more i Remote app woes

[psquare]

While I love the car, I have to say that I continue to be very underwhelmed by the i Remote app.

Since a recent update, the app now seems to randomly reset itself, forcing me to enter user ID, pw, set PIN, identify vehicle and unset the unit of measure from 'metric' to 'english' (eh?). This has happened twice to me now, usually when I am travelling, which appears to be part of the problem I'd say. BMWi has been in contact via Twitter and passed the problem on to an internal team to investigate. Looking at the review comments on the Apple App Store, I can see that other people are having the same problem.

The thought that there are also i8 owners out there who spent north of £100k for the car -including this app- gives me the shakes. Good example how a great product can be badly affected by a poorly designed and tested mobile app.

Generally, I find that the app is unintuitive and is desperately trying to defy rules of usability which have become commonplace in so many other mobile applications these days.

 

[jadnashuanh]

While the quirks are still there in the Android version, I"ve not had it exhibit the same problems you are having.

 

[psquare]

While the quirks are still there in the Android version, I"ve not had it exhibit the same problems you are having.

Yes, I suspected the reset problem is only linked to the iOS version.

 

[stumbledotcom]

Yes, I suspected the reset problem is only linked to the iOS version.

I've gotten the Session Timed Out message and had to go through the process of logging in as you described several times since updating to the current 1.5.1 version, which added support for Apple Watch. In a thread specific to the Watch app, another member theorized the issue is related to attempting to use the Watch without first authenticating through the iPhone. But I haven't been able to find a pattern. Do you happen to have a Watch also?

 

[psquare]

Hi

No I haven't got an Apple Watch and I am still waiting for BMW i to get back to me via Twitter email or anything.

 

[GlasgowSi]

Yeah I think my theory is out of the window now as I've had the session time out even after not doing anything with the Apple watch app at all. Not heard anything back from the app developers since sending them feedback from within the app. If you are affected be sure to do so yourselves so they realise it is affecting quite a lot of people, and that it isn't restricted to Apple watch users! Click the settings cog icon, scroll to feedback and it will send an email to the app developers.

 

[Boatguy]

I've had similar problems. I think the "reset" you're experiencing is whenever a new version is distributed. The new version is automatically installed in your iPhone, then when you run the app it asks you to enter id/pswd, select your car, reset the units (if you're in the US it oddly defaults to metric), etc.

Then in my case, adding insult to injury, the app has quit reporting the position of the car. It shows the location of the phone, but not the car. Selecting Navigation it says the GPS in the car is disabled which is nonsense. I've checked the car's settings several times and it's fine.

There is an interesting opinion by a management consultancy that suggests phones are killing compact cameras not because they are cheaper or take better pictures, but because they have a far superior UI. BMW should take note. Tesla is taking business from the higher end of the BMW (and MB, Lexus, etc.) product line in part because of great software. Tesla is miles (and kilometers) ahead of BMW. Tesla updates vehicle s/w the same way your phone updates s/w. The difference between a Mac and Dell is mostly software.

Three days after I took delivery of my BEV it needed a trip to the dealer for a s/w update to fix the air conditioning. Three days? A trip to the dealer? BMW's software expertise is pretty awful. The UI for the i3 is not intuitive; it takes way too many clicks to accomplish any task. The iPhone app could be improved upon by random selection of high school students given 30 days to write it from scratch.

The iPhone app problems are just the tip of the iceberg. Wake up BMW, you're now in the s/w business.

 

[stumbledotcom]

I experienced a few timeouts in the days following the 1.5.1 update but things seem to have settled down of late. The issue could be with this version or it could be server hiccups. Regardless GlasgowSi's advice to submit feedback makes sense.

 

[jadnashuanh]

You may have meant this, but in the i3's menus, there's a checkbox that says something like 'share gps position'. If you don't have that box checked, you will not get the vehicle location to show on the app. All internal gps nav based stuff will work just fine, but that disables its ability to forward that info to the server except if you get into an accident, and then, it is overridden when an air bag goes off.

 

[psquare]

I've had the same issue again today. Once again, the app reset happened when I changed location. My guess is that the server session I have whilst connected from home using a particular IP is not recognised anymore when I change location and access the app whilst out and about, using a mobile data signal.

 

[GlasgowSi]

I've had similar problems. I think the "reset" you're experiencing is whenever a new version is distributed. The new version is automatically installed in your iPhone, then when you run the app it asks you to enter id/pswd, select your car, reset the units (if you're in the US it oddly defaults to metric), etc.

It definitely happens more often than when new versions are installed. I regularly check the App Store for updates to apps, and to check which have been automatically updated since I last looked, and the BMW i Remote has been at 1.5.1 for several weeks (my app store update history no longer goes back far enough for me to check exactly when the i app was last updated, but it was before 27 April).

Unfortunately I've not really been able to find any noticeable pattern with what triggers the session time out. For a while it seemed to be Watch app related, though as it even happens when not using the watch app it may well have been coincidental.

 

[stumbledotcom]

The current 1.5.1 version was posted on April 2, 2015. Version history is visible on the app's page in the App Store.

 

[Boatguy]

I solved the location problem I was having by disabling the GPS setting in the car and then turning the car off. Then restarted the car and enabled the option, then turned it off again. Now the app shows the location of the car.

It's just bad software, somewhere a setting got cleared and was out of sync with the vehicle settings.