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Computers and Cars: A Maddening Experience?
Johnny writes "The nytimes has a review of the new BMW 745i iDrive system. The iDrive system combines some 270 functions, some accessable by voice, into one tactile feedback joystick mouse thingy. While maybe easier for computer junkies, the reviewer finds the interface 'maddening, especially at first' and wonders out loud what a car from Microsoft might be like, citing that the 745i offers a clue. Without a key, a floor shifter or really any buttons, this might be the future for cars, are the masses ready to wrestle with computers just to go to Wawa for milk?"
I think you get my drift. Driving a Microsoft car would be annoying and at the same time, dangerous.
At a recent computer expo (Comdex), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that get 100 miles to the gallon." Recently,General Motors addresses this comment by releasing this statement, "yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?" Below is a synopsis of the Microsoft Car: Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail, and you would have to re-install the engine. for some strange reason, you would accept this too. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT". But then you would have to buy more seats. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times faster, twice as easy to drive, but would only run on 5% of the roads. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades for their cars, which would make their cars run much slower. The oil, gas and alternator lights would be replaced with single "general car fault" lights. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
pronoblem
a WaWa is basically a 7-11 in the mid-atlantic states, and they seem to be everywhere (and I do mean EVERYWHERE). Some jokes regarding this include "You're from South Jersey if .... you know what a WaWa is, and can name the locations of about 10 of them," "You can give directions by where the WaWas are"
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
The BWM web site is completely messed up in Mozilla 1.0RC2. If they can't even create a web site that renders properly in a standards-compliant browser, how much can you trust their automotive software?
see this story a few months back? Sure, new review but OLD NEWS.
"Population 1,656"
Yes, the BMW iDrive is really nifty. I remember reading about it in a Popular Science, for the first time, about a year ago. I enjoy cars, and I enjoy gadgets. The new BMWs, equipped with the iDrive, combine both into a powerful beast, worthy of only the best drivers. Then again, don't all new BMWs fit this shoe?
I can't wait to test drive one. A maddening experience it may be, but I'm sure years of gaming will help me get the hang of it quickly.
the parent post is an exceptionally lame attempt at humour. you know what to do.
I hope that they have a cli version of the interface. I'd be quite disappointed if I had to use the mouse and/or joystick. After all, if you saw a child dart across the road chasing his ball, wouldn't you want to just type in, "killall -9 movement"?
;^P
testing out my trending skills
Hope it doesnt run on Windows, or else you might crash. (-1,423,234: Troll) But I like the iDrive dial. The only thing is, it's where the shift would be. I would prefer to have a jog dial thingy on the steering wheel, where it would be more easily accessible.
By the way, there's an article in Popular Science about this too. It printed a few issues back, if any of you subscribe. I couldn't find it on the website though...
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
There's another fairly balanced article and discussion about iDrive over at Kuro5hin that's worth checking out. The author has similar mixed feelings about the technology, and talks about how other car manufacturers like Saab and Audi are developing similar systems.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
Lessee...need to move my seat back...ummm.
U-U-D-L-L-RF-D-L-U
dang..scissor-kicked the driver.
Oh well...might as well finish him.
D-D-L-U-LF-UF-D-U--D-L-L
Thwack!
Now I'm not saying cars aren't easy to use. However, one cant compare it to computers that easily. (the iDrive can be compared though). The main reason that the interface to cars has not changed in almost a 100 years is simple. Backwards compatibility, and consumer familiarity. Thats right.. It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is. After all, a consumer cant be expected to take multiple driving tests in order to get a license for each make of car. They had to standardize it so that a person who has driven one car can drive just about ANY car. They cant have licenses that say "Okay for Toyota, Chrysler, and Dodge only".
Its interesting how familiarity with the interface also happens to be one of the BIGGEST problems that linux faces when trying to enter the desktop market. People who have taken the effort to learn or attend courses on using computers learnt the Microsoft interface to software. When they come across a unix one, they aren't familiar with it, and cant use it as well.. regardless of whether its better or not.
The iDrive is like linux. Sure its harder to use in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder how you managed to get by without it.
Just my 2 cents worth.
- Tempestdata
See it here.
You're Just Jealous Because The Voices Are Talking To Me.
Pessimists... you need to consider the advantages of a Microsoft car:
your car would seek out and destroy the competition.
the hood would be welded shut. No worrying about it ending up at the chop shop for parts.
its sheer size will trump any SUV on the road today.
- The electronic parking brake is unintuitive and dangerous. One of
the factors that make some cars safer than others is the ease of use of the
parking break in situations in which the main brake lines lose pressure or
the pedal snaps off. This causes the liability and collision insurance
rates to be slightly higher.
- A standard shift lever on an automatic transmission is considered a
safety feature, as both the position and the dash lights make it
immediately apparent to the driver that the car is in gear. The 745i has
only the light, and even at that, the light is stuck in the middle of a
confusing, crowded console. This also increases risk and thus insurance
rates.
- The fact that many Americans are afraid of technology and unable to
perform a task as simple as changing their VCR clock or installing a new
hard drive is a chilling reminder of the fact that valets, test drivers,
and other "guest drivers" of the 745i will be putting the driving public at
risk and increasing the owner's insurance rates.
- Since it is extraordinarily difficult to do something as simple as
turning on headlights or changing the radio station, the driver's attention
is likely to be diverted from the road.
All told, my actuary friend told me that the insurance rates for the first year that a driver owns a 745i are going to be astronomical. Rates for successive years are slightly lower, although the vehicle is generally regarded in the community to be a threat to life and property, and a lawsuit waiting to happen.Most people could walk or cycle to the shops to get milk rather than drive ...
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/22.02.html#subj2
My favorite side comment in the discussion:
I remember from my CS studies in the first year everybody hated VI because no one knew how to make even a simple readme with it. After a few months (or years for some people) almost anyone who uses *nix seems to think VI is a gift from God.
If you combine this with the fact that BMW has a very good car-building rep, and you can only conclude that the Ford Cheapo will have i-Drive in 5 to 10 years.
The car is a real technology lover's paradise: active suspension, GPS, umpteen dozen little controls over everwhere. And yes, there is a key, but it's just a little puck that you insert into the dash. It has it's own little computer and calculates rolling security codes on the fly to foil car theives.
Now about the only thing I didn't like was the stinking iDrive system. It just plain sucks!! It way to hard to control things that I used to be able to push a button and do. Like surfing through three levels of menus just to turn on the defroster. Stupid.
The interface itself is ok, the button is hard to get used to becuase it is a joystick and wheel/button in one. And when you do something illegal it vibrates. Slick enough, but the interface is god awful.
Luckily this thing controls non-critical functions, I could see lawsuits brought if it controlled the gear selection or traction system.
Someone also told me that the software inside the iDrive is actually WinCE, can anyone verify this? If so, it would be truly a MS car after all.
BMW has a good track record of innovation, but I think this is a serious detour.
Contrary to popular belief, life is not a bitch. It is far far worse.
"European Car" magazine reviewed the new 7 series in their February, 2002 issue.
They mention that in 1953, the BWM 502 had 26 control and indicator functions. In the late 90's, the 7-series had over 70 functions, with as many indicators, and over 35 control elements (buttons, etc.)
Something *had* to be done to reduce the complexity of the cockpit. While driving down the road you do not want the person in the car next to you trying to figure out which of the 40 buttons on the dash controls what. You can do it by feel with more simple cars, but cars as advanced as the 7-series will be simply too much.
Most reviews I have read (I am a big car buff, especially BMWs) all say that once you get used to the system (go out in your driveway for a Saturday), you can figure the system out fairly quickly, and that using it (once you have it figured out) is actually easier than a bunch of buttons.
Also realize this is the first generation of the system. User interface will only get better.
I recently drove a Mercedes Benz C320 with the navigation system and cell phone options. They were all combined with the stereo onto one LCD. Once I figured out the relatively easy interface, I was able to do more by touch than I have been able to with other cars using buttons.
Having one consistent interface made things much easier.
About the only problem I foud, and the only problem mentioned in most reviews, is the ability to do multiple thigns at once. You cannot raise the stero's volume at the exact same time as you adjust the passenger-side heat.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Car controls have changed dramatically through the years. The high-beams used to be via a footswitch. Windshield wipers only moved onto a stalk on the console very recently. Transmission controls have varied widely: stalks, buttons, levers, etc. True, the main controls (wheel, throttle, brake) haven't moved too much, but one might argue there aren't many variations possible if you a) want to steer with two hands and b) want to speed up/slow down with your feet. There were tillers on some early cars, but the public tended to prefer the wheel. Also, remember that engine controls in the old days were incredibly complex, letting you adjust engine timing, butterfly valve settings, and myriad other features.
I think we've seen plenty of change. Just try to drive a car from the twenties or thirties some time.
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
the reviewer finds the interface 'maddening
I can see why, if the interface was designed by the same people who designed their website.
When I pulled up their site I got the worst mis-rendered disaster I have ever seen. I got a column of text wordwrapped at !!14!! characters. Some of the text was invisible on black background. I got random little lines all over the screen. I don't know if it's because I'm using Netscape. I don't konw it it's because I have cookies shut off. But I *do* know it's not just because I have JavaScripting shut off. How do I know? I tried turning it Java script on and reloading. It actually wound up rendering *less* of the page.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Alton Brown the Good Eats chef?
"press OK to open the air-bag"
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
...when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Wait...come to think of it, that's probably just how it would happen. But I guess I wouldn't need it then.
I hate cars that try to be smarter than the driver. Give me my old Morgan any time. I do miss it so. <sigh>
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
I guess the kind of people buying these cars will use chaffeurs anyways. I guess a lot of MCSE's will be doing a bit of moonlighting when this car comes out.
You mean BMW is supporting shared disk space for MP3's and warez now?
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
As a chain Wawa (no second capital W) is vastly superior to a 7-11. The deli is better, the store is cleaner, the staff is generally less surly. Please, please, don't demean this wonderful chain by equating it with a 7-11; it's like saying Linux is basically a DOS like operating system.
Also, Wawa is an Native American word meaning Canada goose. (this piece of information courtesy of a carton of milk from the Wawa, back in my childhood).
Why can't the greedy insurers and banks encourage innovation for once, instead of killing it off through price gouging and FUD?
Just a thought...
Registration-free link
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
On a recent business trip, I had the opportunity to drive a new 745i. All I have to say it what in the hell was BMW thinking? My first impression of the car walking up to it was, wow.....it's ugly. My next impression was sitting in the drivers seat and wondering how to turn on the headlights. (it was night) I kept thinking that this was absolutely like a Microsoft designed interface.
Any vehicle that has a user interface so non-intuitive that one needs to pull out the owners manual to adjust the mirrors, figure out how to shift, and turn on headlights is just plain bad design. And what is up with the parking brake?!!? Furthermore, I like being able to determine what gear I am in by touch, not having to look at a display someplace. BMW vehicles in the past have had wonderful driving experiences with intuitive placement of controls, but if this is the way things are going with BMW, I will be looking at Audi (the A8 is a wonderfully understated and competent automobile with a superlative driving environment.) BMW should know what they are doing and I can only hope this is an accidental release. (They got it right with the Mini afterall.)
Quirky is one thing (Porshe and Saab with weird places for the ignition key), but the 745i's interface is downright unacceptable, bordering on dangerous.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Why don't they design the user interface to be more customisable. They could just put in a touch screen powered by something (not WinCE) and people could even design their own interfaces. You could download them like you download skins. Most UI's a crap, if they could be customised you wouldn't have to live with them. The basics of a good interface is one that can be customised to the users preferences
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I remember another car with a similar system, perhaps Alfa Romeo. The problem with a "one knob control" is that
a) Many functions will be not directly accessible, but in a submenu. Instead of just turning up the heat you have to go Climate control->Temperature-> and then adjust. This puts some strain on the driver I imagine, much like handling a mobile phone.
b) Because of that, one needs feedback in order to know what one is doing. You will either have to look at a little screen (like in the Alpha Romeo) and take your eyes of the road (very dangerous), or listen to voice feedback and go through the menus that way (very annoying and slooow).
I much prefer old-style controls, so I can just blindly reach for the various buttons. No need to look at them even briefly. By all means improve the controls by laying them out well, or automating part of it, like for example the climatronic system. But please leave me with ordinary buttons and knows, don't make me use some daft menu. I am all for gadgets and such but this is plain dangerous.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
- "Hal, open the door"
- "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you do that".
aaaaaa
a former housemate said they recently built one near his parent's house in Maryland (with gas station)..... what's next!?!? waterice, soft pretzels, Goldberg's Peanut Chews and Tastykakes in California!?!?
hmmmmmm Wawa sounds like a good idea..... later friends!
I'd counter this with: yes, they do. It works, and has proven to be quite efficient. Moreover, it is arguable that it became a "universal" interface when other variations simply didn't work as well. Pushbutton gear-shifting, joystick steering, semi-automatic transmissions - they've been tried, and they failed. Because they didn't meet a simple equation.
... best.
A good interface is:
- Intuitive. Like it or not, "normal" car interfaces are something that are generally well understood by the driving world's populations. So they are easy to teach, and there is a good bit of inherent education transmitted by simply living in the driving world. Most school in the US, Europe, and a good part of Asia, inherently understand "normal" auto interfaces through a sort of osmosis (video games, magazines, fiction).
- Efficient. A gear shift (manual) or level or t-stick (auto) just works. One step to get to the gearing that you want. Pedals are simple and direct - press for more "go", let up for less. There is not need to think; it becomes a transparent extension.
- Aesthetic. This is the least important in terms of getting things done, but is a "nice to have" kind of thing. I think most here would agree that an "ugly" interface (a CLI is not "pretty" to most people) that gets the job done best is
If you are going to sacrifice the intuitive nature of an existing interface for something different, it should have an efficiency advantage. Likewise, if you are going to cosmetically change an interface (for aesthetic reasons) to the point where it becomes less intuitive, it should at least not loose its efficiency.
What does the BMW iDrive add here? It appears to be interface for the sake of interface. It appears to add steps to most routine processes, not make them easier. For certain things, analog is just better. Like car interfaces.
iDrive is like comparing digital to analog watches. The first digital watches added no additional functionality to telling time, and actually made the task harder. Although they started out as luxury goods, the watch buying public soon realized that, frankly, they are amazingly inefficient chronograph interfaces. And yes, many folks didn't understand how they worked back then.
As a result, most watches sold are analog. In fact, it is almost impossible to find "luxury" digital watches today. I expect that automobiles will go through a brief computer interface phase, and then return to something more standard.
jonathan
I couldn't imagine where they would put 30 more buttons.. As it is my 1995 525i has around 40 buttons on the dash next to the stereo that display avg MPG, avg MPH, top speed, trip distance, timers, how much gas is left, how many miles i have left before it runs out, displaying in Kil/Miles, 12/24 clock mode, alarms, waypoints, etc .. This was back in *1995* .. There is no other way to keep adding in cool stuff without having to come up with something like this.
We could save taxpayers millios by implementing this into the judicary system.
Judge: How do you plead Mr. Defendant?
Defandant: Not Guilty, your honor.
Judge: On what grounds?
Defendant: It wasn't my fault. The car BSOD'd.
Judge: Case dismissed.
MCSE's will still be driving their crummy Yugos, bub. There is no money for them any longer.
I am just waiting for the crash proof car to come out. I can't see it being too popular, as all those idiot tailgaters won't be able to tailgate any more.
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
A bit off-topic, but amusing. Here's a little known but interesting fact. GT bikes patented (and trademarked) the "iDrive" name for its race-level full-suspension mountain bikes (and they're beauties!). BMW came up with the same iDrive name a few months later and thought they'd roll it into production. GT, of course, put the brakes on, but they came to a friendly understanding and now BMW licenses the iDrive name from GT.
;-) started with mountain bikes.
So the next time any of you especially wealthy ones are out cruising in your iDrive-equipped BMWs, just remember the name (like all things great
Just give me the basics, wheel, clutch, brake, gas, and a gear shift....
:) It has also caused some cars to have electrical gremlins..very hard to track down.
My Corvette has 5 different computers in it. They monitor everything. It has a central DIC, driver information center, for most things. It tells you all stats on the car as well as any warnings or problems. The good part is the Active Handling system. The computers in the car constantly monitor many things... lateral G's, accelaration, braking, tire slippage, etc. Unlike other cars with basic traction control is that the Vette will correct problems for you. If it senses the back end coming around it'll independantly brake a single will to bring the car inline. Very handy, and has saved me before when hitting loose gravel or water.
The bad part is that everything is computer controlled. Want to put in a good alarm system? Good luck.
MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys. Failing to find them, you climb on your bike and pedal over. You have to make several trips since you can only carry one thing at a time.
...
... the hell with it, I'm gonna stay home and play with the car ...
OS/2: It's a great car, it drives well, but it will only work on 70% or the roads in your area. After fueling up with 6,000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band on parade. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing you and half the town.
WINDOWS: You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly; because attached to the back of the car is a freight train. Other than that, it's pretty neat; it's all run by pushbuttons, but it only goes about 35mph, you gotta warm it up for twenty minutes before it'll run, and it manages to hit 3 phone poles, a mail box, a stop sign, and two other cars on the way.
WINDOWS NT: It LOOKS really fast, like a Formula 1 car, and it's built so low to the ground that you can't take it out of the driveway. You get in the car and write a letter that says "Go to the store". Then you get out, and mail the letter to your dashboard.
WINDOWS 95: You call the garage to find out it isn't fixed yet, but you can keep the Windows loaner until it is.
MACINTOSH SYSTEM 7: You get in the car to go to the store. The car drives you to church, because the store has mysteriously exploded.
UNIX - You get in the car and type "GREP STORE". You screech off at 200 miles per hour, and arrive at the barber shop.
UNIX-WARE - Great deal, and looks really cool. Doesn't have an engine, though... Call Novell, buy an engine. No tires. Call Novell. No transmission. Call Novell. No clutch. Call Novell. No carbs. Call Novell. They don't support carbs anymore. Buy a fuel injector. No steering wheel
NETWARE - You have to hire a CNE to chauffeur you around, but he keeps wrecking the car.
AMIGA - You get in the car and tell it to go to the store. It takes you to a shopping mall on the moon.
TALIGENT/PINK: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montelban, who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Learjet.
AIX - Cool. A cross between a BMW and a Hyundai pickup truck.
LINUX - The developers have been here overnight and changed everything again. You wonder what the new cattle-catcher front end and rear gun turret are for. Car won't start. Hot-wire the ignition. No oil pressure. Add oil. Bad backfire, injection system needs adjusting. Check manual - nope, manual's three months out of date. Tune injectors by ear. Stereo is missing the left channel, tire pressure seems low, needs a good wax job
where is the "I feel for ya, but that's some funny ass shit" moderation?
It sure would be nice if BMW offered videos on their website in a standard format (not Quicktime). Considering that the majority of the users on the internet are windows users, it would only make sense to at least offer .WMV if not mpeg or some other more universal format.
I've gotten to the point where if a video is in Quicktime or Realplayer format, I won't bother. Im not going download an additional video player to view your marketing content.
I would think that you might drive to Wawa for there coffee more often than you do milk...
The Bruce Schneir book "Secrets and lies" talks about one of the models of Porsche which had a bug where in which if the gas tank has less than one litre of gas and takes a real hard swerve, the subsequent accumulation of gas in the tank to one side, would confuse the onboard chip to believe that the tank is empty and thereby shutting down the car immediately.
I can imagine a couple of new born dot com millionaires who had no clue what the fuck just happened.
Rapid Nirvana
Why two? Because typically, you only have to frob ONE control in a car to accomplish your goal. Want to increase the fan speed? Slide over the lever or twist the knob. Activate the hazard lights? Push or pull the control, or flip a switch. And so on. The electric e-brake is a big mistake too, but I won't go into that yet.
The ONLY reasonable way to have a LCD interface in a car is to have a row of mode buttons; One for environmental controls, one for stereo controls, one for navigation, et cetera; And have all the controls for that mode available once you enter it. Personally I am a big favor of real buttons, but i know they're somewhat impractical here. You COULD easily have a row of physical buttons down the side of the screen with changing labels next to them, but you must NOT have the top and bottom buttons scroll the list up and down. The whole point of having "hard" buttons is that you can reach for them by touch and not have to look at the panel.
Voice recognition is a good idea, at least in a luxury car like this one designed to be quiet inside. With the use of a DSP you should even be able to make it work nicely while the radio is playing. But it doesn't solve this problem at all.
The fact that you have to enter a sub-screen of a settings screen to access some functions is just wrong. BMW should know better than that. Also, using a mouse-type interface is stupid; It should be a touch-screen, period. If you use a pointer, you have to watch the pointer, which is going to divert your attention from the road. Pure idiocy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
+1 funny!!
You forgot the real biggie!
Parts for the car would not be available after 5 years. Third-party car parts companies would not be allowed to sell parts for Microsoft cars.
Anyone who tried would be sued with all of the diligence that Microsoft's $40 billion in cash would allow!
Hi! How are you?
I take you to this place in order to have your advice.
See you later! Thanks
http://m-a-t.com/msgates/
Be sure and click on the "related article" too, Menus Behaving Badly:
My beagle, whose job description is "scan roadsides for squirrels," is in the back, moving from one side window to the other. Each time he shifts, sensors in the seat take note, and the right rear headrest whirrs up as the left one whirrs down. For the next two hours, the headrests dance in tandem, as if trying to provide comfort for restless spirits.
I have to say that I was never a fan of the sandwiches, but the great thing about WaWa is that any one I've been in has a very large selection of Tastycakes.
Specifically, Coconut Juniors, Butterscotch Krumpets, and those penut butter thingies... mmmm...
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
iDrive is like comparing digital to analog watches. The first digital watches added no additional functionality to telling time, and actually made the task harder. Although they started out as luxury goods, the watch buying public soon realized that, frankly, they are amazingly inefficient chronograph interfaces. And yes, many folks didn't understand how they worked back then. As a result, most watches sold are analog. In fact, it is almost impossible to find "luxury" digital watches today.
Interesting statement, but wrong anyway. Watches are jewellery. Digital watches are perceived to be cheap (mainly because they are). Analog watches are perceived to be complicated mechanical things, ego expensive.
Few people wear a watch they days to tell the time. Check your PDA/phone/etc. They're fashion accessories. Why do you REALLY wear a watch? 'Cause it's pretty, and prettier than the one your coworker is wearing.
In my last car, I had an aftermarket radio that I bought without thinking about it too much. Instead of a volume control knob, it had volume up and volume down buttons. They tried to make it clever, with one of those controlled-backlash features--that is, each UP press would take you up four units in volume, then each DOWN press would take you down a single unit.
It drove me bananas. I can't believe just how annoying and distracting it was to use that thing.
Plus, it had one of these deals where you can set eighteen FM stations and six AM stations--there's a row of six station buttons and another button that cycles you through FM-1, FM-2, FM-3, and AM. After about a month I finally got clued in and set FM-1, FM-2, and FM-3 each to the SAME set of stations. _I_ can't remember an arbitrary four-by-six array of stations and I don't think anyone else can, either.
Setting the clock for daylight savings time? Twice a year I would say "this CAN'T be that hard, I'm SURE I can remember enough from last time to figure it out. Let's see, you press and hold the TIME button for three seconds and then hold the station 1 button while you press the "volume up" button? Nope, not it." And twice a year I'd have to stumble into my house and try to find where I had left the manual for the thing...
What WILL Donald Norman do when EVERYTHING in the world is a badly-designed computer interface and there ARE no natural objects with plain "affordances" to point do?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Because they are not nerds!!!
wait until somebody rear ends you one day because they were busy reading their 20 volume instruction manual trying to figure out how to put the window down.
<voice style="Jon Stewart">Whaa?</voice>
Pushbutton gear-shifting is the preferred method of gear-shifting in most all forms of racing. Throwing a gear stick around is just too inefficient, especially when you only have a limited amount of cockpit space as in some racers (others have much more cockpit room, like rally cars, but even they tend to prefer a "pushbutton"-ish shifting interface rather than a gear stick). As for "semi-automatic transmissions", I guess Porsche, Audi, etc didn't know that this has been tried and failed, since they still sell their Tiptronic/Multitronic drive systems, and they're actually quite popular (and work very well, though I'm the type that still prefers the manual shifter). BMW's SMG is also a pretty slick system.
There are plenty of other "tried and failed" automotive ideas that are still being used. Take the previously mentioned Multitronic system from Audi, for example. It's just a continuously variable transmission, which has been done several times before, but Audi has made advances with the technology and so the Multitronic CVT system is much better than previous implementations by other manufacturers.
Just because Ford, GM, or Chrysler don't do it or tried and failed doesn't mean it's not being done and done successfully by other, arguably better automobile manufacturers.
The BMW engineers desperately need to read The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin. He knows a lot more about interfaces than they do. Computers are cool and all, but WIMP interfaces are hardly the pinnacle of good design.
If you could put the LCD output on a HUD-type thing on the windshield then maybe you could change things and keep your eyes on the road. But as it is, i'd stay far far away from anything that i have to look down to use (this coming from someone who's already had one accident from not paying attention)
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Even in this day and age, many of us still decry the evils of the automatic transmission (me being one of them). There are reasons why a great many cars are still made with a stickshift, the main one being that those of us who know how to drive a stickshift find that the automatic transmission tries to second-guess the driver too much and ends up getting things wrong, or at least not as smooth as they could have been. Even those "auto-stick" things they put in newer cars aren't capable of shifting at different RPM speeds very well. The only coding analogy I can think of is comparing HTML coding in Notepad to HTML coding in FrontPage.
I think BMW is really shooting themselves in the foot with this idea. Sure, this technology will probably eventually catch on much like the automatic transmission did (I expect to see this idea flourish in the "family vehicle" market), but it will generally be detested by those drivers that like having an honest-to-God interface with the car instead of having to deal with a machine that assumes too much. And seeing as how BMW typically markets themselves to the sports car user...
If this was something like cruise control, where I could push a button, turn off the computer and do the driving myself... maybe. But even then there's no way you'd see a device like this in a manual transmission. And if it doesn't have three pedals, I refuse to use it.
what a 7/11 is.....
it is like a Kum and Go here in the mid west.
If you've wondered what a car from Microsoft might be like, the 7 offers a clue. You half expect it to ask, "Where do you want to go today?"
Lol...How true, lets just hope it is more reliable than M$.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
OK, there may be some genuine safety advances that make the car more complicated, for example and air-conditioning system will help keep the windscreen from fogging up. But what functions do you need to drive a car safely?
BMW et al. can make running the stereo and other non-essential features as interesting as they want, so long as they don't mix them up with essential functions. People who get used to a particular UI aren't going to be the only people driving this car. Nor do we particlarly need a situation where you need a certification in a particular model of car before you can drive it safely.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
In my opinion, the worst flaw in automobile user interface design in history is that headlights stay on by default, even with the key removed, unless you explicitly turn them off. Does anyone have a good example why you would want a car's headlights to stay on (permanently until the battery runs out) after you have left the car and taken the keys with you? Please let the discussion begin.
:) I still see plenty of 2002 model cars with thier lights on in parking lots, so I know the problem is still not solved.
:)
Subarus are the only pre-1992 cars I've seen that do not exhibit this behavior. My next car will most likely be a Subaru, for this (among many other) reasons.
No doubt this car still does this, and now you have to go though 5 menus or so to turn them off rather than just rotating a dial.
My wife has one and she does not go to wawa for
milk in it. In fact she does not even come close
to a WAWA. Well lit clean places only. Want to go
to wawa, use a GEO
I think this is funny. Slashbot tries to slur Microsoft because of the BMW iDrive, yet doesn't even realize that the iDrive uses Windows CE.
http://www.microsoft.com/insider/bmw7series.htm
The system was actually built by Siemens along with all the custom software and such.
Christ slashbot is so out of touch with the computing world it's not even funny, this thing has been in the news for the past year.
OK, what is Wawa and why would you go there for milk? We've got these great things called grocery stores here where I live and they have had milk for sale for as long as I have gone there. I often buy milk in large quanties (at a substantial discount!) and bring it home, where I place it in a personal cooling unit known as a refridgerator. The really great thing about this is that I can go get some and not have to wait for my car to boot up.
And seeing as how BMW typically markets themselves to the sports car user...
No BMW typically markets themselves to car users who have enough money to buy BMWs. And this useful piece of technology will certainly cost more than your average heater lever and hazard light knob, so BMW will market the iDrive cars to car users who have enough money to buy iDrive cars. And then these users will naturally deselect themselves as they cruise down the road trying to find the submenu for airconditioning. Which will naturally allow the population of car users without enough money for iDrives, but enough money for a standard BMW to grow, due to fewer natural predators. It is really a brilliant marketing strategy on BMW's part.
Just like Linux weenies - those webtoe dweezles gonna go thru a 0.025% approval meatgrinder and come out yakkers on the M$ helpdesk network. BWAHAHAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
BTW, the UIs for autos were not standardized in their current form very early on. I got the explanation how to drive a 1920 Ford truck a couple of weeks ago. These were very strange to the modern driver. I'm not sure if anything besides the steering wheel was in the same place as it is on typical cars of today. I think there was a brake pedal, but it was rightmost. Other pedals did different things to the gears, but there were assorted levers involved in gear-shifting, too. So, it takes time for these things to get worked out. Nowadays, that means thousands of lawsuits while things get worked out.
iDriveAndCrash
Actually pushbutton shifting is not used by anyone anymore, some F1 cars use a wheel mounted antomatic clutch system, but not pushbutton shifting.
Audi is having a hard time selling the Multitronic, as it does not yet have any real advantage. In fact they allow you to turn it into a six speed semi-automatic.
> Without a key, a floor shifter or really any
> buttons, this might be the future for cars, are
> the masses ready to wrestle with computers just
> to go to Wawa for milk?"
I agree that this could be a problem.
In the maddening drive for car manufacturers trying to differentiate their cars, they're going to end up causing more harm than good.
The good thing about cars is they all generally have the same interface. So if you've got more than one car in the family or you're renting a car, you generally know how to use it without having to take a 3-hour class as suggested by BMW in the article.
With each manufacturer trying to come up with their own nifty interface, you're suddenly going to have lots of cars with wildly different user interfaces. BMW with their weird iDrive thing, Mercedes with their voice recognition, and who knows what Audi and Lexus will come up with.
Of course there are few chances for someone to rent a 740i as a rental, but if this sort of thing filters down to the entry level cars, expect chaos.
Cars aren't like computers, where a non-standard interface causes a major catastrophe. Click the wrong button on a computer because you're unfamiliar with what it does may, at worst, delete a file you didn't intend to delete. In a car, unfamiliarity with the controls can cause an accident.
Here's an example. After having all Japanese cars, I recently bought a German roadster. In my car the cruise control knob is right next to the turn signal, which is in turn mounted kind of low. When I first got it, the first few times I tried to make a right turn, I ended up engaging the cruise control. That was disorienting, to say the least. I eventually got used to it and it was just one interface problem.
I can imagine what it'll be like if you can't work the iDrive dial-thingy.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Good Electronics in cars;
:-)
1). Digital Engine Control Units (ECUs) for emissions and reliable drivability.
2). ABS
3). IR view sensors like on the Cadillac
4). Active Suspension
5). Automatic Windshield wipers
Bad Electronics in cars;
1). Cell phones
2). Complicated Radios
3). Any kind of mouse or menu driven computer display like BMW iDrive.
4). Automated braking and distance control.
You sound like someone I know who can argue that seat belt laws are helping to lower the average IQ... :)
Cars have changed many times. I have driven cars from the 30's and it isn't that much more complicated if you already know how to drive a car with a standard with partial or no synchro on the manual transmission and with manual choke. If you can't do that, what the heck are they doing letting you drive an 1800 kg hopefully-guided missile?
Turning cars into things idiots can drive has very much turned the roadways into the home of the idiot. ABS, automatic transmissions, cruise control (this one not so much), traction control, etc. are the kind of things that have lowered the bar of driver competence. And they give illusions of capability that aren't always accurate. ABS works better under some conditions than standard brakes, but not always. In slush or gravel, it actually has longer braking distance (as O.P.P. studies discovered). For some reason, vehicles got from A to B for years without a lot of these features and yet we have them now. Computer control is another example.
Take your example of the dimmer switch. Remove the floor switch (not too hard to replace) and put it (linked to the windshield wipers/etc) on the control yoke (not as easy to replace) and this is an improvement? And what happened to automatic headlight dimmers like those used by Cadillac? The auto-industry has had any number of good ideas that for mysterious reasons have vanished, and a lot of hairbrained ones that stuck around.
Once upon a time, car manuals listed technical specs like compression, gear ratios, horsepower and torque curves (not just single rpm quotations), bore and stroke, etc. Now, you get told about the cup holders. Need I say more?
And I found it interesting that a some of the head safety guys for NASCAR and CART utterly disagree with some of the current design practices for cars. They _know_ about high speed collisions with other cars and with concrete walls, and they have a rather different philosophy on how to protect the passangers than most car manufacturers.
Car manufacturers are in business to make money, not necessarily to make the best car and sometimes that means gizmos, even if they are a bad idea. If it were otherwise, someone can explain to me why a ten year old F150 supercab with a 2.5 ton truck 4 speed and a carbuerated 351 gets better MPG than a standard cab F150 with a 5 speed with overdrive and fuel injection and a 302? New ain't always better.
It's seems to me like a good way for keeping away idiots from buying cool cars like this beamer.
PPA, the girl next door
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Karma whore link
This iDrive idiocy sounds a lot more like a GM "innovation" than a German one. Jesus, my 635 is about the simplest goddamn car ever designed. I'm a little surprised that BMW -- a company supposedly devoted to the art of driving -- would produce such an elephantine, Microsoftian nightmare.
It bodes ill. Happily, I'll never have a buck and a quarter to drop on a 745 (or a 760), so it's not likely to bother me except it the abstract.
Best,
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
I wouldn't let Bill Gates manage a WaWa.
Chris Bangle has lost his mind...
Who's next? Brian Kerningham???
cars. Especially deloreans. You should buy me one.
Um, I wear a watch so that I can find the time with the least amount of effort. Having it on my wrist works very well for that.
Go to your local drugstore and look at the cheapest watches. Analog Timex... there is really no price difference.
Point is that analog watches are dominant at all price points, from the cheapest to the most expensive. Why? People realized that it just works better.
jonathan
I haven't driven one, but one pulled up behind me on the expressway this afternoon. Black. Like a spaceship. I thought Hotblack Desiato was trying to overtake and pass...
Who did what now?
I think he might be referring to the old Chrysler push-button transmissions they had in the 60's. It literaly was a "push-button" transmission. There were 3 buttons on the dash, one for each gear, and that's how you shifted, Press first gear to get going, then hit second, then third. To slow down, you have to hit second or first. It's kinda neat as a novelty, but I wouldn't want it in my daily driver.
does anyone else miss the wawa bolis? I certainly do...
Sorry, Osty, but you have your terms wrong, and the wrong argument to boot.
We're not talking about a different technologies, like CVT, we're talking about different formfactors.
The pushbutton, dashboard transmission was something tried, briefly, in the '50's. It was supposed to replace the lever. It failed; the interface didn't provide any merits. It sure looked cool, tho, but that wasn't enough.
Semi-automatic was tried, briefly, by Volkswagen. Automatic clutch, but normal stick interface. It also failed. You could NOT put it in "auto" mode - you had to shift for yourself - but without difficult clutching. Again, a somewhat different interface to accomplish the same thing as a manual transmission, but with more cost and less efficiency.
Tiptronic and the like are just new interfaces on automatic transmissions. Lots of folks do actually "paddle" their non-Tip auto transmissions, and the Tiptronic crap is a result of that. All of their ilk default to automatic mode, and I'd guess that's how many folks drive them. No interface is essentially being replaced - you can opt in or out on the fly. In other words, your parking lot attendant doesn't need to be retrained.
jonathan
Hmm, okay, so with a couple of exceptions, everyone replying so far has either hated the car because they (a) test-drove one once or (b) read the bad review. If the chief complaint is the unfriendly UI, wouldn't any of you rich nerds adopt one to hack on?
You know someone's going to reverse-engineer / license / steal the API. Probably almost trivial to rearrange a few menus the way you want them, just by knowing which factory programmed functions you need to call. I have no idea what media the system's burned into, but it's probably standard off-the-shelf stuff, or someone will put themselves into a business of selling chips to a new breed of car hackers.
The real obstacle is that the entry fee is high enough that your average I-put-bsd-on-my-toaster hacker isn't going to be able to participate. But I bet one guy buys one with the intent to tear it apart, posts all his progress to his website, which promptly gets slashdotted, and within two weeks there will be a small core of wealthy geeks that just started a sourceforge site. And once they put out some source and a HOW-TO, geeks won't have to be turned off the car by the UI.
And a couple months after that, BMW rips off the geeks' ideas for their next revision. Progress!
Nothing much happens for a while, and then someone reveals they have completely mapped the protocols, and announces an embedded Linux version.
Which necessitates an obligatory,
"Whoah. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!"
You're right on. Here's a pic I found: Pushbutton Transmission.
I was off a few years tho - was this Chrysler only? And wasn't it the same as a normal auto?
jonathan
Actually, it would be quite easy to do this in most towns - a ten minute bike ride, maybe. (It would be harder for me to walk/bike in the city I'm in now rather than my hometown, since the residential and commercial areas are farther apart. The only advantage the city has is a better bus system.) Of course, if it were 100lbs of groceries instead of a bit of milk and stuff, or during a blizzard, or I lived far away from even the smallest town, then it would be a different story. But the poster said most people, not everyone.
Everything controlled by one "joystick". Thought cell phones were a problem, just wait until you see someone trying to change their A/C settings! "So i turn this way...no, that's not it...(cat flies over windshield)...no, mabye it's in this menu...(car goes over cliff)...oh! here it...OH MY GOD!!!!(Chris Farley style)" 'Nuff said. At least I can change the A/C settings in my car without paying any attention to it. One more reason that 80's sports cars rule!
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
And someone's probably already made it, but...
Gives new meaning to the "Blue Screen of Death"
and to "System Crash".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It's basically been proven that the average person drives better drunk than while trying to operate a cell phone, and that's a pretty simple interface. Now BMW is coming along and giving people more reasons to take their eyes off the road? WTF are they thinking?
:-)
I'm all for adding cool features to cars, but let's try to keep it in the realm of the practical, mmmkay? Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble. Having to navigate a complex GUI just to turn on the wipers or the rear defroster = bad idea.
And not all computerization is a good thing-- although the antilock braking system in my '94 Grand Am has saved my ass a couple times over the years, a few years back I was lucky that it did not CAUSE an accident-- the chip that controlled it died in such a way that occasionally I would hit the brakes just to stop normally, or to slow for a turn, and the pedal would go straight to the floor without slowing the car!! Luckily, I quickly discovered that when this happened, lifting my foot from the brake and then stepping on the pedal again would engage the brakes-- and I got that problem taken care of damn quickly, within the car's original warranty period. But every now and then I'll think about how that simple problem could have had very unpleasant or even fatal results, and I'll shudder a little bit.
On the plus side, if someone in their shiny new 745i plows into you because they were fiddling with their iDrive computer, at least you'll be able to sue with confidence that they can pay up.
So how long before someone slaps Embedded Linux + Apache on, hooks it to a cellphone, and lets the world log in?
If that happened, what would a Slashdotting do to the car?
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
Some of us aren't big star wars geeks that must know everything in advance. I hope that's just a joke.
Holy shit that's a bit radical ... how about riding your bicycle then?
Quite seriously - I do find it disturbing that so much technological nous might be, by some people, used only a few times a week to do the grocery shopping. An almost inconceivable waste of resources!
Lobby your local government to provide alternatives which don't require you to fire up the automotive equivalent of the hubble space telescope to do simple tasks.
Ash OS durbatulk, ash OS gimbatul, ash OS thrakatulk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul! Uzg-MS-ishi amal fauthut burgulli.
SmartMoney also has a review of this car, and they say it's too gadgety, but at least they're trying to get things right.
;)
Personally, I'd prefer a Mercedes or Audi myself...
See for yourself. Those Microsoft jokes suddenly aren't quite as funny... :)
Fold the plastic into a shape like a puppy tent and staple it together, take 1 metal plate per side and set it aside.
Drill holes on the side of each vent to put the U bolts in that are the same width apart plus a few cm than the puppy tent. Attach metal plate and U bolts, put dash back on.
Set puppy tent over vent and make sure it fits, now stick bolt through U bolt and through puppy tent so it rocks back and forth directing air either directly forward for when you need to defrost or directly backward when you have a/c on.
Take velcro strips and attach to the front and back edges and where they touch the dash so it does not go back and forth when you turn the a/c on high or get your escort going fast.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Mod Parent Up. The damn thing *is* running winCE!
This doesn't look that great to me. I like to have as many input devices available as possible. There is no key on my keyboard that goes unmapped. Being forced to do everything through one simple input device means the user has to perform more complex operations just to do a simple task. Its much faster just to have a button for everything. Just reach over and press. Nice and quick. None of this fiddling around with input sequences.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Any true fan would have already downloaded and seen AotC. If you haven't, stop complaining because it's your own damn fault.
The 745i is based on a Windoze CE box.
...... hmmm
I luckily enough have a 2002 BMW without the fancy Idrive......
A plain old clutch and a 6 speed
the good bmw
i wonder if CE does the blue screen of death
This could be worse than being at a toll booth behind a Pinto, and in front of an Audi
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Dude, it's obviously not a "mouse-type interface" where "you have to watch a pointer". I mean, c'mon, the interface might suck, but BMW isn't so completely demented as to make you manuever a mouse pointer around on a screen, trying to click on something while you are driving.
If you had used your mouse-type interface and watched your pointer click the link given in the post, or maybe this other link given in the post, you would have read that you just bump the control in a certain direction, or twist or push it. From the NY Times article:
"To operate innumerable other iDrive features -- including the audio, climate and navigation systems, the built-in phone and all sorts of programmable settings for the locks, the lights and the like -- you use the disk on the armrest, called the iDrive controller. First you tug it one of eight directions that correspond to the points of a compass. To call up the navigation system, you push the controller to the right. Then you scroll through menus and submenus on the central screen by twisting, twirling or pressing the knob. It is not a hands-free process."
So, to get to each of the major systems, you bump the knob in a particular direction. After you learn the bump direction for each major system, you wouldn't even have to look at the screen. Same thing goes for the other twists and pushes, they are always the same every time and can be done without looking when learned.
Even while you are learning, you certainly don't guide a pointer around like a computer mouse while driving, trying to click on things. I'm not saying that the iDrive is great--in fact, it sounds like a bitch to learn. But please, take the 30 seconds or so to peruse the articles before posting, so you know what you are discussing first.
Did everyone forget the iCar?
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Car: Im sorry, you have exceeded maximum daily bandwidth. Please add credit to your BMW account.
Wife: what the hell? * wife checks logs..
at dinner that evening... Wife: Honey, who's this Tawnee Stone? She is using a hell of a lot of our expensive German ISP's bandwidth!
I'm surprised that noone has looked to the aviation world for help in consolidating complex features into a simple to use and fool proof UI design. Many new airplanes have thousands of functions available to the pilots, not just a few tens... Certain things are indeed relegated to LCD screens now, but those screens TOTALLY REPLACE GAUGES.
The biggest thing I've noticed in all these integrated navigation solutions is that they're all placed off center in the radio console area. This very easily leads to distraction. Instead, OEM's should look to the very precious and low distraction area of the gauge cluster which to this day remains taken up by a gigantic speedometer and usually an equally gigantic tachometer (even on automatics).
Why not change these gauges to a wide CRT with graphical gauge representations or if the user decided, digital gauges. Then, have the various navigation systems place their graphics into this area. The speedo and tach could then be decreased in size. To some extent this would require the user to learn that the speedo and tach would not ALWAYS be in the front and center spot on the dash, but if they're learning about the navigation center, they're probably gonna accept a small deviation from norm on the gauges.
As for physical knobs and buttons and other ui, certain things should remain consistent and in the physical world. Being able to actuate a control by knowledge of its placement and its feel are extremely important in high speed driving. Important safety related functions like the parking/emergency brake should be cable activated(by foot or hand) and I'm amazed that DOT let this one go on the BMW. Controls for basic temp & radio volume should also remain physical simply because sometimes you need fast access to either one of those. Gear shift controls are a hotly debated issue. The stick doesnt seem like the most intuitive or quickly useable gear shifting device(easy to accidentally shift to the wrong gear). I'd prefer a push button gear shift with a selector to use steering column mounted paddle shifters for auto-stick driving.
Overall, I think BMW has missed the boat on the UI design and should really take this year to perfect the system, and move a significant amount of controls back to physical ones. I wonder if they had anyone actually drive the car for more than a few seconds without shifting their focus to the idrive display. I'd hate to be focusing on doing something to the idrive computer while stuck in fast stop & go traffic on the LIE, cars can be going 70mph one second and then not be moving in the blink of an eye, this system seems to be asking for a rear end accident to happen.
/Dan
I don't think it is a good idea to drive and use the car's computer at the same time!
The stuff is probably interesting (if not useful) but will distract you when driving.
Use it when you are not driving (this certainly limits it usefulness...).
For all of us enlightened(and bad spellers) in the Delaware Valley and other close areas, We all know that once you walk into a WaWa you never ever ever ever want to go back into a 7-11 or cumberland farms or any other lame convience store ever again! why you ask?
1. Fresh sandwiches made to order 24/7
2. CLEAN STORES! no dirty 7-11 mold here
3. usually friendly staff at all times
4. Much better selection of stuff you need(TP at 4 am that wunt cut your butt open!)
They're just so much better and nicer then anything else out their.. and from what a friend told me that worked at one(makin da hoagies!) they actually pay decent for a chain store job! This would be one company that i would like to see be a national chain.
CVT was first done by DAF (dutch car company) in the 1950s. used 2 belts driving spring loaded "cones" (the load on the belt would drive the cones apart, and the spring would return them, thus varying the gearing ratio)..
:)
my grandad used to have one..
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
You mean this sig?
Anakin's mom is sold, dies. Dokoo severs Anakin's arm; escapes with Death Star plans. Stormtroopers are clones.
Perfect. Don't change it. I hope someone was spoiled.
I have never seen a more pointless demonstration of a product than the Flash demo ("experiment") of why an ergonomic system is better than a non-ergonomic one.
,. for left/right, or the vi keys, etc), the difference didn't make that much difference to me.
It consists of a series of questions, with possible answers arranged in a 3*3 square. You use the cursor-key like controls on the left to highlight the right answer, then click on select to submit your answer.
The demo comes in two parts - the non-ergonomic version, where the cursor keys are randomly laid out, and the ergonomic version, where the cursor keys are conventional. You go through ten or so BMW-related trivial pursuit style questions, non of which are particularly hard, but all of which require _some_ thought. When you go through it the second time, ergonomically, the same questions are asked, but the answers are in different positions. The demo then comes up with the elapsed time you took for each section (which happenned to be wrong for me).
The problems with this are obvious:
Firstly, it's biased -- the first time through, you are spending time thinking about the questions. Second time through you know the answers.
Secondly, it's got nothing to do with iDrive. It could be a good demo of the value of good ergonomics, but rather than demonstrating the good ergonomics of the iDrive, it asserts that the iDrive has good ergonomics.
Thirdly, the two interfaces offered are not neccessarily any more ergonomic than any other interface -- they are just more familiar. Given that I am used to using different navigational interfaces (az for up/down,
Finally, given that I was interacting through the use of a mouse, the interfaces weren't that different to me anyway...
BMW has lost its way. Bring back the early 90s.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
It's worse in the UK. You have to use the thing with your left hand in a RHD car, so only about 10% of people will be any good at it.
Looks like my next car is going to have to be a second-hand one.
a) combining everything into one button sucks. And it is usually only done to save money.
b) their website clearly demonstrates the problem all car producers have with computers - they just don't understand them. What's so difficult about creating a website that I can view? I'm even using a graphical browser for goodness sake... (Opera, if you must know).
As long as they don't understand that, they can stuff their iDrive^W^W^Wjust forget it. But hey, what did you expect from a car manufacturer that combines the reliability of italian cars with the prices of german cars (and the look of japanese cars).
The NYT author is not completely right on that. Some people I know bond deeply with their computers. And no, they are not your typical hard-core geek/nerd/techie, but mild-mannered grade school teachers. I have the suspicion that this is a pretty widespread phenomenon, if only enacted in secret... or, if you will, in the closet.
With the new BMW and iDrive, people will finally be able to combine their passion for automobiles with their passion for computing machines. The only question that remains to be answered is: does a 7 series BMW get one name or two?
-- H. Wilker
Not Goldberg's, Goldenberg's. I'm sure the Goldenbergs would appreciate their name being spelled correctly.
Please don't abuse your +1 bonus with off topic posts.
And did you drive there in your computer controlled car?
...because I get this from the BMW page describing the iDrive:
Tactile feedback
JRun Servlet Error
com.livesoftware.jsp.JSPServlet: java.lang.NullPointerException
Have just done a horrid gig at an unnamed
auto company, working on embedded processors
for controls. I've seen less software
on aircraft control systems. All the
auto companies have "discovered" the wide
world of networking. Guess what; they are
still swallowing the hook, line and sinker.
Talk about a software mess. A network
to flash your blinker light? The shade tree
mechanic has no hope with these autos and frankly
I see them as dangerous.
Hint: Order your vehicle with a stick shift
and manual transfer case control (no selector
knobs,please). Make sure the brake pedal is
actually attached to the brake somehow and that
turning off the key actually kills the juice
instead of feeding a sensor.
Lots of luck in your crashmobiles!
R
cursethedarkness
"To the extent not prohibited by law, in no event will BMW or its licensors be liable for any lost lives, injuries or damaged property, or for special, indirect, consequential, incidental or punitive damages, however caused regardless of the theory of liability, arising out of or related to the use of or inability to use the vehicle, even if BMW has been advised of the possibility of such damages."
Oh and no, we won't let you sue us whilst crashing through a pedestrian crossing whilst trying to find the "Start -> Environment -> Temperature -> Driver's side -> Footwell -> Make hotter" menu.
Check out the site this morning...java.lang.NullPointerException. If they can't get a simple web page correct do we really their code running in our car?
Look at my website to see: http://ashleypowers.com I'll never let a computer drive for me, I have too much fun doing that myself, but I'll let it do everything else and Oh-My, can it do a lot.
http://ashleypowers.com Check out my site, Windoze can do a TON of other things you'd rather not do yourself, but I'd personally rather drive the car myself - 450HP twinturbo 300ZX and let a computer drive? Uh, No thanks, I'm in the driver's seat on this one.
But forget letting it drive, I'd personally rather pilot my 450HP twinturbo 300ZX myself and let the computer do everything else.
I'm from the midwest and I'll tell you I'VE never heard of this before....
Folks,
While everyone is talking about how complicated BMW's iDrive system works, I think if you want a car that has lots of electronic controls try a Toyota Prius.
I've driven the Prius and many of the instrument functions are electronic, especially if the Prius has the GPS navigation system installed. Even the radio in many ways works through the LCD touch screen on the dash. Fortunately though, the climate control system uses conventional controls.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
It's BMW
HTH, HAND
Switch to a browser made this century, preferably one that's a little more standards-compliant.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
There is a really important difference between cars and airplanes that makes cribbing cockpit design from aircraft a really BAD idea:
Airplanes typically operate well removed from any obstacles or other aircraft. As such, they can tolerate having the pilot's attention brought inside the cockpit for extended periods of time.
An aircraft can be flown entirely on instraments, never having to physically view the world outside.
A car - especially one driven on a conjested freeway - requires that nearly 100% of the pilot's attention be directed outside the cockpit. A momentary lapse of attention can result in striking another car, running off the road, or missing an exit.
If you've ever endured a freeway "brake check" where 4 lanes of traffic go from 80 MPH to a dead stop in a matter of seconds, you'll know what I mean.
It is essential then that cars have user interfaces that require the bare minimum of driver attention to operate. If a driver has to concentrate on the interface in order to verify what it is doing, it is pure and simple a bad design. This makes anything that demands navigating a menu while under way is not well thought out.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
There are still plenty of major advances in automobile technology being made every day. Just look at Honda, for example. (They've always been leaders in technology anyway.) How can you say that the 80MPG Insight is not a breakthrough technology? Also, a major refinement of existing technology, such as the S2000's 9000RPM 2-Liter 4 Cylinder F20C engine that has the highest specific output of any production NA engine ever is pretty much the same type of advance as the processor speed wars.
... of a joke I read about 15 years ago.
A customer called an auto dealership to complain of a problem with his new car. The salesman said, "You have the simplest car ever devised. A single knob controls the ignition, the steering and all the other functions. What problem could you possibly have?" The customer said, "I lost the knob."
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Why in the hell would I go to Wawa for milk, instead of the local convenience store? It's not like I have a goose fetish or anything...
You americans have strange ideas.
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
A 7-series BMW is really not a very valuable car. While I would agree with you if we were talking about some type of classic Bentley, or something special like a Ferrari 456GTA. I might even have a problem with someone putting their dog into a 750iL. (Actually, no, on second thought I wouldn't.) A BMW 745 is strictly fungible goods -- no need to baby it at all. In fact, babying your BMW 7-series is pathetically bourgeois behavior. You'll end up looking like those poor saps with the "garage queen" Lexus IS300's. Please, muster some self-respect.
Wawa rules. End of discussion.
Only down fall maybe going public. Wawa is striving to go public with in the next year or 2.
AND gets better fuel economy and emissions.
The site looks horrendous on mozilla too and thats pretty standards compliant.
the car itself is so god-awful ugly. Have you seen the new 7 series BMWs? Ugh.
Sure, Germans know how to build cars (and tanks and just about anything an engineer can lay hands to). But what's with that flower on all the Beetles?
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
How is this a troll maybe offtopic but the guy is trying to help out!!!! This is perty cool if you aks me.
Yeah, I've forgotten my old Blazer has this "feature" a few times because my other cars all beep or make some kinda fuss or just leave the parking lights on. Result: dead battery. Now I carry a battery booster so I can restart the damn thing.
It's nice to know I can light up the countryside in a libertarian way without an annoying buzzer going off to scare the deer, but a dead battery is a pain.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
"Wawa" was also Richard Feynman's way of saying "whatever it was." See "What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character" for an example of usage.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
This quote sounds really clever to anyone but a new mother. It is NOT intuitive.
As a certified 745i client advisor, (yes CERTIFIED! I had to watch 10 interactive satellite based training courses, work through 2 CD ROMs, and attend a 3 day seminar in Miami and another one day seminar in my own area) I would like to point out some specific errors in the responses that others have written.
Like surfing through three levels of menus just to turn on the defroster.
The AC system (including the aforementioned defroster) has all of the pertinent controls on the dashboard in their "normal" positions. The iDrive system is not needed to manipulate the climate control system at all.
You cannot raise the stero's volume at the exact same time as you adjust the passenger-side heat.
See above comment and add that the stereo volume has controls on the steering wheel and also on the center dash where you would expect them to be.
Since it is extraordinarily difficult to do something as simple as turning on headlights or changing the radio station, the driver's attention is likely to be diverted from the road.
The headlights are pretty normal too. The switch looks like every other one in the world except it has an automatic setting that makes it where you never even have to touch it again. The radio stations can be changed quite easily. First there is a toggle switch in the steering wheel that will cycle you through 12 preset stations. Second there is a toggle switch on the dash in the "conventional" radio position to change stations. Third, you can say "radio 94.5 fm" and the radio station will be changed to 94.5.
Any vehicle that has a user interface so non-intuitive that one needs to pull out the owners manual to adjust the mirrors, figure out how to shift, and turn on headlights is just plain bad design.
Mirrors and lights are just like any other car with power adjusting mirrors and headlights that use a dial on the driver's left side on the dash. The shifter DOES take some getting used to and I will say it was, for me, the HARDEST thing to get used to. Pretty damned easy though.
At this point, I am sooooooo temped to add a lot of flamebait about how none of my 50-70 yr old non-techie clients have had a problem with using the technology, and how it seems that many of the supposed "tech-elite" can't even seem to figure out the easy stuff, but I am waaaaay above that. What I will say is that with the voice command, the "regular controls", the iDrive, and some redundant but more conveniently placed controls (like the ones on the steering wheel), if you have trouble operationg the 745i it is because of TOO MANY choices of how to do something, not because of limitations in the iDrive or any other system in the car for that matter.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The electronic parking brake is unintuitive and dangerous.
Why? In the BMW if you punch the parking brake button (not controlled by the main iDrive controls, but with a dedicated button on the driver's left hand) while moving, you induce a computer-controlled panic stop on all four wheels. This is way better than a lever-controlled rear-wheel parking brake, because in a panic situation the driver is likely to pull it up too hard, lock up the rear end, and spin.
I think a parking brake button as a replacement to a brake lever is wrong wrong wrong. There are still situations where the driver, and not the car, should control the stop.
BMW's parking brake button only allows one outcome: bringing the car to a panic stop. A brake lever at least allows a measure of control from the driver, so that if the primary brakes fail, the driver may make a modulated stop with the emergency brake.
As a driver I have been in brake-failure situations on two occasions. I used an emergency footbrake in one situation and a handbrake in the other. Each time, I was able to steer the vehicle to a controlled stop in the safe location of my choosing.
In the Bimmer, I would have had to spend precious seconds weighing my options, since I would have had to maneuver in traffic and safely find a place to start the panic stop. This means I would have had fewer situational choices and less control of the stop. That would have made both events more dangerous.
As a result, I would rule out that model BMW as a purchase option based solely on that criteria.
I like an emergency brake that I can control myself, and I do not want to drive a car without one.
"Folks just call him Buckethead." -- Les Claypool
"Americans are afraid of technology"
Last time I checked, most Americans seemed unable to get their head round manual gear changing on cars.... Not sure what this means for computerised interfaces for gawd's sake...
:-P
*sigh*
This goes back to one of my favorite quotes:
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
-- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on intuitivenes
. . . and it's so true . . .
Nathan's blog
Do not break existing interfaces.
Integrate established methods and skills wherever possible.
Innovation at the expense of functionality is counterproductive.
The US air traffic control system redesign project had to be scrapped after spending billions because of the horrendous usability issues it ran into, causing confusion among air traffic controllers -- it completely ignored their established ways of working. They are still using slips of acetate that are stacked on a board because its much safer for passengers and the controllers can work with all the information they need at their fingertips.
Aircraft carrier control towers still use a miniature mock-up of the flight deck and the controllers keep track of what's happening with tokens or models of the aircraft and equipment and personnel on the deck. Why? Because it works.
I am also reminded of how a new X-ray machine had to be redesigned because it completely disrupted the way that X-ray technicians work and actually made their jobs more difficult and slower to perform, which was the exact opposite of what the new machine was supposed to do.
The driving layout IS intuitive because it is so ingrained and established in our culture. Well before people reach the driving age, they know how to drive. Their skill and ability to drive is another matter.
Users shouldn't have to 'complain' as you put it. Designers should stop for a moment to think about what they are doing and if it truly helps the user. The 745i control is a driving hazard.