[Joelc]

I picked up my new 2017 BMW 540i last weekend (I previously had a 2015 BMW 435 GC fully loaded).

I was surprised by how much iDrive had advanced / changed / improved. I was also happy to have the opportunity to experiment with Apple CarPlay.

In the interest of transparency I live in the Apple ecosystem...I own an Apple Watch, an iPhone, a MacBook, etc. ad I have everything configured such that every devices talks nicely to each other, etc.

On picking up the car I had the delivery specialist get me setup on Apple CarPlay which meant all contacts, e-mail, messaging, navigation, telephone, etc. would be through Apple CarPlay instead of iDrive. I was primed for a great user experience.

What a let down, after two days I gave up and reconfigured everything to work through iDrive instead of Apple CarPlay as I found the iDrive functionality -- other than for e-mail and messaging -- to be more reliable, more user friendly and more robust. For example, Apple Maps is, at least to me, a shadow of iDrive maps with ARTTI, auto zoom with information, reliability of entering addressing over voice, etc.

When thinking about the best a bit more it occurred to me that Apple CarPlay is generic in that it is made for any manufacturer who wants to install / use it while iDrive is specific designed to work with BMW and something purpose / specifically built should be better.

With that said, I would appreciate comment / feedback from others on Apple CarPlay versus iDrive (i.e. did I give up on Apple CarPlay too soon, which do you prefer and why, etc.).

TIA!