In-car news feed: News in real time with the new BMW News app.

Richmond Hill, ON . Over the past few days, the revamped BMW News app has been rolled out to millions of BMWs. With this update, the News app becomes a broad, convenient and intelligent in-vehicle news service that can be tailored to the customer. This means BMW is now offering an improved service to meet the growing customer desire for news-on-demand and infotainment podcasts. The key new functions are personalised, intelligent filtering of news, significantly higher audio quality and the introduction of news feeds. Accessing news will now be as easy and entertaining as listening to the radio, and time spent in the car will be more in-line with the customer’s interests and on-demand requirements.

New Functions.

• With the introduction of personalized news, the customer can select categories to receive news only on topics of interest. Through the additional “liking” of individual posts, the intelligent app continuously learns the preferences of the customer, enabling it to customise the news feed even more precisely.
• Personalized news and top news stories are provided at high audio quality for a convenient and pleasant listening experience. Instead of a text-to-speech computer, the content is read aloud by speakers. Customers can filter the content according to country and language.
• By integrating additional and major news providers, the News app provides a significantly greater variety of news reports.
• Through a mixture of short top news stories and longer reports, news feeds offer a more enjoyable infotainment experience. The duration of news feeds can be adjusted to match personal preferences, for both long and short trips. The feeds can be launched with one simple click.

The improvements to the BMW News app are based on feedback from selected customer test groups who have tested the News app in the vehicle under realistic conditions over an extended period. In-line with customer feedback, the developers focused in particular on improved audio quality, intuitive operation and the desire for personalised, intelligent preselection.

Availability in Canada: End of 2021.

The News app from BMW is an integrated vehicle application in BMW iDrive 7. Due to the flexibility of the software, it does not require a Remote Software Upgrade. However it requires version 20-11 of the BMW Operating System or newer. BMWs that meet the minimum requirements will automatically receive the update to the News app in the vehicle over the coming days and weeks. Customers with the appropriate vehicles in the European markets (DE, UK, FR, ES, CH, AT, IE) will be the first to benefit from the new News app. The News app will be rolled out in Canada at the end of 2021.

General information on Remote Software Upgrade and BMW iDrive 7.

Since 2018, BMW iDrive 7 and Remote Software Upgrade have enabled BMW drivers to keep their vehicle up to date with the latest software version quickly and easily. The new functions can be conveniently installed in the car over-the-air. The installation files are prepared in the vehicle in the background, after which it will rarely take more than 20 minutes to install even extensive updates.

Customers are informed of an available Remote Software Upgrade via the My BMW App or in the Control Display in the vehicle. The software version can also be viewed in the vehicle settings under Remote Software Upgrade, and the customer can search for available upgrades. Remote Software Upgrade is now available for more than 20 BMW models and thus almost for the entire BMW vehicle portfolio. Only the next possible upgrade is offered for installation in the vehicle.

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BMW Group in Canada

BMW Group Canada, based in Richmond Hill, Ontario, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BMW AG and is responsible for the distribution of BMW luxury performance automobiles, Sports Activity Vehicles, Motorcycles, and MINI.  BMW Group Financial Services Canada is a division of BMW Group Canada and offers retail financing and leasing programs and protection products on new and pre-owned BMW and MINI automobiles, as well as retail financing for new and pre-owned BMW Motorcycles. A total network of 51 BMW automobile retail centres, 21 BMW motorcycle retailers, and 31 MINI retailers represents the BMW Group across the country.

For more information, please contact:

Marc Belcourt, Director, Corporate Communications

BMW Group Canada

905-428-5078 / marc.belcourt@bmwgroup.ca                                             

Barb Pitblado, Manager, Corporate Communications

BMW Group Canada

905-428-5005 / barb.pitblado@bmwgroup.ca