BMW’s new iDrive system still supports CarPlay, but only barely

At CES last week, BMW unveiled a major revamp to its iDrive infotainment system, built on the new “BMW Operating System X.” The revamp brings a new “BMW Panoramic Vision” design with infotainment that stretches around, described as “high tech meets highly intuitive operation.”

The good news is that the new iDrive system still supports Apple CarPlay. The bad news, however, is that BMW has done the bare minimum to integrate CarPlay – and it’s actually a downgrade in some ways.

When BMW announced the new iDrive X system at CES, the company was mum on details about CarPlay integration. This sparked concern among BMW drivers who were worried that the automaker may be following in the footsteps of GM and dropping CarPlay altogether.

The new BMW iDrive system is based around four different components. As Edmunds explains:

The new iDrive is made up of four key parts — the panoramic display on the lower part of the windshield, the head-up display, the new steering wheel, and the 17.9-inch center display mounted on the dashboard.

According to Edmunds, BMW has confirmed that the main “center display” will still support CarPlay with the new iDrive system. This is the good news for BMW drivers. The bad news, however, is that’s the extent of the work BMW has done to integrate CarPlay. The panoramic display and head-up display will not support CarPlay.

Image via Bimmerpost

Previous versions of the iDrive infotainment system supported dual-screen CarPlay, seen above. What this did was extend the CarPlay interface to the second display in the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel. This meant that the rich Apple Maps interface with directions and other details appeared in that display.

This actually made BMW’s implementation of CarPlay quite unique. Only a handful of automakers support dual-screen CarPlay, including Volvo, Polestar, and Land Rover. Unfortunately, BMW has given up that competitive edge with the new “Panoramic Vision” implementation of iDrive.

Back to Edmunds:

However, the CarPlay apps will not be compatible with what you can see or do with CarPlay if they don’t send metadata to iDrive. That means you’ll be able to see what song is playing and some album artwork, but other features from CarPlay or Android Auto like native maps, your calendar, apps that help you find chargers for EVs, and others won’t show up in the panoramic display. That’s largely down to how the display was designed to function, and you should think of it as a mirror for the car’s brain, not necessarily another display that can do just anything.

Next-gen CarPlay

The obvious elephant in the room is next-generation CarPlay.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to see that BMW didn’t add next-generation CarPlay as part of its iDrive infotainment revamp. The company is missing from Apple’s list of automakers signed on to support next-generation CarPlay. And, of course, Apple missed its 2024 deadline for availability of the first next-gen CarPlay vehicles and has been silent on the status of the rollout.

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