It was a clunky, buggy affair with unintuitive menus that took an age to master, but it was hugely improved when the saloon was facelifted in 2005. It was this question that BMW attempted to answer when it launched its iDrive control and infotainment screen on the BMW 7 Series in 2001. Because an infotainment screen is multifunctional, it can store away an infinite number of features on its hub screens and sub menus – the trouble is, how do you make a maze of menus and submenus easy to navigate? Particularly when you're focussing on the rather important job of driving? Infotainment is the answerīut how do you have space for all the toys while simultaneously making your car feel plush? An infotainment screen is the answer.
A dashboard crawling with controls wouldn't leave space for the posh metal, leather and cloth trims that make a modern car such a nice place to sit. Advancements in technology mean modern cars have so many features – sat nav, autonomous driving aids, infotainment, etc etc etc– that to give a button for each would leave your dashboard looking as intimidating as the flight deck on a 747 jumbo jet. Buttons and switches were a badge of honour that showed how far you'd ventured up the range or into the options list. Lowly models had fewer buttons and less features, while flagship cars had a sea of buttons needed to control their vast number of features.
Not too long ago, your car was judged by the number of buttons it had on its dashboard. IDrive is the name given to BMW's infotainment system, but how does it work, how can you control it and what is it capable of? Keep reading to find out.īMW's iDrive infotainment system and control was pioneered in 2001's BMW 7 Series – the company's flagship saloon – since then it has evolved into a completely different animal, one that's fitted to every BMW model from the entry-level BMW 1 Series up to the BMW 8 Series flagship, here's all you need to know about it.
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