Most of these improvements does not concern i4 ... It's really frustrating.
Even the option of cancelling the charge/deblocking the charging cable via the app is only for iX.
Trailer Assistant for iX, 2-Series and (i)X1 ... Remote Control Parking for iX and i7 ...

Coming from a Tesla, there are a lot of things that are wayyyy better on the i4, but definitely BMW has no consistency on software updates. I can understand that the iX and i7 get some extra features over the i4, but the 2-Series and X1 are also far ahead of the i4.

 

iX and iX1, 7 series and 2 series (active tourer only) are all cars of the new generation with the newest vehicle electrical system architecture of BMW.

optional 22 kW Charger? AR navigation? Anti-Theft-Recorder? Digital Key Plus with UWB? Interior camera? Better Dashcam? Dual 5G? Everything part of the new generation.

But Tesla is no different: No sentry mode and other features for "old" Model S.

Even the option of cancelling the charge

I can cancel my charge within the app.

 

Nothing to be excited over for any i4 owner since only #3 is for the car, and that is only for a very limited market (BR, CZ, JP). They could have at least given us the #7 which would give some upgraded parking assist functions, but no, not even that.

 

How should it work without the hardware? You need UWB for the remote. If the i4 had UWB, it would also have the digital key plus but unfortunately no UWB on the i4.

 

I'm more interested in the fixes this release does than new features, anyway.

 

The issue is that for the average consumer, they could care less about product segmentation and hardware limits. It comes down to marketing and how consumer's expectations are set there...when they see iX features on iDrive 8, they would undoubtedly think -- hey I have iDrive 8, I can have that! That basic disconnect can throw off even sophisticated users, but if you add in country specific regulations, model variants, hardware limits, software versions...well you get questions on forums like this one such as...can I get "xyz" on my car and a lot of speculation.

BMW is not an infotainment / software maker at its core. To compete, they need to be. Sadly, they're years behind but there's an easy solution - add about $1B investment into making a new division and hire the best cloud, mobile, embedded, realtime, firmware and test engineers to deploy a vertically integrated software + hardware strategy.

 

The issue is that for the average consumer, they could care less about product segmentation and hardware limits. It comes down to marketing and how consumer's expectations are set there...when they see iX features on iDrive 8, they would undoubtedly think -- hey I have iDrive 8, I can have that! That basic disconnect can throw off even sophisticated users, but if you add in country specific regulations, model variants, hardware limits, software versions...well you get questions on forums like this one such as...can I get "xyz" on my car and a lot of speculation.

BMW is not an infotainment / software maker at its core. To compete, they need to be. Sadly, they're years behind but there's an easy solution - add about $1B investment into making a new division and hire the best cloud, mobile, embedded, realtime, firmware and test engineers to deploy a vertically integrated software + hardware strategy.

The average consumer is not us or people that hang out on a car forum. I guarantee the average consumer has no clue the difference between iDrive8 and iDrive7 other than "ooh it has a bigger display and new graphics". The average consumer doesn't even understand the features most cars have. ACC vs DAPP? It's likely the average consumer can't articulate the difference.

 

Average consumer may not care about product segmentation. But that is the BMW model to be able to sell to different customers. Otherwise it will a BMW car and no i4, i5 or i7. They cannot have different iDrives for each model. Same OS8 enables different features based on the model. Even in ICE models they had same engine but speed limit is controlled electronically so if you wanted to drive faster pay more for next model. It is the business model every enterprise does.

 

Paying more is what you do also with the i4, after all, you select different packages. Also, the differences between i4 and i7 are much more than just some simple features, like the parking features I mentioned. Regardless of which, I never said everything should be free...

 

Just finished upgrading. I noticed my mileage went up a LOT. 197 at 85%
Usually it’s 160 at 85% lol

 

Just finished upgrading. I noticed my mileage went up a LOT. 197 at 85%
Usually it’s 160 at 85% lol

I have a pretty good guess at how you're driving that thing...

 

Nevermind it just dropped to 178 at the exact same percentage after driving a mile

 

That’s a feature i4 got. Promise and then take it away when the customer isn’t looking 🤣

 

Damn. I would really have liked the "7. Remote Control Parking: Remote Control Parking with the My BMW app" was made available for the i4 as well


If a i4 face-lift comes with new SP21 idrive8, I'm wondering what it would cost to retrofit the system in an old i4 (pricy I know..)

 

If a i4 face-lift comes with new SP21 idrive8, I'm wondering what it would cost to retrofit the system in an old i4 (pricy I know..)

to swap the complete electrical system? Probably more than a new i4.

SP21 means 1Gbit instead of 100 Mbit, other control units, cameras, sensors...

 

Often it is a matter of development timetables. They will go with the latest designs and tech available at the time of developing, which means there is a lag. For example, the i4 was developed alongside the regular 4 series. What this means is it has much more in common with the 4 series G22 than the iX. They likely were developed in close collaboration (the i4 and iX), but the iX was built more or less from the ground up while the i4 was not. Hence it shares the SP18 platform of the G22 instead of the SP21 of the iX.

One more thing to note, this is likely why the G20 3 series LCI shares the knob shifter of the iX, 7 series, and 2 AT, meanwhile the i4 does not. Those products development all likely started after the iX/2 AT development was already well on its way, well after the i4 development started. Though ofc, since the G20 LCi is an LCI, it still has SP18. Based on the X3 LCI which was upgraded from SP15 to SP18, and the 3 series LCI, an N-1 rule might be what they try to hit. At no point can a new product or refresh be more than 1 platform arch behind, which makes sense for developing several products at different starting and ending points through a multi-year span.

This is not surprising to see for anyone who is familiar with the tech world. Platforms change and the ways they get upgraded vary wildly in ability to upgrade and feature set, and depends what platforms we are talking about. For example, server CPU platforms often lag behind a generation of their consumer counterparts in terms of the CPU architecture used.

Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, SP18 and SP21 are not that much different. Even SP15 still hangs in there, and runs most of the features of iDrive 7. Really most of these features are small potatoes. The only major feature SP21 has over SP18 is upgraded autonomous capabilities (i think via a newer gen MobilEye Q5 vs Q4 chip for SP18).