Anyone driven an F30 330?

[clyde]

Originally Posted by robg

Yep- totally get the arguments behind using Carplay or simply mounting your phone. Having used Carplay now in several rental cars, as well as trying various in-car phone mounting options, I've had enough frustrations that I'd still prefer a good built-in unit. Can I deal w/ those frustrations? Sure. Would I prefer not to? Yes. They are tolerable but not good. If I had a special/classic car without modern electronics of course I'd use my phone. Or if I wanted to continue to drive nothing but older fully-depreciated cars, sure. But in a newer daily driver type car I'd rather not.

To me, CarPlay/Android Auto are great in a low-end car or a rental car. Worst case, you'll have key functions projected on a larger in-vehicle screen in a consistent way that you're familiar with. Also great in vehicles with terrible infotainment systems.

Some (most?) built-in systems are (or have been) truly awful. That's why I was so pleasantly surprised by the latest idrive. Does everything I expect quickly/easily. Overall better than using CarPlay. Should CarPlay become amazing over the next few years, it supports that as well. It does NOT support Android Auto, however.

I don’t have anything against built in systems and I’d expect the latest and greatest versions in some cars to be pretty good. Part of the question, I think, is how long will today’s best continue to be good? 3 years? 5? 10?

I didn’t mean to argue at all. I’m not too fond of Apple Maps with CarPlay today. I just see promise in it. No experience with android auto. And, FWIW, I have never used any iteration of BMw’s IDrive.

[JST]

Originally Posted by clyde

I don’t have anything against built in systems and I’d expect the latest and greatest versions in some cars to be pretty good. Part of the question, I think, is how long will today’s best continue to be good? 3 years? 5? 10?

I didn’t mean to argue at all. I’m not too fond of Apple Maps with CarPlay today. I just see promise in it. No experience with android auto. And, FWIW, I have never used any iteration of BMw’s IDrive.

I think 5 is the most you can reasonably expect. Tesla's system was pretty solid when it launched but even with some updates it's getting a little long-in-tooth now, particularly with respect to integration of other electronics (or lack thereof). That will happen even faster with cars that don't do OTA updates.

[robg]

Originally Posted by clyde

I don’t have anything against built in systems and I’d expect the latest and greatest versions in some cars to be pretty good. Part of the question, I think, is how long will today’s best continue to be good? 3 years? 5? 10?

I didn’t mean to argue at all. I’m not too fond of Apple Maps with CarPlay today. I just see promise in it. No experience with android auto. And, FWIW, I have never used any iteration of BMw’s IDrive.

I'd expect that the latest/greatest will be considered "good" for maybe 2 years, "acceptable" for 2 years and then "outdated" after that. OTA updates will mitigate that somewhat.