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      09-29-2012, 01:19 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by sfax View Post
Do you have a retrofit without 6NF? i.e. no cradle and 6NR only via the Y cable? I think you'll have to wait for an updated Y cable. Not sure but I would think they will become available long before the official BMW media adaptor (which took 1 year for iPhone 4)
Yup, that's right.. I'm hoping that the adaptor will then be pin by pin compatible with the Y cable so that it will still provide the analogue audio through the Y cable's 1/8" jack. I read that that is what the adaptor is supposed to do -provide analogue audio (but not video) from the digital lightning port. I read an article that sounds promising:

"BMW spokespeople made it emphatically clear that owners will still be able to listen to music, podcasts and other audio over the built-in stereo, along with accessing BMW Apps and Mini Connected features using the combination of the new Lightning adaptor fitted to the existing 30-pin connector and the duo of USB and 1/8-inch audio jack supplied by both BMW and Mini. So yes, the tunes will continue to flow, but the automaker's PlugIn feature – enabling video playback while stationary and the mirrored Apple interface – is officially out."
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      09-29-2012, 01:19 PM   #24
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Originally Posted by 02420X3 View Post
I wonder if a simple patch cord from the iPhone headphone jack to the receptacle where you now plug in the 1/8" side of your Y cable would help?
I was thinking the same thing - going to give that a try this afternoon!
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      09-29-2012, 03:12 PM   #25
ings
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Quote:
Originally Posted by April1 View Post
Thanks for sharing your experience. My iPhone 5 is expected to be delivered on Oct 24.
In case it is helpful:

I leave an iPod classic (the one with a 160 GB drive) permanently in the car. It contains my entire music collection and lives in the center console attached with a USB cable with the old style Apple connector. It works great for listening to tunes in the car, complete with album art.

My iPhone I connect via Bluetooth and it works perfectly well for streaming audio podcasts, or the new music tracks I just bought or whatever. It's easy to switch between the iPod and the iPhone using iDrive.

In other words, you can manage quite well without ever connecting your iPHone (5) with a wire, thus avoiding your connector concerns.

I'm not suggesting this solves your exact requirement, just suggesting an alternative approach.
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      09-29-2012, 11:11 PM   #26
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Originally Posted by 02420X3 View Post
I wonder if a simple patch cord from the iPhone headphone jack to the receptacle where you now plug in the 1/8" side of your Y cable would help?
Well, I did it and... SUCCESS!! By just plugging the iPhone headphone jack to the 1/8" audio/video jack and everything now flows through the car sound system!

So, I checked all the audio apps... Web Radio, MOG, and Pandora - and they all work great now!

So I can just bypass the Y-cable and plug lightning to USB console port, and headphone jack to 1/8" console jack, and it's works just fine. I'm fricken thrilled now. lol

Anyway, an interesting observation - when I have the iPhone5 plugged into the USB port, it will disable the iPhone5 bluetooth audio connection which is fine for me.

Like I said earlier, the iPhone "plugin" feature no longer works but the iPhone5 will show up as an external device that you can access and get the album art too. Since I have a 64gb model, I might start loading up new songs on there because I have maxed out my 12gb drive in the car. Maybe I'll keep the essential stuff on the car, and extended stuff in the iPhone.

No video from iPhone5.

Anyway, I don't see a reason for the adaptor now unless I want to have a cleaner setup with less wires - but I don't even know if it was going to work and since I have my iPhone in a case, not sure if the adaptor was going to work with it... I prob would need to get the wire adaptor instead.

So, I'm happy now....
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      09-29-2012, 11:21 PM   #27
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Originally Posted by sfax View Post
Word of warning to those considering upgrading: my wife's iPhone 5 was down to 8% charge and it wouldn't charge or be seen as a device in iDrive. The charge icon flicked on and off a few times and it never appeared in iDrive as an external device. Switched to my iPhone 4 and it was immediately recognised as an external device and started charging correctly. I paired the iPhone 5 for BT Audio and that all worked ok but using the lightning cable it was invisible - oddly it did charge from the glove box ok. Will try it again when it's fully charged
Wow, interesting..

Using the lightning cable my iPhone5 does seem to charge and it does show up as an external device (and bmw apps, etc). But if I have it paired for bluetooth audio, it will get disabled once I connect it to the usb port. Not sure if these results are because the port was retrofitted. I don't believe it affects the bluetooth telephone connection, but I got a message on the screen telling me that the bluetooth audio function was being disconnected due to the USB audio connect (which doesn't fully make sense to me since the audio is delivered by my iPhone to the car via the 1/8" jack (as I describe below).

Since I use a different phone for the bluetooth phone feature, this didn't pose an issue for me.

Btw, I was able to resolve the audio issue of coming out of the iPhone instead of the sound system by connecting the headphone jack to the console 1/8" jack. Those BMW Apps that have audio now come over the car sound system so I am very happy now.

Last edited by JSY; 09-29-2012 at 11:34 PM..
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      09-29-2012, 11:58 PM   #28
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Bluetooth audio being disabled when you connect to the USB port is BMW/iPhone normal. It pre-existed iPhone 5.
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      09-30-2012, 01:43 AM   #29
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Originally Posted by 02420X3 View Post
Bluetooth audio being disabled when you connect to the USB port is BMW/iPhone normal. It pre-existed iPhone 5.
Ahh thanks - I never noticed since I never connected my iPhone via bluetooth and was experimenting..
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      09-30-2012, 03:46 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sfax View Post
Word of warning to those considering upgrading: my wife's iPhone 5 was down to 8% charge and it wouldn't charge or be seen as a device in iDrive. The charge icon flicked on and off a few times and it never appeared in iDrive as an external device. Switched to my iPhone 4 and it was immediately recognised as an external device and started charging correctly. I paired the iPhone 5 for BT Audio and that all worked ok but using the lightning cable it was invisible - oddly it did charge from the glove box ok. Will try it again when it's fully charged
Just had a chance to test again with the iPhone 5 and it's all good. I assume the low 8% charge was the reason it was struggling before because this time, it charged, was recognised as a device etc and everything seemed to work. I haven't had chance to have a play with music yet but it looked like it would all work in the same way.

Re. BT Audio and notifications. This is all works as well as it does with my iPhone 4 so you always get new mail icon in iDrive for new SMS and also for new email (providing you toggle one of the notification alert settings each time you get in the car - see the other thread on this http://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showth...=747076&page=2). All new email and SMS can then be viewed in Office - Messages

Some things to bear in mind when setting up BMW Office for an iPhone 4/5:

1. make sure you have notifications setup on the iPhone Bluetooth connection (click the arrow to the right of the BMW Bluetooth connection and check notifications is switched on)
2. make sure you have setup iPhone notifications as per thread above
3. make sure your iPhone is still paired for Bluetooth audio as this gets lost each time you plug in the USB
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      09-30-2012, 05:19 PM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 02420X3 View Post
Bluetooth audio being disabled when you connect to the USB port is BMW/iPhone normal. It pre-existed iPhone 5.
+1 and this contributed to my decision to leave an iPod Classic permanently connected (as I mentioned a couple of posts ago) ... otherwise switching BT audio off and on becomes a pain.

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      10-01-2012, 01:40 AM   #32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ings View Post
+1 and this contributed to my decision to leave an iPod Classic permanently connected (as I mentioned a couple of posts ago) ... otherwise switching BT audio off and on becomes a pain.

Dave Ings
This is a good point. Further to this, I use a non-media cradle and keep a permanent USB flash drive in the USB socket. Having a non-media cradle means you can charge the iPhone without disabling the BT audio - I'm assuming here that the media cradle has the same problem as the USB
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      10-01-2012, 02:42 AM   #33
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Amazing how many different outcomes are appearing here. Must be down to who has factory fit, retro fit or no 6NR, with or without 6NF.
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      10-01-2012, 04:11 AM   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Redbhuna View Post
Amazing how many different outcomes are appearing here. Must be down to who has factory fit, retro fit or no 6NR, with or without 6NF.
Makes it really exciting as who knows what will work when your iPhone 5 arrives?!

I will take a look at music and 6NR later if I have time. The wife doesn't use any of this stuff but I need to know because I may upgrade my iPhone 4 as well
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      10-01-2012, 04:58 AM   #35
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Yeah it's about as exciting as waiting for the car to arrive in the first place! I don't use the cradle for anything so won't miss video or iPod screen layout, fingers crossed...
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      10-02-2012, 02:20 PM   #36
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ings, when you browse your library via the iPod Classic, is it pretty fast? The reason I ask is because I decided to try something similar except I opted to buy a massive USB flash drive for storing my entire library and leaving it connected to the USB port. The problem was that it took forever to initialize and slowed down any kind of track navigation. I would click the 'next track' button and then it took several seconds before it did that... Even more problematic was that as long as the flash drive was connected, it also slowed down browsing my iPhone (which always contained my more new acquisitions) and made loading album art a very sketchy thing.

I'm guessing that iDrive is trying to index the contents of the flash drive and when you have 60+ gigs of tracks loaded this may take longer than my entire trip to complete. I have been considering the iPod classic route myself but haven't pulled the trigger on it quite yet. I bet that iDrive just relies on the iPod to handle the data management and just squirts out API calls so it wouldn't suffer from the lag issues.
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      10-02-2012, 03:35 PM   #37
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There are some other posts complaining about how slow and sometimes unreliable large capacity iPod classics are. Worth a search

It shouldn't need to re-index every time you switch on unless you have used up the index space - I think it can index 26,000 songs across 4 remembered USB devices. Not sure on the exact details but there is something in the user manual about it

I have about 26GB on a 32GB USB flash drive and no problems or delay - it stays plugged in most of the time
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