[LEDZEP]

OK, I didn't have iDrive before, so forgive me if this is not a new feature. But based on my reading previous threads, etc. I think it is new.

Here is how you can search for a specific POI using the new iDrive (photos below). Voice commands will only take you so far... which is too bad because being able to verbally spell the search criteria would be very nice (you can't).

You can do the search based upon either your current location, or your destination.

Sorry for the poor quality of the photos.

[wdogan]

Great info, as usual -- thanks Zep!

Question for you -- can you search without all the criteria you entered, or can you do a less specific search? I.e., could I search for ALL restaurants of all categories within a certain distance? Or all restaurants of a specific category? Can I search just by name without entering a category?

I assume the answer is yes, but thought I'd clarify...

[Bimmerforlife]

Yeah a little more clarification on how you did the search would be helpful, did you have to sift through menus (Dining, Resturants, Other...) to find the tab your search might be in before you typed in Taco Bell? Or can you just bring up 1 tab and search Taco Bell. Can you just go to other?

How long does it take to calculate the drive after you search, quick or slow?

The pics are a little blurry but thanks.

[user1]

LedZep, this is new to iDrive. A new progman (v25) for older e9x's is out that includes this update for everyone.

Originally Posted by Bimmerforlife

Yeah a little more clarification on how you did the search would be helpful, did you have to sift through menus (Dining, Resturants, Other...) to find the tab your search might be in before you typed in Taco Bell? Or can you just bring up 1 tab and search Taco Bell. Can you just go to other?

How long does it take to calculate the drive after you search, quick or slow?

The pics are a little blurry but thanks.

Yes, you must sift through the tabs before searching. No, you cannot search from higher levels. So you still need to know what category the business is in for the search to return results. Taco Bell would be in the Crappy Restaurants category so searching in Other would not return any results. This limitation is unfortunate but category specific POI is still better than no POI at all.

It is very fast probably because it is only searching the info within the specific category & distance and not all data on the disk. It takes about 2 seconds to return up to 100 results.

[Bimmerforlife]

Ok thanks User1, then either those pics above are out of order or something is not right, the pics make it look like you search into restaurants then there is the other tab and the next pic is typing in the word Taco Bell, then next pic says All Restaurants Tab.

So yes the pics are a little confusing with the tabs and what order you go into to get to the search field. But you have clarified that User1, thanks.

I agree it's not perfect but the POI search is a huge step forwards for BMW and it's customers.

[user1]

No, the screens arent out of order, I am

My explanation wasnt a good one. I should have looked closer at the pics. It appears Taco Bell can be found in the Other category. I would have guessed Taco Bell should be found under Fast Food (another category shown in the pics). Throwing a bad joke like 'Crappy Restaurants category' probably added to my confusing explanation. Sorry.

I dont know what that All Restaurants tab is. I will have to take a look next time I'm in my car. Maybe its the heading that pops up on searches or maybe LedZep did a shot from another low level category.

Basically, you can only search on the lowest level category. And the search will only return results from locations listed within that lowest level category.

From the photos, you cant search from Dining and Entertainment and you cant search from Restaurants. You can only search from Italian, Fast Food, Other and so on since they are the lowest level category. If you were in Italian and searched Taco Bell you would get no results. To simply show all locations within the lowest category (like older versions of iDrive) you click the search without entering any criteria.

[Bimmerforlife]

Ok I still think I got it. So Taco Bell can only be found in the Other tab when searching. But say you had a restaurant that was a multi cusine like Italian and American could that still be found by searching in the Italian tab? How many tabs are there after restaurants tab?

So in a nut shell if it's a POI you are not really sure where its located you could be searching within several different tabs to yield your result. Seem like a PITA I guess I could get use to it. Wonder why it would have been so hard for BMW to allow you to search the word and let the system find it for you instead of you telling the system where it could be and then searching. But still like I said it's better than not having it at all.

[wdogan]

User1, thanks for the info. Are you 100% sure of it, or are you inferring from the photos? I'm wondering if maybe there's an "ALL" category up at the top of the categories list, or something similar. If I'm on a road trip and want the closest food possible, I can't imagine it would make me navigate all the way down through categories, would it?

Also -- I would imagine that the same restaurant probably gets bucketed into a few different categories. Lots of fast food places would also be "American," Taco Bell might be in both fast food and mexican (it's not really mexican food, but you get the idea). Just a guess, but this is how lots of these things work in other applications.

Zep, any thoughts?

[user1]

Originally Posted by wdogan

User1, thanks for the info. Are you 100% sure of it, or are you inferring from the photos? I'm wondering if maybe there's an "ALL" category up at the top of the categories list, or something similar. If I'm on a road trip and want the closest food possible, I can't imagine it would make me navigate all the way down through categories, would it?

Also -- I would imagine that the same restaurant probably gets bucketed into a few different categories. Lots of fast food places would also be "American," Taco Bell might be in both fast food and mexican (it's not really mexican food, but you get the idea). Just a guess, but this is how lots of these things work in other applications.

Zep, any thoughts?

I have progman v25.04 that includes POI. I am writing about how it has worked for me but there could be more to it than what I have found.

The Restaurants category has an All Restaurants sub category at the top along with the Fast Food, Italian, other and so on. Using the Taco Bell example I was not able to find any Taco Bells in the Other category. I was able to find Taco Bells in the All Restaurants category and the Fast Food category. My guess is a restaurant is only listed in one category. But thats not a problem since you can search within the All Restaurants category.

I couldnt find another list that had a catch all category like All Restaurants. The POI is not perfect but its much better than no POI.

[wdogan]

User1, this is great info, thank you. I'm glad to hear there's an "All" subcategory within restaurants. God -- the things I obsess over while waiting for this car to arrive. =)

Originally Posted by user1

I have progman v25.04 that includes POI. I am writing about how it has worked for me but there could be more to it than what I have found.

The Restaurants category has an All Restaurants sub category at the top along with the Fast Food, Italian, other and so on. Using the Taco Bell example I was not able to find any Taco Bells oin the Other category. I wa able to find Taco Bells in the All Restaurants category and the Fast Food category. My guess is a restaurant is only listed in one category. But thats not a problem since you can seach within the All Restaurants category.

I couldnt find another list that had a catch all category like All Restaurants.

[BK]

How far of a max distance can it be (25 miles in your pics). Can it be 50 miles? 100 miles?

What does "store name" do? I mean, I can guess what it does... So if I'm in DC and I search for "Taco Bell" one day and store it, then next month drive up to PA and I have a hankering for a Burrito Supreme, can I pull up "Taco Bell" from the stored names list?

One final question - has anything else changed in the nav? For example, have they changed the nav so it says the destination is on the right or left when you get there? That would be a nice update.

[SteveMD]

Slight hijack.

Zep, after having two cars without iDrive and having to weather the countless iDrive or no iDrive threads, what do you think now that you have had a week or so to play with it.

I will say that after my ugrade to 25 I was still disappointed in the POI search for the reasons given above. You should be able to search for Taco Bell from a higher menu.

And I still want my radio info in the RH window so that I can have the big map showing.

Just wondering.

[LEDZEP]

Originally Posted by BK

How far of a max distance can it be (25 miles in your pics). Can it be 50 miles? 100 miles?

What does "store name" do? I mean, I can guess what it does... So if I'm in DC and I search for "Taco Bell" one day and store it, then next month drive up to PA and I have a hankering for a Burrito Supreme, can I pull up "Taco Bell" from the stored names list?

One final question - has anything else changed in the nav? For example, have they changed the nav so it says the destination is on the right or left when you get there? That would be a nice update.

So far, it seems that "store name" just enables the current search. I'll have to check and see if Taco Bell is now in my address book (hope not) - but if it is my guess would be only that one location.

Forgive me that I haven't done more research and further testing so far.

Originally Posted by SteveMD

Slight hijack.

Zep, after having two cars without iDrive and having to weather the countless iDrive or no iDrive threads, what do you think now that you have had a week or so to play with it.

I will say that after my ugrade to 25 I was still disappointed in the POI search for the reasons given above. You should be able to search for Taco Bell from a higher menu.

And I still want my radio info in the RH window so that I can have the big map showing.

Just wondering.

I have only put 250 miles on 'er so far and haven't played too much with it. Learning the basics at this point. I do see some of the reasons people complain about it - but it is still better to have it than not.

I wholeheartedly agree that you should have quicker access to the POI search function...

[drfluid]

If you load the DVD on your computer, you will find the structure of the POI's.

Each item in the POI menu is defined by one IDX file and one URL file.
I guess the search is only taking place on just 'ONE' set of IDX and URL pair.

I don't think it's technically impossible to make the i-drive search one-level up from the lowest categories, such as 'Dining and Entertainment' category, but its how it works for now..

It's good that we have 'All restaurant' item in the restaurant section so we could search whatever we want w/o guessing the category of what is being searched.

But, for other POI's, since there is no 'All ...' type of item, either we wait until the next version of Progman, or manually create a pair of IDX and URL for the all POI list in the lowest group, like 'All Home services', 'All Dining and Entertainment', 'All gifts and leisure', etc, etc....

Since I can create a new idx and url for other stores like Costco or Whole foods market, merging all the items in a group would not be that hard. Maybe I delete all other lowest group level in each folder and leave only the 'All restaurant' type of categories.

[new2the3]

will a dealer put this new software on my car for free or do you have to pay?

[matt_435xi]

Originally Posted by new2the3

will a dealer put this new software on my car for free or do you have to pay?

updates to Progman are FREE, but this update sounds like teh data structures on the DVD itself need to be updated as well. in which case you will have to pay ~$125 for the 2008 DVD.

[new2the3]

What is the latest dvd version? I thought it was 2007.02?

[SteveMD]

Originally Posted by matt_335Ci

updates to Progman are FREE, but this update sounds like teh data structures on the DVD itself need to be updated as well. in which case you will have to pay ~$125 for the 2008 DVD.

Ummm...not exactly.

I am using 2007.1 before and after the upgrade to 25. Now I have the POI search. Before I didn't. Same DVD.

Updates are not free unless you have a specific complaint. It takes (some say) up to 6 hours of tech time to flash the complete car.

BMW aren't doing that for free. You need a complaint. If you search around, you can find one

[Brett]

Originally Posted by SteveMD

I am using 2007.1 before and after the upgrade to 25. Now I have the POI search. Before I didn't. Same DVD.

He is suggesting a DVD update would in theory fix the structuring / categories, such as adding "All Public Areas". He is technically correct, but there is no proof that the update actually contains the new structure.

BTW, I have seen this asked several times, and not answered, what is the max distance, please?

-Brett

[Dr_Dirt]

Now if we could get POI's for all the speed traps downloaded via bluetooth to the idrive we would be stylin!

[nyc3r]

Wow, I go away for a week and the program version jumped to 25.04.. so no VR in 25.04? I guess I'll have to wait for 25.05 since I find myself using the VR function more and more.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by Dr_Dirt

Now if we could get POI's for all the speed traps downloaded via bluetooth to the idrive we would be stylin!

Someone in England modified the data to add Intersections with Red-Light Cameras.

POI is not new, searching for them is though. Not really sure why you would want to search for speed traps or red-light cameras.

-Brett