Welcome back to our monthly evaluation of just how well my personal 2024 BMW iX fares in daily usage. We're just a few weeks short of a full year of ownership of our SUV, which we leased (yes, with our own money) in September 2023. It's been a mostly great year so far, with only a few issues mixed with some unexpectedly great range and practicality, too.
This time, though, we're going to step away from what's in my driveway and focus more on what's on my phone. Every great car needs an app these days, and for the iX, that's the My BMW app, which quickly earned a place on my device's home screen, which, for the record, is a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
It's increasingly impossible to separate the car experience from the app experience, especially with EVs. Tracking charging status, setting up routines for recharge timing and rates, and preconditioning are the most important features of an EV app, but manufacturers are adding more and more features to drive higher engagement and utilization in their software, and BMW is no different.
The My BMW App
The My BMW app starts off with a visualization of the status of your car, which encouragingly says "All Good" every time I launch the app. It shows whether the car is plugged into a charger, with a little visualization if it's actually taking on a charge.
There's a quick display that shows whether the car is locked, but from there, you can tap "Check Status" to get details like current tire pressure (which we were watching like a hawk after patching our flat) and current mileage, which as I type this is just short of 10,500 miles. Here you can also schedule routine service, of which there's blissfully nothing due for another full year. (And even then, it's just a brake fluid flush.)
You can also manually trigger software updates when they're available. So far, the car has downloaded every update all by its lonesome. Once downloaded, the car prompts on the touchscreen, asking when it should apply the update. We've always picked random times in the wee hours of the morning, which meant we were never stuck watching a progress bar when we wanted to drive.
Back in the app, keep on scrolling, and you get to the basic car controls: locking and unlocking the car, flashing the lights, honking the horn, and enabling climate control. Of these, the precondition control is the one I've used most frequently.
Unfortunately, this is probably the most frustrating part of the experience. I'm a big fan of having a perfectly warmed or cooled car when I climb in, especially after climbing out of a stuffy airplane and staggering my way across the airport and into my car.
The problem is that the iX really struggles to maintain data connectivity in parking garages, which has often left me sitting on a taxiing plane refreshing and refreshing the car with no preconditioning joy.
In these situations, the app just says, "Something went wrong."
Climate Semi-Control
When it does work, your options are disappointingly limited: On or off. You can't manually configure heated seats or adjust cabin temperature. Mind you, having the car bring itself to whatever settings I left it on is usually perfectly acceptable, but it does seem surprising that the app doesn't allow more finite control.
The app will also let you open or close the windows, but curiously only when you're within a few feet of the car, making that feature of questionable value.
Next in the app is a section BMW calls Remote Services, which includes two features: Remote Control Parking and Remote Cameras. The former feature works quite well should you ever find yourself in a situation where you want to park your car when you're not in it.
I've never found myself in this situation. However, I do use the remote camera feature quite frequently. Here, you can get a 360-degree, 3D image of everything going on around the car, plus a shot of the interior as well.
It's fascinating to get a photo of the car in situ from wherever you are in the world. If you park somewhere a little shady, or perhaps you're a nervous parent with a kid who borrowed the iX, I could see it being far more useful.
Next is a short entry that tells you where the car is, followed by the most helpful part of the app: My Trips. Here the My BMW app includes endless ways of parsing and tracking how exactly the car is being driven. Even if you forget to set the in-car trip meters, the app is always watching, which sounds ominous but is incredibly helpful should you happen to be a journalist who needs to know the efficiency of every significant trip.
The only slight frustration here is that these trips are stored per driver. Since my wife and I both have our own accounts, I can't see her trips, and she can't see mine. That may be great if you don't want your significant other to see where you've been motoring, but data hounds in more trusting relationships will be frustrated at the inability to mingle their driving metrics.
If that's not enough data, the app also tracks all the car's charging sessions, which is likewise useful in my line of work.
Mobile Control
Next is the Vehicle Control Center, which provides yet another view into information about the car, including its VIN and model, followed by a section for the vehicle settings. These are mostly user-related settings, including managing the car's eSIM for remote data access and connecting your Amazon account to enable Alexa.
All that is found in just the first of five sections in the app. The other sections are rather less useful. The second page is all about mapping, where you can plan routes, find chargers, and enter your favorite destinations. The third tab is just BMW promotional material, which, as I write this, has a commercial featuring golfer Max Homa and his i7, plus a little mini-feature on the upcoming M5 Touring.
The fourth section is more important, BMW Service & Store, where you can look at everything from your car's warranty to your active subscriptions. If I wanted to pay $25 to have my iX warn me about traffic cameras, this is where I'd do it.
The final page has more user settings, which overlap quite a bit with the earlier account settings.
That's a lot of stuff, and while it's easy enough to get to the most critical features, I have to say the arrangement isn't particularly logical. There are numerous overlapping, duplicated sets of controls. The app feels like a thing that's gained more and more features over the years without the developers being given a chance to stop and rearrange.
But that's how it goes in the wild and understaffed world of app development. While My BMW does have some frustrations, it's mostly a solid package, providing good control and insight into the car from wherever I am—so long as the car isn't buried too deep in a parking garage, at least.
Coming in the next few months: winter. And a winter tire test, too.
Tim Stevens is a veteran editor, analyst, and expert in the tech and automotive industries. He helmed CNET's automotive coverage for nine years and acted as Vice President of Content. Prior to that, Tim served as Editor-in-Chief at Engadget and even led a previous life as an Enterprise Software Architect. Follow Tim on Twitter at @tim_stevens and catch his Substack.
