When I got my '16 JCW Thanksgiving weekend I had already downloaded the MiNi Connected and Journey Mate apps to my Samsung S5 Galaxy. The sales rep got them working but after a couple of weeks there was no joy in that department. I assumed my cord was still good as it charged the phone fine even while driving.

Fast forward to day before yesterday and I traded up for the S7 version and the apps still wouldn't work. Made a trip back to the dealer and the tech decided to try his own cord. Darned thing worked as advertised. Morrow is all USB cords don't carry a full signal I guess. I took the Samsung cord out to the car and wonder of wonders, it works just fine. Now it will transmit the actual red/green/black colors of real traffic to the screen in the car. It's a different map to be sure, probably the one from Google maps as there are no structures or building showing when in the city but it can look pretty with them, or useful with the real time traffic showing as any GPS will show it and on the car's display screen.

Haven't tried my GoPro yet but pretty sure it will interface just fine. Sending route instructions from my phone to the car works fine too.

 

It's funny how prone cables are to failing. Over the years I've had cables fail from Amazon Basics, Monoprice, and the cheapies at the checkout at Target.

Apple and Samsung cables I have had good experience with; I think they know that it reflects directly on them if a cable fails so they are more serious about designing and building good cables.

MINI's cables, though, I don't trust to last. I gave up buying their Apple 30-pin cables after a few failed, inevitably in less than a year; I just put my music on a USB stick instead.

Love the Bluetooth music connection in my new F55; no cables to fail

 

Do the MiNi Connected and Journey Mate XL apps work over the Bluetooth?

 

No, they said they wouldn't and they're right. It requires at the least, a good USB cable to the port in the front console wall. And I went through three cables to find one that worked well enough.