iDrive Redux

Your faithful technical director is not a Luddite. I embrace new technology, honest. So at the original BMW 7 Series launch,

I delved deep into the workings of the iDrive system, learning how to access most of its supposed 700-plus functions. My engineer's mind grasped the system's basic logic. I noticed one fatal flaw, however. Anyone wearing polarized sunglasses would see a blank screen.

Illustration by Glenn Lumsden

I mentioned the problem to the engineers, expecting to hear that our screens were prototypes. Instead they said they knew of the issue and saw no need to make any changes. Huh? People can't see your new gizmo, and you think that's okay?! Ja.

The screen was quietly changed, but the utter refusal to admit there might be a problem smacked of hubris.

Months later, I tried to live with iDrive and fell madly and passionately in hate with it.

I remembered how to do everything, but I resented the multiclick fiddling required to manipulate the most basic controls. The Windows CE operating system behind iDrive crashed occasionally and executed some operations at a glacial pace that tried my admittedly scant patience. Would plutocrats accustomed to barking orders and getting results tolerate any of this? Along with most of the mainstream media, I predicted iDrive, abetted by Chris Bangle's Dame Edna headlamps and loaded-diaper decklid, would make the 7 Series the Chrysler Airflow of the 21st century.

But instead, U.S. sales of the new car shot to 22,006--a 7 Series record--up from the previous peak of 18,309. What's more, the 7 aced the J.D. Power APEAL survey, which polls new owners on some 110 attributes including styling and ergonomics.

At the recent launch of the 2006 7 Series, BMW brass delighted in rubbing the gathered media's collective nose in these statistics, telling us again and again how this is the most successful 7 Series ever and how Audi's MMI knob and other systems like it validate the iDrive concept. They also claimed the restyling was just a routine mid-cycle revision. So did we pundits all get it wrong?