I regularly drive 250 miles North-South and have never needed to retune a national FM (RDS/AF) channel. As for tuning between stations I have noticed no delay.

ABC

 

When I go from Grantham to Nottingham Radio 4 changes frequency. When this happens the radio uses the RDS function to retune to the new frequency. It is extremely slow in doing so. As suggested above, it is easier to do it manually, using the steering wheel mounted buttons to tune to an alternative station and then back to Radio 4.

I agree that BMW cannot be held entirely responsible for the accuracy of the data provided by Navteq. However, as I purchased the vehicle from BMW and not Navteq my grievance is with BMW. The routes that it calculates may well be due to Navteq software, or equally, with BMW's own software. My problem is the following;

Leaving a location that has been there for decades and using roads that have probably been in use in the same configuration for at least 100 years I know that the trip home will take approximately 50 minutes. If I set "Go Home" on the Sat Nav it takes me some wierd and wacky way that will take 80 minutes. As I drive along MY chosen route the Sat Nav recalculates the route so I return to ITS chosen route. Normal. However about 5 minutes into the trip it suddenly realises that my way is better and recalculates the route giving an arrival time of 45 minutes instead of 80! I'm on fastest route settings and don't use black holes on my commute so I don't understand why it does it. It makes me wonder how accurate it is in places I don't know, which is why I bought it in the first place!

 

How recent is recent? I have had two updates--the last to 20.01.00. My iDrive speed has not increased, but it never seemed as slow as you describe.

 

A bit off topic but just to reassure you that ThinkPads will not disappear. The ThinkPad brand, design engineers, patents etc all transferred from IBM to Lenovo and notebooks will continue to be developed in the USA, Japan and China for the new Lenovo (I moved last year from IBM to Lenovo as part of the deal).

On iDrive, as someone who's in the computer industry I am frustrated by iDrive's sluggish response and the apparent lack of testing by BMW on software releases. When my E61 was delivered it had the 'radio always comes on even if it was off when you last used the car' feature which is just unbelievable, that this was allowed out into the market. Still, the headlights and (upgraded) speaker system are just great and the car looks good.

 

I haven't had any update yet (I think Sept 05 had v19.x.x), I will most probably be due the first service in a couple of months (currently 14,500 miles with an indicated 3,000 miles to go). I was going to try for an update if there was an improvement in speed otherwise I would leave it alone as everything else seems stable. Its such a shame it is so slow, as I love all the functionality of the professional nav (perspective view, real time traffic updates, speed cameras as POI's as well as fully featured bluetooth integration).

 

My issue with the slow speed of response is not the startup process, but the delay in the iDrive acknowledging any movement from the controller. I've tested to see if the delay only occurs when pushing the controller in only one direction (in case there is a faulty switch), but the delay occurs when moving the controller in all directions. When I am trying to switch between the left to right split screens (or vice versa), it will only respond on the first click about 1 in 3.

 

not thinking about nav retrofit now

 

I used to drive a hyundai...the cupholders were much nicer than the e60's.