793
BMW Is Showing Full-Screen Ads on Its Cars' Main Dashboard Control Display
(consumerrights.wiki)
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
793 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
86835 readers
5339 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Has anyone actually seen these ads in the BMW, as described?
This article seems fishy to me. Especially this part:
“System 7, 8, 8.5, 9, or OS X” are exact versions of MacOS, dating back to 1991. Why would BMW’s software versioning match Apple’s exactly? I mean it could be a coincidence, but it’s weird. Especially “OS X.”
Not that I’d put it past any car manufacturer to do this, capitalism gonna capitalize. But I thought the EU was more obnoxious about controlling/preventing things like this. Or does BMW get a pass since they’re a European brand?
BMW iDrive has versions 1 to 9, and now the newest really is OS X.
Yeah I read that now too. I just thought that it was weird that they went from “System 7…” up to “OS X” just like Apple did. But it’s just very plausible coincidence.
"Death" in mandarin is "Si". "4" is also "si", so it is considered a very unlucky number and nobody wants it in their phone number and other stuff.
"10" is "shi" which is close enough to "Si" that many people don't like it and will avoid it.
Number based gotta be one of my favorite superstition flavors.
I'm not superstitious. But I am a little stitious.
One of the article's sources has a link to this Reddit thread (view it on RedLib), which has someone recording the ad. The article also uses official BMW websites as sources.
P.S. that was a very boring ad
Thanks, a reply in that thread:
OP:
The advertisement is added as a whole app to watch later??
Don't talk shit about total, bro they see this
I went to the first source of the article that is mentioned
https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/article/detail/T0459681EN_US/bmw-brings-modern-mobility-to-the-sony-pictures-film-%E2%80%9Cspider-man%E2%84%A2:-brand-new-day%E2%80%9D
So what this means BMW is partnering with Disney for spiderman.
As far as I understand it the spiderman animation is not presented in a disturbing way and rather something one can access when they want to.
So yes it is an ad but also not yet intrusive advertisement that disturbs the usage.
Yeah I should have clicked through to the source article. Good call.
My theory on the System / OS numbers being suspect was nothing. Just a coincidence. I should’ve known.
The article does seem to be rage bait though. Or at least its enraging to those who didn’t read the article thoroughly. It’s not as if the driver is being pestered with ads. An unobtrusive banner on one screen that is only visible when the vehicle starts up is hardly a “full screen ad” being forced on drivers.
I'm sorry, but to me, a banner ad across my car's screen is far too much. There should be zero ads from my car manufacturer in my car.Full stop. This is probably going to be the start of more ads creeping into the car.
BMW tried the heated seat subscription service. I wouldn't be surprised if they offer the ad free infotainment service in the next 5 years.
This is what happened in mine (i think is system 7). A notification popped up (the same type you get for the xmas and halloween type of videos). You can choose to ignore it, or click on it and watch the video.
So I have now seen it . It did not pop up, I had to go into apps and find the spider man app and click on it.
Pretty stupid waste of time, but not on startup or anything.
Bro, it just ain't capitalism that's gunna capitalize. Every first grader learning about capital letters, bro. They know that shit. Ms Barry didn't teach me shit. She got guano for brains. That's what my dad taught me. He got five on the inside so racks don't crack within you, like Captain Kong Country Club shit you see that it wrote that for me. That's a clue. It's siphoning me. Can't see. Gone back to tuna. Fuck . Its deli eating. Firgot. The shake of quake hungrasn. Go god go