Hey all, glad to finally be motoring in a new Mini. Picked up a '13 Countryman S ALL4 in bright white this weekend and am loving it so far. I have a strange issue though with the iPhone integration that I hope someone can help with.

I have no nav, no mini connected. I'm using the Y cable provided by the dealer with the car and have it plugged into USB and AUX. As expected, the AUX and USB options disappear in the radio modes and only IPOD remains. This seems to trigger the "Music" app and the few songs I have on my iPhone start shuffling. I'm a pandora subscriber and use it all the time via AUX in my other car. I have no control in the "Music" app. It just says "Accessory Connected". I launch the pandora app and get output, but the Mini keeps randomly starting to shuffle the songs on the iPhone in the "Music" app again if I hit buttons on the steering wheel and seemingly at random all on its own. It's driving me crazy. I'm considering going to a cigarette lighter charger and a dock connector to usb + 3.5 audio cable like my other car and just using the AUX port so the car isn't trying to interface.

Has anyone experienced this? Do I have to delete all of the tracks off my iPhone to stop this from happening? Help.

 

Same with my Nano. Aux is your friend. The integration is sorely lacking.

 

Yep. Seems the steering wheel controls only integrate with the music player/ipod feature of the iPhone.

Meanwhile, my wife's Subaru Outback with bluetooth streaming has steering wheel controls that will handle Pandora or my music.

Seems MINI could probably push a firmware update and solve these issues. The latest update was from Jan 2013: http://www.mini.com/connectivity/sof...ate/index.html

 

My wife's 2013 Jetta does the same. Total control of her phone. I cannot even get the H/K system in the CM to recognize podcasts. Totally useless. Glad I didn't splurge for Connected. Seems moderately ok if you have an iPhone 4/4S, but not a 5, and even then, doesn't do particularly well.

again, the Aux port is your friend.

 

Thanks guys. I figured that was the case. For anyone else searching, I ditched the Mini-provided Y cable and used one of these:


For $5, it lets me charge via USB and listen to whatever I want via AUX without any pesky "integration".

It's amazing to me that car manufacturers (even Mini/BMW) are so far behind that they can't match or exceed the technology present on a $129 Pioneer head unit from 5 years ago. I can't imagine that Pioneer, Kenwood, Alpine, Sony or JVC can't partner with an auto manufacturer to rebrand a decent head unit at a decent price. Why reinvent the wheel?

 

Nice hopvision. I've added that to my cart. I cannot find a lightning version though. As long as I have my 6th gen nano, this one will work.

 

Strange I've got connected in my R61 and it seems to work really nicely. I've been using it for on device music as well as Pandora. My only real complaint is for Pandora and Mini Connected I can't shut my screen off, that sort of bugs me.

 

Count your rings on the mini plug - you're one short.

Also, my take on what I want now . . .

 

Which phone are you using? 4 or 5

 

iPhone5 with the short adapter is it different on the 4?

 

I had the same issue until I got thishttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B52LLJ6/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Integration is amazingly seamless, and probably works better than my bluetooth ready cars.

 

I have all the control on the iPhone 5 with my non-Nav USB port with the adapter

 

The adapter, is it from MINI? Can you post link? Want to be sure I get the right one. Not being an iPhone user before, this gets a little confusing. I see MINI has cradles, adapters so not sure what to get.

 

it is just a Apple Lightning to 30-pin Adapter I got from Apple.

 

Thank you....will look for it, have an Apple store in local mall

 

Everything but video out works with my iPhone 5 and the adapter from the apple store. As I said my only issue is perhaps a design problem. I Don't understand why it can't run with the screen on the phone off, that's just silly.

 

Mini has the cradles for the 3 and 4. I understand perhaps later this year the 5 cradle might be avialble.....Currently have and use the 4s with both the cradle or the provided Y cable.....no issues at all.

 

After nearly a year on the market, MINI still hasn't figured out a lightning Y-cable for the IPhone 5.

Bah.

 

According to this article, the dock should be available anytime now.

http://www.motoringfile.com/2013/07/...ini-in-august/

 

Yeah...but w'eve been there before....Checked with my Parts Mgr. Friday and he says it's not even in the computer with a part # assigned to order from Germany.. Hopefully for those with the 5 I'm wrong... I'm sticking with the 4s until we see what the 6 has in store for us....

 

BMW has a long history of over promising and under delivering. We went through all this when the CM was introduced. All the literature and videos showed MINI connect working exactly as described. Reality was that it wasn't ready for prime time, but they sold it anyway and continued to make promises. For giggles, you can cross shop with BMW for parts - but if it is anything like the iPhone 4 debacle, the systems are just different enough that it won't work. I learned that the hard way and still have a guaranteed to work cradle laying around somewhere - after buying 4 of them, they made the last one a final sale.

 

Unfortunately, stated well and 100% right !!