Although initial distribution of new TiVo televisions has been delayed, Xperi has announced an expansion of their automotive infotainment solutions by delivering their iconic living room brand into the car. And the company’s first licensee is BMW.
From the press release:
BMW has selected TiVo’s video media platform to provide customers access to a growing number of video content providers, including linear and on demand streaming services. BMW’s implementation of the Powered by TiVo™ platform will include a variety of country-specific content, offering news, movies and access to media libraries. The video media platform is expected to roll out over-the-air in initial launch countries by the end of 2023 for customers of the all-new BMW 5 series and further models.
As BMW iDrive is Android-powered, it’s seems likely that this fork of the TiVo television experience is simply an app that will live alongside other BMW partners — including the also newly announced AirConsole gaming that uses your smartphone as a controller.
With AirConsole, players can play so-called casual games. These are games that are easy to pick up and play and intuitive to control. After starting the AirConsole app in the vehicle, the connection between the smartphone and the vehicle is intuitively established by scanning a QR code on the Curved Display. Then players can get straight down to playing. The AirConsole app supports multiple players simultaneously.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to easily take either of these for a spin when the time comes, as the only person I knew with a 5 Series has sidegraded to the Tesla Model 3 — featuring a superior display for rendering video content, along with premium streaming services possibly more suitable for this demographic.