BMW adds Siri-like voice dictation

Match and raise: BMW adds Siri-like voice dictation, then builds a touchpad into iDrive

Buy a 2013 BMW and you’ll be able to dictate text messages or email while you drive, and not just the canned Yes, No, Running Late responses that pass for replies. It’s part of BMW’s newest ConnectedDrive technology and includes a touchpad with smartphone-like gestures built into the iDrive control knob, a 4G LTE WiFi hotspot, and a new 3D navigation system. BMW’s free-form voice recognition is the first application of Nuance Dragon Drive. Voice recognition happens in the cloud, so it should be just as good as Apple’s Siri (another Nuance-backed product that uses the cloud). But because of Apple’s current non-support of key Bluetooth protocols, you better have an Android or BlackBerry phone if you want to try out the BMW dictation function.

If you’re looking for proof that competition improves products, about half the ConnectedDrive announcement is BMW’s belated game of catch-up with Audi, which brought out a touchpad and dazzling 3D navigation graphics run by an Nvidia processor. BMW has all that, now, plus industry firsts on free-form voice dictation, and the ability to connect two cellphones simultaneously (and merging their address books in the big center stack display). Competition also means lower prices, sometimes, but that may not be a game BMW will play. Yet. Its navigation system has always been around $2,000 even when cars such as the Nissan Altima offer a competent Bosch navigation system for $595.

Here’s how free-form voice recognition works: A text or email comes in via your smartphone and the message (or first part) appears on BMW’s honking big 10-inch, 1280×480 LCD display atop the center stack. You can choose to reply by voice-to-text. (Or ignore the message if you’re worried about distracted driving or if the message isn’t worth a reply.) Start talking and use phrases like “stop” for a period or “new line” for a new line. Your words are uploaded via BMW Assist, the on-board telematics package, parsed by a Nuance server in the cloud, and returned to the car. If the message looks good, you hit Send and off it goes. The message itself came in via the phone and that’s how your reply departs. And that’s where Apple comes up lacking. It has announced support for Bluetooth MAP (Message Access Protocol), a message transfer standard, but it’s not implemented yet. It will work on many Android and BlackBerry phones (not all).

Almost as cool is the circular touchpad embedded in the top of the BMW iDrive control wheel, which is now celebrating its 10th birthday as an emblem of the future and lightning rod for complex tech. (It’s better now.) Before, you turned the scroll wheel M-A-I-N-S-T-2-4-5, now you can just run your finger across the top forming each letter. It’s nice for English and German speakers, a godsend for Chinese BMW-buyers who can quickly draw the lines that make up their 10,000 character alphabet of ideograms, so it will be showing up first in BMW production destined for China. You still can use the iDrive control wheel to dial in the address, or use BMW’s on-board voice recognition system that is not as advanced as the off-board Dragon Drive system, says Eric Sargent, the product manager for ConnectedDrive technologies in the US. You can email yourself the destination in advance by using Google Maps’ “Send To Car” feature.

The new iteration of BMW Professional Navigation has more 3D maps and a cleaner interface. The on-board hard drive has been bumped up to 200GB to hold the map data; 20.5GB is set aside for audio, twice as much as on the outgoing nav system. In cities, you see actual buildings and your route highlight snakes through the concrete canyons. In split screen mode, the right side zooms in to show a close-up of the next turn. Some of this is new on BMWs, as BMW, Audi, and Mercedes try to outdo each other in providing a reason to spend $2,000 (final price not announced) for high-end navigation. Real-time traffic information is now provided by Inrix over cellular (BMW Assist), replacing the Clear Channel radio feed.

Two more cool features: BMW will offer a 4G LTE WiFi hotspot as module that drops into the phone holder in the center console. That’s coming shortly in Europe. BMW may bring it to the US; that isn’t certain yet. Also, BMW will let you have two cellphones connected and active at the same time and the address books are merged when you look up a phone number on the LCD display.

BMW will start with the 3 Series, 5 Series, 5 Series GT, and 3 Series Active Hybrid, which make up more than half its sales, with the first cars hitting US dealers in the fall. The new navigation comes first; that includes Dragon Drive. The touchpad iDrive controller follows a couple months later. The best features such as Dragon Voice require BMW’s concierge level of BMW Assist, which runs $199 a year. Real-time traffic requires base-level BMW Assist, which is part of the purchase price for the first four years, then $199 a year.

Will all this cause or reduce distracted driving? BMW’s philosophy is that you probably can’t keep drivers from yakking on cellphones and texting, so make it as safe as possible. It’s likely the safety zealots in Washington who control the National Highway Traffic Administration will sternly voice grave doubts about distraction and information overload.