SMS messages viewable within iDrive ? a quote from BMW Bluetooth Product Information (dated December 08)??????.

?Display of new received SMS and also stored in the mobile phone on the vehicle MMI. Only in combination with Navigation Professional (option code 609), except X3, X5, X6 and 5/6 Series until November 2008.- Excessively long SMS will be split during transmission and displayed in chronologically reversed order- The SMS download begins with the switch to the news menu. After the SMS download, the status for all downloaded SMS will switch to ?read" in the mobile phone. - The number of the maximum of downloadable SMS is limited. Umlauts and special characters may not be transmitted correctly on some mobile phones.?

From the text here a view is e60?s post 2008 will support display of phone messages ? one should check out the approved listing for BMW telephones though as many do not support the SMS feature i.e. most approved Sony Ericsson do, Blackberry?s and iPhone do not - it?s not only a car constraint issue.

(Both my e60 and e65 are pre Nov08 hence I have no experience here.)

 

I dont know why everyone picks on the i-drive. it is the easiest thing to use. i can now do what i need to with barely glancing away from the road. i.e. chooising a new playlist. i think in comparison, this is safer to use then say, a touchscreen in an acura or lexus. it takes a week to get used to, but then it is a peice of cake. i dont think using the i-drive to adjust the radio or climate can EVEN BE COMPARED to reading a SMS while driving. i do like the idea, but the average retard ruins stuff like that for everyone

 

They don't take suggestions. If they did they would've built decent cup holders 20 years ago. Would've put some type of media input device in there cars 4 to 6 years ago (like many cars did). I just find it funny that BMW is usually at the front of technology yet they seem to skip over certain things. Perfect example would be the first 5 to 6 years of Nav. was about as basic as navigation could get. Yet you had much lesser cars and many of there rivals putting out top notch Nav systems that made BMW's look like it was put together in 1985.


Hopefully you guys aren't serious about RFT's.................They serve there purpose and work great on certain cars. But to say anything except a complete failure and nightmare for the customers and BMW dealerships would be false. Chances are anyone that loves them have only about 2 to 4K of miles on them. Come back at 15K and tell what you think.


Would be nice if they did take suggestions and listen to them. But those few reasons above I'm sure have been echo to them numerous times through the years.

 

Yes, the act of being responsible is a distant memory within society in present times.................

I'd be happy with greater voice control - the voice control needs extending - reading of text messages is rather old hat is it not? Why not have SMS messages read to you by the on-board system on demand via voice control, responsibly of course! Sufficient economic technology exists to support this feature - would not require one?s eyes to drift away from the task in hand! But then someone will say this is distracting too!

 

The problem with having text messages read to you is that some people use such extreme shorthand when texting, and the words make no sense if taken at face value. Plus, the shorthand is different in different locales, different professions (I know that in my profession (IT), I use different shorthand than would say, a doctor), and different languages. I think that one is just frought with difficulty. It would simply be one more thing for customers to complain about.

 

Agreed, word/phrase recognition does present challenges in many ways as you allude too ? however, the word recognition software that I witnessed several years ago in Japan allowed for such conditions - common, as well as user/industry defined words, phrases, acronyms and abbreviations are defined and added to a textual context recognition dictionary/thesaurus ? from here the software was built to 'learn' the language of word streams - it would unlikely be 100%; this is not my field as can be gleamed here!

When all is said though some of the text's I receive I struggle to read/understand despite knowledge of my own industry (and friends too!)

Upon reflection the licensing of such technology for commercial use would perhaps be relatively expensive, however we are looking to the future here are we not.........................

 

You are right. I have 7000 miles on the clock. Perhaps I have to wait and see as the miles increase. As it stands, no real issue with the RFT.

As for messaging, when is BMW coming out with this high tech instant messaging system system? I think it could be used for sms displaying and replying while driving. No need to lift a finger.
Linky.. (only if you have a sense of humor)