A short break. A long test.
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Hi all,After 'riding in' the new BMW during a short break I'm now back at the office. It has been quite an adventure, particularly because the car was delivered with summer tires right before we've had the (hopefully last major) snowwy weekend in north-western Europe. Driving down an 1100m high mountain on an unsalted road with no guard rail in a brand new RWD -sedan on summer tires is something I don't wish on anyone. Did make for some top-gear esque moments though (because I literally could not brake).
Vehicle survived. So did I. Some permanent sweat-stains in the steering wheel though, but that's now part of this car's story. What's also part of this car's story is that this will be the vehicle in which the brand new MRA Mobile app was first tested for a very, very long time both on Android and iOS. Aside some minor UI/UX issues, the app worked flawlessly and with a better battery-performance than the current app. This is particularly noteworthy as I also took the opportunity to test the latest build of the Navigation app (again, both on iOS and Android) thoroughly. The app worked amazingly well and held up great throughout the ride; especially since BMW decided to remove the route-import feature on their native navigation system. Even in a modern state-of-the-art vehicle MRA Navigation continues to be an asset to the distinguished traveler.
Now that I'm back, I'll be brought back up to speed in the coming days. I'll also compile my experiences and test results in video's and posts here and on our Social Media account!
See you around!
Timo
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@timo-martosatiman-mra
Nice piece written Timo!
Have you noticed any differences between the IOS and the Android version of the new app?
I often read on the form that the current IOS and Android are different on important points. -
Hi Jack,
Thank you!
In my personal experience the IOS and Android version worked very similarly and did not show much difference to one another than other competing apps on the same platforms. One thing I did notice was that the 'navigation arrow' tends to be more centered in Android than in iOS. I personally prefer the Navigation arrow to be lower in the screen so that more parts of the route/map are visible.
Skipping waypoints also worked somewhat differently on a UI basis, but I didn't particularly prefer one version over the other. Since the IOS version got a bit more love (and iOS is a much more stable and dev-friendly platform than Android) it was a bit more stable. I had one hard crash on Android, but that picked back up exactly where I left off after restarting the app. Of note here though: Other (native) apps crashed as well, like the photo album. So I believe it's more of a platform/device issue than something related to MRA Navigation.
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@timo-martosatiman-mra First of all, great to see you back at the forum
You've been missed! 
Secondly, I'm very interested in the new apps. What are the expected launch dates? Milestones?
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Welcome back mate. Scary moments are scary moments whether you’re in four wheels or on two wheels. I hope the teeth marks in the steering wheel eventually fade
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@timo-martosatiman-mra
Another experience richer, winter tires on it if you go east early in the year....
