BMW's MY 2009 cars will get a new iDrive system with a 40GB hard drive. According to Bimmerfile, the drive allotment will have 12GB dedicated to navigational maps (and 8GB for entertainment and 10GB for your address book, because you've got more friends than music, apparently). With nav maps placed on the hard drive, BMW will no longer be providing a case full of map DVDs. The maps will have the entire US on them, or Europe if you pick up your car at BMW Welt. When things have moved on and it's time to get your maps updated, you'll take your car and your checkbook to a BMW dealer, and they'll install U.S. v2.0.[Source: BMW Blog]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Hike15 @ Jun 22nd 2008 3:09PM
They charge for an update?
you would think with that great service plan they could simply update your navigation free
oh well just some more over priced crap from bmw
SOhp101 @ Jun 22nd 2008 3:18PM
Every automaker does. It's one of the ways they get to nickel/dime us... but it's not like you have to have the most updated maps every single year. Still using the same DVD as the one I originally received, but might consider purchasing a new one in a couple of years.
esoterica @ Jun 22nd 2008 11:09PM
Cadillac provides 2 free map updates for all their models (including the hard-disk based CTS). And they don't have to be sequential.
iCameiSawiConquered @ Jun 22nd 2008 3:22PM
Most automakers have ditched SLOW as HELL DVD nav systems long ago but BMW stuck with it until 2009--lucky for you 2009 customers, terrible for 2008s and below like me.
And so now they're forcing the rest of us to retrofit a hard drive at probably a charge of $3000 if we want updated maps??? Thank god my lease ends in 2010, I'll only be behind the curve for one year.
ckm @ Jun 22nd 2008 3:46PM
Apparently their maps are now powered by Google as well....
Aarondeep @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:00PM
Apparently Google is working with BMW and is integrating their navigation with google maps for business listings.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/08/germans-send-data-straight-from-google-maps-to-bmws/
xspeedy @ Jun 22nd 2008 3:52PM
This is either going to make it very difficult or very easy for those doing European Delivery. In the past, you just got hold of the Euro nav disk for the trip. I'm not sure if BMW will offer the European map install while in Europe and then overwrite with US at the VPC.
tom @ Jun 22nd 2008 3:53PM
Only 8GB for music? Why? For that matter why only 40GB total? Memory is cheep as hell these days. Why not give us 100GB, why not 250GB?
RP @ Jun 23rd 2008 1:21AM
I doubt it's your average 3.5" desktop harddrive.
It's probably a 2.5" laptop harddrive. And perhaps it's "ruggedized" to withstand 150 deg F (65 deg C) when you're parked in the sun.
georgejetson @ Jun 23rd 2008 7:02AM
Knowing BMW, that hard drive will be rugged as hell until about 140k miles... when it will fail catastrophically. Also knowing BMW, it's a special unique-to-BMW part that will be completely unobtainable 10 years from now.
Memo to file: Don't buy one of these things used. Ever.
Michael @ Jun 22nd 2008 4:16PM
A ten gigabyte address book? A cell phone with FIVE MEGABYTES of memory can store 1000 contacts. Does anybody really have over TWO MILLION contacts? Pointless. And even then, that's at 5.12 kilobytes per contact. A text file with my full name, two phone numbers, two email addresses, my address, my address at work, and my phone number at work is 214 bytes. At that rate, I could store over 50 million contacts with 10 gigabytes...
In summary: more music space, please.
Fast evo 8 @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:02PM
clearly you don't have enough friends :lol:
Juan @ Jun 22nd 2008 5:23PM
You're absolutely right. Maybe BMW should have hired you...
Zane @ Jun 22nd 2008 6:08PM
I'm sure someone will be a way to repartition the drive to make it more useful than the current crap allotment of 8GB for music.
RP @ Jun 23rd 2008 1:22AM
Maybe the address book stores photos... or pr0n.
SimbaDogg @ Jun 22nd 2008 6:36PM
yeah, seriously...u have to be kidding me with all that space allocated for contacts, even with all my 400 or so contacts, many of them w/ contact pictures and many with complete info (address, cell, home etc) they total for 400 was only 1 mb. BMW...getcha head out cha ass
Soul Shinobi @ Jun 22nd 2008 8:43PM
English, man, the English language is eluding you.
SimbaDogg @ Jun 22nd 2008 8:53PM
yeah, because the only typo or misplaced word was "they" instead of "the" on the 2nd to last line i wrote. i guess that one typo, plus that last bit of slang i used just made the whole comment an unbearable read...
aSr @ Jun 22nd 2008 10:36PM
Correct me if I'm wrong 12+8+10=30 GB...where is the rest of the 10 to make up the 40 gigs?
RP @ Jun 23rd 2008 1:23AM
The iDrive code? It's probably more complex that Windows Vista, so it may use 10 GB.