I love my Nav system. I will set it to go around to the corner grocery store, I am constantly fidgitting with it, to the point that many of my passengers tell me that I should keep my eyes on the road.

Here are a few things that think could improve the Nav system. Anyone else have thoughts or suggestions?

Smarter Integration between the car and the Nav System.

For example, when gas is low (5% of tank or less), automatically ask the driver if the nav system should search for the nearby gas stations Or if a check engine light comes on, and it is sufficiently serious, then it will look for nearby service centers, auto repair places

Nav System and preferred route.

I travel a specific route to work each day; I go a way that I always enjoy because it goes through woods and a park. It's not the shortest or fastest route, but if the Nav system could see that I frequent this path, and remember it and suggest it in the future.

Nav System and Address Book

Be able to read the addresses from the bluetooth phone integration into address book in the Nav System. Or at least allow the nav system to accept a sent bluetooth contact and use the address. I already have so many addresses in my phone and if I could send one of the contacts to my nav system and tell it to go there that would be cool.

Nav System Voice volume

Cortana's voice is very loud, need a way to adjust the volume. I only noticed it when it was past 11:00 PM and I was driving. I had a passenger that was sleeping. I was politely listening to quiet music on the CD player, and wham! her voice cuts through and jolted awake my slumpering passenger.

 

First, I believe there is a way to adjust the volume of the navigator's voice. If you adjust the volume while she is speaking, that affects her volume, now and in the future, but not the overall volume of the (rest of) the audio system. Afterwards, you can crank up your radio as high or as low as you want, and the navigator will still speak with the volume you set for her--she remembers. At least that seems to work for me.

Some of your other suggestions involve a much tighter coupling between the navigation software and the audio/phone system software. Since all this software is written, I presume, not by BMW but by 3rd parties that are working for many different manufacturers, this implies a fairly high degree of complexity. Navteq, which produces the navigation software, would not only have to integrate with the BMW audio and phone, but would also have to produce versions which integrated with Lexis, Acura, Ford, and so on.

The overall effort would be reduced if there were a standard protocol for communication between the two or three different sub-systems, but I don't think there is any industry-wide agreement on this so far.

Still, a closer integration of these systems would very clearly be useful and I am hopeful that we will see some of the features you describe sooner rather than later.