October 1, 2013 at 19:03BMW Connected Drive as a trend
I, like any person from the IT sphere who is fond of cars, was always amazed at how slowly technology comes into cars. No, I'm not talking about parking radars, active safety systems and any fashionable lighting sources. I'm talking about entertainment technology. Remember how many years have passed since the advent of iPods to the moment when regular on-board systems began to support them? USB-carriers of information, SD-cards, Bluetooth, Wi-FI, LTE - all this did not appear in the machines very immediately and the first thing fell into the models of the most expensive segment.
But not so long ago, the situation began to change. First, European manufacturers each developed their own on-board computer control system and multimedia functions (Command for Mercedes-Benz, MMI for Audi, iDrive for BMW, OnCall for Volvo, etc.). Then unified these systems throughout the model range. And then they began to “socialize” them through the Internet. Of course, this will not accelerate the subsequent introduction of 5-6 generation networks in cars or USB 4.0 and Bluetooth 5.1 when they appear. However, this will certainly reduce the software gap between mobile and car systems.
In general, the idea of a test drive of a car with Connected Drive began with the fact that I saw this picture on the BMW website:
I once heard the story that Yandex made special Yandex-cards for BMW, but it was a long time ago rumor level. And here is a screenshot of the car screen right in the description of the new 3GT model. Seeing him, I tried to find more information about what Connected Drive is and came across a great overview of its features on motor.ru .
I admit, I did not particularly read the article. I ran through her eyes, saw some key facts and decided to find out whether it is possible to get a car with Connected Drive for a test for at least a few days in order to describe my view of this system through the eyes of a person from the IT sphere. Just a few days later I was given a BMW 640 Coupe for review and, frankly, for the first couple of days I completely forgot about the original purpose of the test drive. Even to the cautious words, the employee of BMW Group Russia, who gave me the car, said that not everything works yet, that the first cars with built-in sim cards will appear in Russia towards the end of the year, that even in Germany the system has not yet been fully deployed, I didn’t give much attention. As a result, the very first attempt to get to know the system better turned out to be a failure. It turned out that my HTC 8X is nothing but a phone for this machine. He did not even turn out to be her source of music via Bluetooth, which seemed very strange.
Having found out that it would not be possible to listen to music from the phone, I inserted a USB flash drive into the USB connector and was pleasantly surprised. Connected Drive is that rare case when the car doesn’t need an iPod at all - you can listen to music by genre, album, artist and playlist from any medium. I missed this chip in many car multimedia systems with USB sockets. Well, the optional sound from Bang & Olufsen is so good that you don’t feel like listening to the radio at all - there is too much lack of quality.
Standing in traffic jams with music, of course, is better than in silence, but with the Internet it would be even more fun. Therefore, when a colleague with an iPhone was in the passenger seat, we began to deal with Connected Drive further. We connected the phone via Bluetooth and, unlike Windows Phone, it became available as an audio source. Already better, but the Internet is still unavailable. After several unsuccessful attempts to use the browser or download the application, we came across a system prompt that for full use we need to connect the phone through a wire, and not through a wireless interface.
Okay, we pulled out a USB flash drive with music, stuck a cable into the USB-connector, but this was not enough. For everything to work, you need to install the special BMW Connected application. It weighs more than 20 megabytes, so with the Moscow mobile Internet it is better to do this at home with Wi-Fi, and not standing in a traffic jam. After waiting for the installation, we finally saw the BMW Apps in work.
To say that they disappointed us is to say nothing. We couldn’t post a single tweet from the car, we couldn’t view the Facebook feed and listen to the online radio. We could not even open a single site. After all, all this can be done only on condition that the iPhone is turned on and the BMW Connected application is active. Those. You must choose whether you are using a telephone or an on-board system. Honestly, standing in traffic it is difficult to make a choice not in favor of the phone, since everything works much faster on it.
But back to the discussion of Connected Drive, after all, the smart player and BMW Apps are not everything. Another feature seemed much more interesting to me - the Connected Drive Store. Agree, the name is promising. That is why the mobile application development department of our company decided to knock on BMW headquarters with the question - where to get the SDK for development? But it turned out that so far, unfortunately, nowhere. Application development is carried out either on their own, or by contractors, or by someone else, but it is not available to Russian developers.
I hope that in the not too distant future, BMW will open its store for third-party developers and a bunch of different applications will appear in it: from those that will share your results on the racetrack in social networks to those that will read you in traffic jams audiobooks. In the meantime, there are very few applications and you can use them only by connecting the iPhone, installing BMW Connected in it, and the application itself in it. In general, as I wrote in the previous chapter, we did not succeed in doing this.
However, the Connected Drive Store can be viewed on the other hand. Not as an application store, but as an infrastructure that provides automotive options, as a service. We all perfectly understand that the most expensive thing in the navigator is not hardware, but maps and all kinds of services. And if you still need to order a package of cards from the factory, then various useful services: traffic jams, weather and the same Internet access can be “bought” directly from the on-board menu at any time.
True, we were not able to use this functionality on the test BMW 640 either. Paid services have not yet reached Russia.
In principle, you can write for a long time about the various shortcomings of Connected Drive, about the fact that Russia is still completely ready, but I will probably stop. For some reason, I remember how ten years ago, journalists scolded the very first iDrive, which debuted in the BMW “seven” in the back of the E65. This was the first experience in developing a single control interface for a wide variety of functions among car manufacturers. Despite all the criticism that poured into iDrive, very soon we saw similar solutions with other automakers, and with each new generation iDrive itself became more and more convenient.
Surely Connected Drive will face a similar fate. The only difference is that, unlike its predecessor (in fact, Connected Drive is a further development of iDrive ideas), everything here is not limited to the usual technical and ergonomic tasks for BMW. But the user (it does not seem appropriate to write “driver” here) will get really new opportunities. I don’t know about you, but I already want to assemble a team and start developing applications for mobile devices with four wheels. BMW guys, what do you say?
... what was this picture with Yandex? It turns out that everything is very simple. This is a site interface adapted for Connected Drive. You can do the same with your site right now if it seems to you that potential users of your online service are turning the steering wheel with a blue and white propeller. Moreover, the first BMW cars with built-in Internet (not requiring all these dances with an iPhone) on board already ride on the roads of Moscow.
The article used photos of BMW AG
But not so long ago, the situation began to change. First, European manufacturers each developed their own on-board computer control system and multimedia functions (Command for Mercedes-Benz, MMI for Audi, iDrive for BMW, OnCall for Volvo, etc.). Then unified these systems throughout the model range. And then they began to “socialize” them through the Internet. Of course, this will not accelerate the subsequent introduction of 5-6 generation networks in cars or USB 4.0 and Bluetooth 5.1 when they appear. However, this will certainly reduce the software gap between mobile and car systems.
Connected, but not with all
In general, the idea of a test drive of a car with Connected Drive began with the fact that I saw this picture on the BMW website:
I once heard the story that Yandex made special Yandex-cards for BMW, but it was a long time ago rumor level. And here is a screenshot of the car screen right in the description of the new 3GT model. Seeing him, I tried to find more information about what Connected Drive is and came across a great overview of its features on motor.ru .
I admit, I did not particularly read the article. I ran through her eyes, saw some key facts and decided to find out whether it is possible to get a car with Connected Drive for a test for at least a few days in order to describe my view of this system through the eyes of a person from the IT sphere. Just a few days later I was given a BMW 640 Coupe for review and, frankly, for the first couple of days I completely forgot about the original purpose of the test drive. Even to the cautious words, the employee of BMW Group Russia, who gave me the car, said that not everything works yet, that the first cars with built-in sim cards will appear in Russia towards the end of the year, that even in Germany the system has not yet been fully deployed, I didn’t give much attention. As a result, the very first attempt to get to know the system better turned out to be a failure. It turned out that my HTC 8X is nothing but a phone for this machine. He did not even turn out to be her source of music via Bluetooth, which seemed very strange.
Having found out that it would not be possible to listen to music from the phone, I inserted a USB flash drive into the USB connector and was pleasantly surprised. Connected Drive is that rare case when the car doesn’t need an iPod at all - you can listen to music by genre, album, artist and playlist from any medium. I missed this chip in many car multimedia systems with USB sockets. Well, the optional sound from Bang & Olufsen is so good that you don’t feel like listening to the radio at all - there is too much lack of quality.
Expectations and Reality
Standing in traffic jams with music, of course, is better than in silence, but with the Internet it would be even more fun. Therefore, when a colleague with an iPhone was in the passenger seat, we began to deal with Connected Drive further. We connected the phone via Bluetooth and, unlike Windows Phone, it became available as an audio source. Already better, but the Internet is still unavailable. After several unsuccessful attempts to use the browser or download the application, we came across a system prompt that for full use we need to connect the phone through a wire, and not through a wireless interface.
Okay, we pulled out a USB flash drive with music, stuck a cable into the USB-connector, but this was not enough. For everything to work, you need to install the special BMW Connected application. It weighs more than 20 megabytes, so with the Moscow mobile Internet it is better to do this at home with Wi-Fi, and not standing in a traffic jam. After waiting for the installation, we finally saw the BMW Apps in work.
To say that they disappointed us is to say nothing. We couldn’t post a single tweet from the car, we couldn’t view the Facebook feed and listen to the online radio. We could not even open a single site. After all, all this can be done only on condition that the iPhone is turned on and the BMW Connected application is active. Those. You must choose whether you are using a telephone or an on-board system. Honestly, standing in traffic it is difficult to make a choice not in favor of the phone, since everything works much faster on it.
Options as a Service
But back to the discussion of Connected Drive, after all, the smart player and BMW Apps are not everything. Another feature seemed much more interesting to me - the Connected Drive Store. Agree, the name is promising. That is why the mobile application development department of our company decided to knock on BMW headquarters with the question - where to get the SDK for development? But it turned out that so far, unfortunately, nowhere. Application development is carried out either on their own, or by contractors, or by someone else, but it is not available to Russian developers.
I hope that in the not too distant future, BMW will open its store for third-party developers and a bunch of different applications will appear in it: from those that will share your results on the racetrack in social networks to those that will read you in traffic jams audiobooks. In the meantime, there are very few applications and you can use them only by connecting the iPhone, installing BMW Connected in it, and the application itself in it. In general, as I wrote in the previous chapter, we did not succeed in doing this.
However, the Connected Drive Store can be viewed on the other hand. Not as an application store, but as an infrastructure that provides automotive options, as a service. We all perfectly understand that the most expensive thing in the navigator is not hardware, but maps and all kinds of services. And if you still need to order a package of cards from the factory, then various useful services: traffic jams, weather and the same Internet access can be “bought” directly from the on-board menu at any time.
True, we were not able to use this functionality on the test BMW 640 either. Paid services have not yet reached Russia.
Pioneer Difficulties
In principle, you can write for a long time about the various shortcomings of Connected Drive, about the fact that Russia is still completely ready, but I will probably stop. For some reason, I remember how ten years ago, journalists scolded the very first iDrive, which debuted in the BMW “seven” in the back of the E65. This was the first experience in developing a single control interface for a wide variety of functions among car manufacturers. Despite all the criticism that poured into iDrive, very soon we saw similar solutions with other automakers, and with each new generation iDrive itself became more and more convenient.
Surely Connected Drive will face a similar fate. The only difference is that, unlike its predecessor (in fact, Connected Drive is a further development of iDrive ideas), everything here is not limited to the usual technical and ergonomic tasks for BMW. But the user (it does not seem appropriate to write “driver” here) will get really new opportunities. I don’t know about you, but I already want to assemble a team and start developing applications for mobile devices with four wheels. BMW guys, what do you say?
And still...
... what was this picture with Yandex? It turns out that everything is very simple. This is a site interface adapted for Connected Drive. You can do the same with your site right now if it seems to you that potential users of your online service are turning the steering wheel with a blue and white propeller. Moreover, the first BMW cars with built-in Internet (not requiring all these dances with an iPhone) on board already ride on the roads of Moscow.
The article used photos of BMW AG
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