NEXT BIG THING EVOLUTION (NBT EVO). THERE IS ALWAYS A BIGGER FISH

I. A bit of History.

There is always a bigger fish. No matter how hard you try – there is always someone bigger than you. Let’s take the gym for example – no matter how long you have been lifting weights there is always someone who comes to your bench press and warms up with your “one rep max”. This is true in the automotive industry – any new thing must be one- upped by someone else. BMW did a huge splash by introducing the I-drive system in the early 00s (2004) – others tried, got close to matching the I-drive but never quite good enough. This meant that the competition had to come from the inside. BMW themselves had to push the boundaries of what is possible. “Professional” and “Business” equipped cars, could be ordered with these. So, from the M-ASK and CCC (Car Communication Computer) came the next big thing – the CIC was a much-improved version which now included the word “Information” replacing the “Communication”, part of the abbreviation. This was actually a huge leap forward in the evolution of I- drive because there was now a two-way communication – you were able to communicate with your vehicle which was frankly unheard of before. This all changed once again- proving that BMW do not like to stay in one place – whatever they do, whether they have competition in a field or not – they always innovate. This time they made another big jump ahead – introducing NBT as the de-facto 4th generation of I-drive, NBT has many names (CIC HIGH and others) but 2012 was the year they actually called it NBT. They were obviously ecstatic with what they had achieved because they in fact called it the “Next Big Thing” because they knew this was going to change in-car entertainment forever. You see, München’s pride came from the fact that they invented a new word. For the first time people heard of “INFO-TAINMENT” – it was a true innovation – a sharper, crisper, larger screen, 360° cameras, higher quality amplifiers, touchpads for text inputs, TTS (text to speech) commands, live vehicle data, album arts and basically anything you could think of in 2012 was available in a 5 series (not even the S-class could compete). Then competition got tough, the other fish in the sea started getting as big and BMW was going to have to do something about it. And do they did.

II. Generation 5 ID (I-Drive) NBT EVO ID 4 (Navigation System Professional)

This time BMW were forced to evolve. Up until this point they didn’t really have competition in terms of infotainment, not just from other manufacturers but also from companies like Abrites – we had everything covered – replacement of parts, FSC (Freischaltcode) – codes used by BMW to lock and unlock certain functions or enable updates to navigation maps, coding, screens, enable/ disable functions – all of that was well known by us and they needed to change. This time, an evolution of the Next Big Thing was needed. And they did. The display was enormous, the security was tight and the user experience was unsurpassed. And so it went for three more generations. BMW iX saw the debut of the latest (also in the XM, i7, etc.) generation i-drive system and  today we will focus on the 5th, and 6th generations together with the 4th gen.

III. Our solution to problems stemming from the evolved i-drive for BMW diagnosticians in cars made after 2017:

• NBT EVO ID 4 (Navigation System Professional)
• NBT EVO ID 5 (Navigation System Professional)
• NBT EVO ID 6 (Navigation System Professional)

For these three systems we have some amazing new features we are about to release with our new Abrites Diagnostics for BMW/ Mini/ Rolls- Royce license which will work together with the CB015 Abrites E-NET cable in the upcoming week or so. We can now activate the standard requirements from most customers:

• Text to speech (TTS), allowing incoming text messages, emails, etc. to be read out loud by the car so that your customers are not distracted.
• Every day types of requests for Apple Carplay activation.
• Ad-free satellite tuner activation – allowing your customers to listen to satellite radio from their car. free music channels, plus the best in talk, entertainment and comedy programming. Especially applicable for the North American market where Sirius XM is very popular.
• EVO ROADMAPS FSC codes for Navigation updates – with the introduction of full mobile phone connectivity via CARPLAY these are less and less important to the owners of the cars but it is always good to have the ability to start your navigation and actually have the latest road maps. We can assist with the whole process of updating.
• We also have the Navigation APP integration which assists with that and much more. This includes OEM BMW APPS such as My BMW, as well as others such as WAZE and other third party apps. Spotify for example, or YouTube Music.
• NLU (Natural Language Understanding) activation – using AI (artificial intelligence) the latest i-drives are now able to understand natural language commands and reproduce natural speech back to your customers and you are also able to enable this feature for them.
• IPA (Intelligent Personal Assistant) can also be activated – this feature turns your i-drive into a butler while you are wafting along. Commands such as “My feet are a bit cold” can be interpreted by the car as turning the heater up for your feet, for example.
• I-speech activation – once again, you can activate SIRI using this feature and you can do the same enabling for your customer. Here your customers can dictate emails, text messages or even novels for their cars to send.
• M laptimer – for all those times the 2.5 ton M5 will set Bridge to Gantry on the Nürburgring!
• And a lot more.

 
This all reminds me of that old ad campaign BMW (https://www.bmediagroup.com/news/billboard-battle-of-bmw-vs-audi/) had with Audi and Mercedes where they were really pushing each other and the appropriate marketing departments to one-up themselves. In that regard I will say “Your move, BMW” in sincere hopes they avoid “Checkmate” as an answer.

Try to have fun at work, even if you are a bored marketing person from München looking to start trouble with an aftermarket diagnostic solutions manufacturer,
Alek