Again, I wouldn't expect it to - most of those kits are designed to move the signal from USB to HDMI and not the other way around.

And rikbarry, I have no idea why your phone automatically starts playing when you connect to it...

 

It's probably not true that it won't charge. Try this:

1- With the car battery on, plug the adapter into the iPhone.
2- If you get the "not compatible" message, unplug the adapter.
3- Immediately plug the adapter back in.

If you're like me, the warning won't reappear, and the iPhone's battery icon will show you that it's charging.

Apple has apparently included this warning on the iPhone for anything it doesn't recognize as "authorized" equipment -- just to cover their butts (and to encourage the purchase of equipment the make or endorse). The MINI Y adapter works fine despite the scary warning.

 

It's when I switch the input mode to "IPOD" on the MINI.
It's undoubtedly because I often switch out of my music and over to another app without pausing/stopping what was playing. I do this because I like picking up where I left off when I return to my music.

So let's say my iPhone is connected to my MINI, but I'm not using it. Then I hear an alert sound. I touch the Home button and see that I have an email or a text from someone important. Instead of waiting until I reach the next rest stop 20 miles away, I touch the iPhone email to open it, touch-select the text, and choose 'Speak." But I won't hear a word.

That's because: if my sound system is on, I'm generally listening to satellite radio, meaning that's what my audio mode is set for. The only way I can hear audio coming from my iPhone (other than phone calls) is to switch the mode the IPOD. When I do, I'll immediately hear the last tune I was listening to on my iPhone. If I do choose "Speak" I'll hear both the spoken text and the music. The only way to avoid that is to switch over to my music, pause/stop it, return to my email, and choose "Speak."

This is like back in the day, when smart devices were dumb devices (I should know, I'm ancient).

 

I'm no electronics expert either, akminime. Try it and let me know!
By the way, here's the official MINI adapter on ebay, for a couple of days:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BWM-MINI-COO...-/251352722487

Of course, you'll need a 30-pin to Lightning adapter, which is what I did when Apple switched cables.

 

I have a 2012 MIni and I just upgraded to the I phone 6. I purchased the Apple adapter (30 pin to lightning) to use on my Y connector. It plays and charges my phone fine, but I lose all steering wheels functions with this. I don't understand why this is happening. I purposely purchased the Apple product because I didn't want to lose any functions. Any suggestions?

Also, it's not my Y connector cable because I tried it with my 4S and all functions work with that phone.

 

The issue is that MINI's compatibility with any Lightning device is sketchy at best. As has been well discussed, when Apple shifted from 30 pin to Lightning some functionality was removed, others broken, and still others are sketchy at best...

Personally, I have steering wheel control of my iPhone6 - however, I don't use the Y adapter, instead I use the Apple Lightning to USB cord paired with an Aux audio cable. This setup works reasonably well, however sometimes when I connect I have no audio - unplugging the audio cable from the phone and plugging it back in resolves the issue. Also there are occasional issues with album art updating on the HU since about two IOS updates back.

The only potential solution I can suggest - if you have MINI Connected, make sure that you have updated the most recent version of the Connected software - odds are you don't, even if you took delivery of your MINI as late as early 2014...

 

Have you got this to work? I'm in the same exact boat m

 

Cable works to play and charge phone. I still can't get mini connected to work or the steering wheel functions to work.

 

Chewey, I have the same setup as you; does Pandora and/or Spotify work in your Mini or do only the Apple apps work(iTunes Radio and your music loaded)?

 

I updated from iphone 4 to 6 and purchased the media lightening Y cable for my 2013 MCS with connected w/o nav. It was a bit spotty in that the mini connected apps on the iphone 6 would take a long time to load up but for the most part once they did the apps worked and I had steering wheel control of things. I did end up updating the software for the connected system on the car (MX-003.005.004; TX-003.005.008). I also updated the firmware for the Y cable (Google "BMW firmware update" to find how to do it. This improved things alot. The apps load much faster and they run more reliably.