so I don't see why they simply don't address it. They only reasons I can think is that they are organizationally incapable of doing so or stretched too thin with iDrive 8.5 and iDrive 9 (yes maintaining two parallel software implementations is a very very very bad idea and usually fails in the industry). In any case it is ridiculous that customers have to waste their time and trying to find what the actual problem is on behalf of BMW. Again, all of this doesn't really builds customer trust. They should just acknowledge the problem and give us an ETA. It is a simple as that.

Realistically, given how long this has been going on (I think I saw see reports dating back at least to summer 2022), the only way to get traction here is to collect all the reports to the point where this needs to be prioritized. Your dealers and their techs are not well equipped to resolve these types of issues so I don't expect them to be able to help. But they can relay the issue to BMW. Please report the issue to your dealers and in this thread and ask anybody affected to do the same. We could also mention this in other forums when the issue is mentioned.

 

[Fabio]

Yes. My CA claims that his dealership never heard of this issue. I even sent him a link to see all the discussion happening here.

My CA asked to verify with another iPhone. Given all the reports and the prominence of the, I was really surprised to hear that. I was expecting BMW to be aware of it and to prioritizing for the next software update. No to be asked to troubleshot the issue on my side or to provide data for it.

This is the summary of the data I currently have:

• The issue happens often (and seems to be more frequent over time).
• Rebooting the phone doesn’t seem to fix it (I’m fairly confident but I haven’t double checked). Plugging the cable fixed it for me once but I suspect it was just a coincidence (as far as I know the car doesn’t have wired CarPlay).
• Rebooting iDrive 8 (long press on volume button) might actually help for a bit.
• When the issue is present if you switch phone it will have the same incorrect location.
• When the issue is present the My BMW app will have the same incorrect location.
• BMW Maps always have the correct location.
• As far as I know CarPlay wireless uses the GPS position provided by the car.

To my all of this indicates that the issue is clearly with the car. And unless the car has two GPS modules the issue or some other type of peculiar complexity the issue seems software related because BMW Maps get the correct location. The issue is not only limited to CarPlay as the My BMW app has the same problem.

CA mentioned that replacing hardware could be the resolution but I’m honestly not really confident about that. It seems just be a sorsare issue which is being ignored by some team.

It is Amazing that Tesla seems to be able to fix any recall with a software update and BMW struggles with these high profile and easy to reproduce issues. If the car messes the navigation while one drives it is a safety hazard and as far as I can tell from the reports in this forum the issue has been going from at least this summer. I hope this is not and indication of the quality of the driving assistance software as it doesn’t instill a lot of confidence.

Please report your data here and provide it to your dealer your issue and provide data. Ask them to report to BMW. The numbers of reports are generally used to prioritize fixes in the software industry.

 

[Fabio]

Same for me. No issue since the update.

 

[Fabio]

I didn’t experience the issue since installing .53, but I reserve my judgement to this winter as the issue was potentially related to weather conditions and where I live the weather is gorgeous during summer.

Due to the lack of a mention in the release logs. It is possible that the issue was not completely addressed but mitigated to make it happen less often.

 

[Fabio]

I am on 3/2053.53 and have been for a week. It messed up 2 days ago on the way home from the gym and again today twice.

The fix is not mentioned in the release notes.

People hope at every update that this glaring issue is fixed, but they are just hoping. This update seemed aligned with 2 tweets of BMW NA so there was more hope than usual. However, BMW proper never acknowledged it. If no release notes or other official communication mention a software improvement, I don’t think one should expect it. It is not our job to beta test updates or divine what is in them.

I’m starting to accept that BMW either doesn’t care or is not capable of fixing the issue.

 

[Fabio]

GPS has been around for 30 years, so if apple can't get that straightened away, not sure how they can be relied on anything else.

Agreed. GPS not working in a product is trust busting.

However, in this case it is BMW having issues with the GPS position. And what is even more concerning is that the issue was reported almost a year ago. BMW hasn’t been able to come up with a fix in almost a year.

What I don’t agree with is saying that we cannot rely on anything else. Even if a car can cause an accident and kill people while a phone can’t. The car overall is amazing and works pretty well. I hope you will not sell your i4 due to this because you would be missing out.

 

[Fabio]

Happened to me again yesterday. A reboot fixed it again. Seems like that is the only solution until they release an update that fixes it officially.

A iDrive reboot can help but in my experience not always does. Given that the issue is intermittent sometimes it might seem that an action fixes it, while it was only happenstance.

 

[Fabio]

"Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it."

Taking choice out of the hands of consumers is a bad business strategy. Sure, do all this with your own software, but also provide interfaces for third party use. We know that a 3rd party ecosystem will come up with better and more innovative solutions to problems the 1st party didn't even know existed. If the market was big enough, they could do an app store, or course, but it's not (and can you imagine all the issues with a BMW app store?!?!).

Instead of seeing it as competitive, open the connections (APIs in tech parlance) and benefit from the brilliance of the devs and capabilities of the phone processing power.

Apple iOS ecosystem is tightly controlled (apps have significantly less privileges compared to Windows) and successful. Controlled vertical integration is something that can be pulled off by a company who is really good at making the platform. However, iDrive is nowhere close to that. BMW Maps are in the Middle Ages compared to Apple Maps and CarPlay. The UI and features are very limited and updates are basically not existent (they trickle every 3-4 months with very minor features). The community believes that even a minor update like 8.5, which just rearranged the UI a bit and mimics Tesla and CarPlay (the new upcoming version has the icons at the bottom) will not be released to Cars sold with 8. Tesla, and maybe Polestar and Rivian, can play this game. BMW and the other Germans carmakers haven’t shown the same capability with software so they likely will be better off integrating with Apple and Google so their infotainment stays competitive.

 

[Fabio]

Yeah... that's one thing I wish the iOS apps did... They show which lane to be in, but they don't show current lane or the animation...

I think BMW navigation uses data from the cameras to figure out in which lane you’re are. I have seen it being wrong in rare occasions. Cool feature though.

I think carmakers will try to integrate navigation with the specific hardware of the car (cameras, radars, lidars, integrated analysis systems that process sensor information) to reduce the competitive value of Android Auto and CarPlay in order to close their ecosystems.

 

[Fabio]

If the issue is hard to resolve, the fix could not address the actual problem but just mitigate/mask it.

Btw, it is crazy seeing all the people here who have to spend time and money for this. Everyone here has spent time trying to test software updates, to perform reboot sequences, plug cables, disable Wi-Fi, disconnect the Apple Watch, and even to change the phone.

All of this would not have been necessary if BMW would be more transparent about this issue.

So many anecdotal evidence here I myself thought latest update fixed it, but I do see them drifting less often. It happened to me once after getting 03/2023.27.