The moment of truth arrived today and I guess it is a mixed blessing. The new Y-cable arrived and I hooked it up in my Mini to see if it would solve the charging problem. See the image below on how I connected it to my car. Here is what I have discovered with the crazy configuration.

1. It is ugly
2. This configuration allows my iPhone 3GS to charge and work the the Mini's stereo computer in the same way the old Mini Y-adapter did with my iPhone 2G. I can use the playlist etc..
3. This Mini stereo will not allow the audio jack to work when the iPhone is connected. My guess is that the same audio input is being used for both even though they seem to be categorized differently by the stereo.

Okay, so it sounds like I should be happy with this scenario but I am not. I have the XM/Sirrus App for my iPhone (which I highly recommend) and if I connect the iPhone with this combination of cables it disables the Mini stereo mini jack and so I cannot pipe the XM radio through my Mini stereo without disconnecting the new amazon Y cable.

So to make a long story short, I will not be using the amazon Y cable and also not using the integrated iPod feature of my mini because of this quirk. I think my only hope for a solution is if Mini updates the stereo's firmware and also upgrade the low powered USB port to charge the iPhone 3Gs.

Has anyone heard of anything like this in the works?
Thanks,
Malc

 

MINI's own Y-cable by itself will not let you pipe audio from apps (or even voicemail messages, annoyingly) to the MINI's speakers. This is not a limitation of the USB power Y-cable from Amazon, it is a conflict with the car wanting to control the iPhone audio through the ipod connector and you wanting to control the iPhone audio through the touchscreen.

 

Thanks for the note.. and I would have agreed with you about the piping in audio with my old iPhone 2G which would never allow me to pipe voice mails over the car audio but the new 3GS phone works. I can hear voice mail messages over my car audio when connected. This fix might be an OS3 update and so try your phone again.

I have posted a message on the Mini Owners forum and hope for a response directly from a Mini rep. Thanks.

 

I've never been able to listen to voicemails over the car speakers when connected with the dock connector on my 3GS.

Update: Wait, no, I'm wrong. Perhaps I was thinking of my 2G iPhone. Now I'm curious to see if I can route app audio... hmm...

 

fishbert.. sorry to hear that.. I can review my messages over my car audio with my 3GS bluetooth connection. I could never do this with my old 2G iphone.

 

voicemails after adding 3.0 can now be played via bluetooth thru the audio system.

 

I can play my voicemails through the car audio system via bluetooth while the Y-cable is connected. I don't know if I can route any other app audio through the car audio while connected this way, as I haven't tried yet. I can do so if that's useful to someone.

I have a 2009 MCS with an iPhone 3GS with latest firmware.

 

I can play music from the Pandora app through the Y-cable. The iTunes playlist shows up on the screen though. It also looks like my 3GS phone will charge sometimes but not others. I have not had time to figure out when it does and when it doesn't charge. I also noticed that the audio plug doesn't seem to fit right and will make static if you wiggle it.

 

Shamrock.
I ordered the Dual Cig plug adapter from Amazon and the Dual USB cable as well. Am hoping to use the orig "Y" cable and plug in the audio jack as normal, then the usb end to the dual usb cable with one end going to the USB port on the Mini and the other to a cig plug USB receptical for charging. Thus leaving me another cig plug hole for my radar detector which by the way saved my but yesterday morning on rt 270 in Washington, DC doing about 84 mph.

 

We must have a similar commute. I was goin about the same yesterday morning too, but he had somebody else already. About 630 AM or a little after.

Another 2 +/- weeks then it's back to stop n go.

 

Good to hear your unit is working well. The bad news is that my unit works perfectly (albeit a bit slow) at 2500 songs. It starts to have trouble at about the 2650 songs mark.

A couple of questions and comments:

1. Do your 2500 songs have all of the tags filled in? By tags, I mean Artist, title, album data. I think this problem is related to the quantity of uploaded tags - not to the number of songs exactly.

2. Watch for problems when you set your iPhone to "Shuffle" mode and then plug it into the car. When I did this, it would only play songs sequentially in alphabetical order (at the 2650 songs mark).

3. Contacts have nothing to do with this problem - that is the bluetooth portion of the interface - not the audio connection.

 

1. Almost all of my songs have been tagged with at least artist, album, track, genre, artwork, etc. It's part of my OCD.

2. I've not seen anything like this, and my iPhone is set to shuffle mode quite frequently.

I have noticed that sometimes the iPhone will resume playing from where I left off, and sometimes it will start over with the first song alphabetically.

The most annoying thing is scrolling through the artists one-by-one. I wish they'd have put the ability to jump to a specific letter like they did with contacts.

Other than that, and the lack of charging, it works perfectly, and is one of the things I like best about the car.

 

Well that's good. As I say, I also have OCD issues with tags and the place where the system starts to crumble is about 2650 tagged songs - that is where I lose the ability to shuffle. At about 2800 songs, it is dead in the water.

Admittedly, I haven't tried this since installing the 3.1 upgrade - but I honestly suspect that this is a BMW / MINI interface issue - not an iPhone issue. It has all the earmarks of buffer overrun.

 

Tonight on the commute home (50 miles or so) the iPhone was plugged in the whole time to the onboard USB, with music player running and maps w/traffic displayed. Phone was probably working to maintain connection because there are a few spots where coverage is weak. So it was needing a lot of power.

It went from more than 1/2 charged to below 20 percent in the first half of the drive. Came home and ordered the "fix" wire and a micro usb plug for the power receptacle, but the principal of the matter -that it should charge quickly when using the Mini cable- still leaves me a bit displeased.

However, I love this car and there's no way this little issue will affect that!

 

This is one of those bleeding edge of technology things. MINI built the cabe to one specification, Apple changes the spec. you are in the middle. At least someone came up with a workable solution, and you weren't left high and dry.

 

+1

 

So true thanks for the reminder.

 

Can you point me to the "fix" wire and USB plug you're referencing? Or did I miss it somewhere in this thread?

While this isn't a huge deal to me, if there's a easy way to add charging, I'd love to do it.

Thanks.

 

Link to another thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ue-solved.html


Post number 5 of that thread is what I went with. Ebay seller had the 11 inch long chord and I bought the USB power adapter from Best Buy. The power adapter and sync/charge chord is sold for iPHONE and says it charges phone at fastest level. Won't need the sync/charge chord for the Mini but there is never too many of those!

Hope this helps.

 

Did you figure it out yet? I can't work out why sometimes there's enough power and sometimes there isn't and it bugs me like crazy.

And do you get pandora audio out of the "bottom" connector or thru the headphone Jack at the top ? (only the top worked for me, but maybe it's a recent OS change and I need to retry)

 

it works!

 

Iflyga,
that morning commute for me is no problem. I am coming down from Gaithersburg and arrive at my desk b/t 4:00 and 4:15 AM. But have noticed one state trooper coming and going and getting people. But just to repeat---the Amazon USB split cable to the usb in the Mini and to a cig plug does work with IPhone 3 GS and will charge. Am hoping to cut one of my dual cig plug adapters off and hard wire attach it to the one installed in the car to cut down on the wire mess.

 

The problem here is that the USB inthe MINI is limited to 500MA current. The iPhone 3G/GS require a full 1500MA current if the battery is very low. It is only when the battery is at a sufficient level for low power charging that the the MINI can actually charge it. The phone itself determines how much current it needs to charge, if it thinks it only needs low current charging then it can and will charge from the MINI USB but if it thinks it needs high current (low battery level) the it will try to negotiate that with the MINI USB and as it can not it will not charge.

 

So, if someone didn't like the extra USB splitter cord, they could just keep a USB cigarette lighter car charger for times when the battery is very low (and forego USB MINI connection). When the battery is not so low, the USB could go into the MINI's port for control, and it would maintain the battery charge. Right?

 

That makes sense for a lithium polymer battery- they need the current to be reduced as they charge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium...ttery#Charging