I had my car in for service this week and was updated to a version of iDrive that finally has Android Auto available. I was eager to try it out to see if it would be useful or if it had functions that worked better than the iDrive version.
My biggest problem with it is that you can't get rid of the dead space on the right that shows the date/time taking up about 1/4 of the screen. You can remove the music info (which keeps showing up when you start up even if you are listening to other non AA music sources) but you then just have empty space on the side. See pic below (from bmwblog's site). Even when using Google maps, or Waze or anything really, that space is wasted.
Does anyone know a way to get rid of it?
I like how Google maps is integrated with the HUD of the car. That was the best advantage the OEM nav had going for it before the latest update allowed that to be available to AA and carplay i believe. It is weird though that if you are using google maps to direct you to your destination, you lose the map in the instrument cluster.
It also keeps the next indication (i.e. upcoming turn) permanently showing in the HUD and on the screen eating away at more of the screen real-estate. I don't mind it in the HUD even though it is different than how my idrive nav works, but blocks too much of the map for my taste. Haven't found a way to minimise it... If it were not there the entire time, it would be less of a problem.
Tried Waze today for a short trip and it was not integrated with the HUD yet in case anyone is wondering. Other than that it seemed to work ok.
Used it to reply to some chat messages (using the signal app) and it was ok, but the voice recognition seemed to be sub par. My phone usually does a better job, but i didn't use it for an extended period of time so maybe it was just a bad sample size.
Anyone have anything notable i should try running through AA?