Does BMW hate Android?

[Bimmer4John]

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There is still no M Laptimer for android and their other standards apps suck for android when they work at all (which doesn't seem to be often). How can BMW ignore an OS with such a large market share?

At this point I'm considering just buying an Ipod Touch so I can get the M Laptimer... it's a shame that I would have to go to such lengths.

[Oakleyguy]

Certainly seems that way doesn't it?

[Greenkirby21]

i think because it is harder to develop for android from a consumer point of view. I have developed on both android and IOS. On IOS, it is a bit easier because the hardware is generally the same and IOS supports everything. There are less devices to worry about. Also, the OS upgrade adoption rate on iOS is very high.

On the other end, Android comes in various different hardware, colors, flavors, etc. Not only that, but they have different OS. All of this combined makes it harder for BMW to give universal support. Not saying they shouldn't.

[Tonymiabmw]

I just took back a HTC one M8. I hate it too. Jailbroken iPhone 5s FTW

[Bimmer4John]

Originally Posted by Tonymiabmw

I just took back a HTC one M8. I hate it too. Jailbroken iPhone 5s FTW

Can I ask what you didn't like about it?

You know, I find that on the Android side the best UI experience comes from pure android. I am not a big fan of the skins that the OEMs put on there. You do give up a small amount of functionality when compared to the OEM skins (although most of the software "features" they add are useless, there are occasional gems, the camera app for example) but what you lose in functionality you more than make up for in smoothness and cleanness of the UI.

I use the Nexus 5 but any Google Play Edition phone (of which there is a version of the M8) are equally as good from a UI perspective.

[Tonymiabmw]

Originally Posted by Bimmer4John

Can I ask what you didn't like about it?

You know, I find that on the Android side the best UI experience comes from pure android. I am not a big fan of the skins that the OEMs put on there. You do give up a small amount of functionality when compared to the OEM skins (although most of the software "features" they add are useless, there are occasional gems, the camera app for example) but what you lose in functionality you more than make up for in smoothness and cleanness of the UI.

I use the Nexus 5 but any Google Play Edition phone (of which there is a version of the M8) are equally as good from a UI perspective.

Lots of things, how bad the bimmerpost app sucked was one.
Another was replacing the phone 6 times because of dead pixels. I have had many rooted ROMed androids. Until you experience the customization that jailbroken iOS offers it hard to explain.

[UK6]

Talking to developers about ios vs android in the past the ios system is spread over far fewer variations of software and hardware, with a very high percentage of most recent version adoption, android is spread over far more versions of both and making something run on them well or good over such fragmentation is a pain, so it's easier to just ignore it.

[Oakleyguy]

Originally Posted by Bimmer4John

Can I ask what you didn't like about it?

I use the Nexus 5 but any Google Play Edition phone (of which there is a version of the M8) are equally as good from a UI perspective.

Good Man. I too have the White Nexus 5 from the Play store. Love it.

I wish that BMW could choose to support only the newest software and hardware to reduce their development costs. I may resort using an old iphone and set up a lot of IFTTT and sync it with the iphone in the glovebox.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Oakleyguy

Good Man. I too have the White Nexus 5 from the Play store. Love it.

I also have the Nexus 5 - best phone I've ever had. I've completed switched over to google everything ... I also got the nexus 7 tablet which rocks so I got 2 more and got a chromebook for cheap. Now all of the devices are just endpoints for me. I do use Flickr for pictures and the Kindle app for books, but everything else is google.

Agree on the android skins - Samsung and HTC suck. once I got pure google I realized the draw and now I'm not going back.

[Viking123]

Apparently it's not just BMW that shuns Android users, girls do too:

http://m.androidcentral.com/android-...ckberry-owners

[miiipilot]

it seems yes.

talked to the BMW Brain at Gallery bmw today. Had my car in for some cels. the rear calipers are leaking. got a loaner wo an appt. dangerous.

So I played around with the interfaces with my gs4.

he told me something about the coding being closer to ios than android. more variations off android exist vs ios.

...ok

he also informed me that that the $500 option for enhanced Bluetooth might be dropped entirely and be standard with the nav

idk...

[Bimmer4John]

Originally Posted by miiipilot

he also informed me that that the $500 option for enhanced Bluetooth might be dropped entirely and be standard with the nav

idk...

Wow that would be sweet! Was he specifically referring to the M3/M4s in regards to this?

[miiipilot]

Not m3/m4 specific.

Should be included with Nav.

[E93MAC]

Originally Posted by Tonymiabmw

Lots of things, how bad the bimmerpost app sucked was one.
Another was replacing the phone 6 times because of dead pixels. I have had many rooted ROMed androids. Until you experience the customization that jailbroken iOS offers it hard to explain.

Not only that. Run Asphalt 8 on the "New" Samsung Galaxy S5 then run it on the old iPhone 5 or 5s. Android performance sucks! And that's on a new Samsung Android phone with a kick ass processor! It may be more open and yes you may be able to do more on Android but the experience is always poor. Menu's and submenus...I don't want to have to go through all that to complete a simple task. Android is not as refined and controlled as iOS. iOS gives you great performance on all Apple products because there are only a handful of them. There are tons and tons of Android phones.

But I am sad to say even Engadget stated they had some choppyness (is that a word? lol) in performance on the Galaxy S5, in my opinion this is Samsung's flagship phone and Android should be fully dialed in for it. I believe it's the OS's fault. But that's just my $0.02. Disagree if you want, but when the OS is not performing well...

[Bimmer4John]

Originally Posted by E93MAC

Not only that. Run Asphalt 8 on the "New" Samsung Galaxy S5 then run it on the old iPhone 5 or 5s. Android performance sucks! And that's on a new Samsung Android phone with a kick ass processor! It may be more open and yes you may be able to do more on Android but the experience is always poor. Menu's and submenus...I don't want to have to go through all that to complete a simple task. Android is not as refined and controlled as iOS. iOS gives you great performance on all Apple products because there are only a handful of them. There are tons and tons of Android phones.

But I am sad to say even Engadget stated they had some choppyness (is that a word? lol) in performance on the Galaxy S5, in my opinion this is Samsung's flagship phone and Android should be fully dialed in for it. I believe it's the OS's fault. But that's just my $0.02. Disagree if you want, but when the OS is not performing well...

That's all well and good but the fact remains that more than 50% of the population uses Android (world wide i think its like 80%) and as a company its seems very short sighted of BMW to ignore them. It cannot be good for your business when you exclude a large chunk of your potential customers.

Your criticisms are fair, but the reason some apps don't run well on Android phones is primarily because the app developers aren't optimizing their apps properly (which, as you point out, is a bigger task on Android since there are so many different options). Further for Samsung phones, their Skin is so bloated that even with the highest end hardware it still doesn't seem smooth when compared to iOS which is a high benchmark. This is why I stick with stock Android

Bottom line is that BMW is a large enough company with enough resources to properly develop for Android but they choose not to. There are countless examples of apps that work flawlessly on Android by much smaller developers so it is possible.

Link to market share statistics (I didn't make it up): http://www.cnet.com/news/android-dom...tphone-market/

[E93MAC]

Oh I am not doubting their marketshare, BUT you have to understand you can get a free or $20 Android Phone or an $800 Android phone. You can't buy a $20 iPhone. There are more low cost options with Android, I very much doubt that the whole Android market is taken up by the Elite high end, high priced phone users. More-so, it's probably the low cost android phones that most users go with. Not everyone can afford a $200 subsidized phone or an $800 un-subsidized phone. Same with Apple yes but with Apple you don't have as many options, hence why the Android market is bigger. If you get my drift Also BMW is seen as a luxury and performance vehicle, with a certain image they want to portray, Apple also has a certain image they want to portray, Android phones are mostly made of plastic, dull and un-inspiring, iPhones are made of aluminum and glass, again more refined, classier, sexy even. They scream "this is the future" in their aesthetic designs. Maybe BMW thinks it fits in better with their overall image...I don't know.

But it is something to think about...I do think that they may want to concentrate on both markets to be fair and make sure everyone is taken care of. But they are a business first. It's up to them to decide what they want to spend their money on, or not...in this case.