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Alex Micek on BMW’s iDrive ‘Special Surprises’
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Daring Fireball
This April, I felt exceptionally fortunate to donate our seventeen-year-old nearly-300,000 mile car and purchase its replacement: a certified pre-owned fully-electric BMW i4.
On 3 July, after I had the car for about 90 days, BMW touted a “Special Surprise” at me on its first screen, the screen you see when you turn it on, in iDrive 8.
Turns out, it was this fine, anodyne (if a little 1950s, white-washed, Americana), saccharine Fourth of July video animation.
All I knew in early July, was BMW had done “Surprise” stuff for previous holidays like Halloween.
Their Spider-Man BMW ad wasn’t forced on the screen, I clicked a button to show it.