Todd and Gabe dive into MINI’s revised operating system and dissect the good, the bad and the funky. We also give you some helpful insights into how to hack your 2018-2020 MINIs to take advantage of some hidden features including full-screen CarPlay.

As most recent car buyers can tell you, a brand’s operating system is fast becoming one of its most important selling features. While MINI has long been considered one of the better systems in smaller cars, the rapid progress of VW (among others) has put pressure on the brand to innovate. The addition of multi-touch and Apple CarPlay (full-screen beginning last year) has been welcome but the underlining operating system itself hasn’t seen major revision in years. Until now. 

For the 2022 model year BMW is heavily revising the MINI operating system and the surrounding physical interface and including the high resolutions 8.8” screen standard across the range. The updated system features something MINI is calling Live Widgets which should remind users of smartphone apps in their functionality and behavior. In addition to this MINI is rolling out a completely new companion smartphone app that will debut in the first half off 2021. In this episode we take a deep look at the new system and what’s truly new and what has been carried over.