The 4S is still a current phone on the market. As is the plain 4. For now at least, if your phone needs to be replaced, you could get a 4 or a 4S.

 

But that goes against the American mentality of pawning off all your stuff to get the latest phone!

 

If whether or not your phone has complete compatibility with your car makes you second guess buying a car maybe you should pass. Ill stay with the iPhone 4/ 4S for 5 more years before i get upset about the iphone 5 working on my car.

I love MINI > Apple is basically what im saying here but dont get me wroung it would be nice if I can have my cake and eat it to

 

Points are all well taken. This is the first car I've bought in 13 years. I hold on to my cars forever, my Tacoma currently has 240k on it. I guess I'm just looking down the road and seeing my car's technology no longer working. Bottom line is I should of done more research and the fact that the system is 1 vendor dependent should of set off alarm bells.

I was never second guessing buying the car, just the technology. Since my deposit is refundable I was imagining just reordering without Mini Connect. But you know what? You guys are right, it'll work now with my 4S and by the time I replace it, hopefully Mini/BMW will figure something out. Of course it will be expensive, buy hey I'll just look at it as part of the adventure. At least I'll get to drive my Highgate Mini to work all those extra shifts! I really appreciate all your guys feedback!

 

"In the beginning, there was the command line..."

This is why I have refused to buy Apple products over the years; vendor lock in.

Bluetooth is an open standard. For techies that want functionality with their cars, they should probably pay more attention to the version of bluetooth in the cars, rather than which particular phone has been integrated.

Moore's Law has yet to be broken, so I'd never try and tie technology to a car. It'd be like expecting a brand new aircraft to be able to support brand new avionics; crap shoot at best, "state of the artifact" at worst. Planes (like cars) are designed over a much longer cycle (7+ years), and guesses and assumptions have to be made as to what technology will require when the design finally rolls of the line (SWAP: Size, Weight and Power).

JMTCW, from an engineer that constantly fights with backwards compatibility and End of Life (EOL) issues

 

The vendor lock-in is only adding features that provide additional convenience, alongside other standard options. For example, being able to read your iPhone audio library over the connector vs. just being able to play audio from a device via headphone jack without an in-car UI to select music.

Apple has also strongly supported bluetooth on the iPhone all along, which gives you that option to use if you wish. I personally dislike audio over bluetooth though, I prefer a wired interface. And there you also have an aux-in for most MINIs.

I think Connected though is a system that does not tie you overly to any given technology. True at the moment they only support the iPhone for full integration; but the actual hardware could work with any platform going forward and it's whatever can connect to the car over a USB interface. It still provides a good deal of benefit for iOS users and iOS is still a very popular platform for a lot of people.

As for the iPhone 5, I'm pretty sure the adaptor will enable it to work pretty much as it did before. I'll find out at the end of the week.

 

Already confirmed that it won't as iPod out is not supported. You can still play music via the system but some functionality will be gone. Numerous articles have already pointed this out.

 

What do you think will be gone? I'm not sure you understand what role iPod out plays in MINI connect. I expect the ability to play videos will be gone, but since you couldn't do that unless stopped it does not seem like much of a loss. Otherwise pretty much everything else I expect to be as it is.

More importantly, there's no reason why MINI Connect needs to use the iPod out functionality to do anything it does. If some part is impacted they can add that feature back into the app by talking directly between the app and MINI Connected over USB.

 

I just took another look at my car, using MINI Connected and my iPhone 4.

Now I better understand the part that will be lost with iPod out gone - the plugin portion, which as the earlier video someone posted showed brings up an iPod display on your screen.

But here's the funny thing - I've had Connected since May last year, and I didn't even know that was there! That's because Connected also can simply read the files that are on your device and has it's own interface to control playback of music and access playlists and do searches. That part should continue to work as-is, because it looks like the Connected app is reading the music and playlists stored on your system and telling Connected about them.

I would say after using the iPod out plugin we are not really losing anything there. The control is awful, very sluggish and because the iPod out display is so low res it looks very poor on the screen. Is anyone else out there actually using Plugin instead of the Connected native media controller?

Those thinking about canceling Connected over this, I would not. Having the screen is very useful in conjunction with things like the backup sensor, even if you never attach a smart phone.

 

From what I have seen, exactly what you have posted and for some, it is a deal breaker. I never said the system wouldn't work with the new phone, I only said it would lose certain functionality. Just because YOU don't think that the functionality is worth it doesn't mean others won't miss it.

Now, if you actually read the thread, I told people that it should work if they don't mind losing some of the functions go ahead and upgrade, but I doubt that MINI is going to fix this for them as they have a history of not doing that. So, if you like or need that functionality, then keep your current phone. If not, then drive over to Apple and buy the 5. Simple enough...

 

They've already fixed it though as far as I am concerned. Apple is not offering iPod out any longer from the iPhone 5 going forward (probably also the new iPod touch), so it's not possible to have that back by any means. But all of the things you could do through the iPod interface, you can already do through the Connected media interface - so you don't actually lose any abilities to get to or search your music, just the ability to do so through the iPod interface (which I have to point out again was so slow that it was hardly usable).

That's why I asked if anyone currently was using iPod out, because (a) I don't think many people would have figured out how to activate it, and (b) it's too slow to use instead of the standard media interface anyway.

I just can't see this being a deal-breaker for anyone unless they were thinking it meant they could not get to music. That is not the case. It's like two wholly different system were letting you control music in similar ways existed, then you lost one - one remains. Why is that a deal breaker, given all of the other things you can do with Connected and the screen in the car?

 

and pandora does not use ipod out so in theory functionality for that feature is still kept.

Anyway MINI connected needs a major overhaul with its software the system makes very little sense and could offer so much more on the same hardware.

 

Meh, tired of discussing this. Enjoy and I hope Apple doesn't change anything else on you guys. I am moving to Andriod anyway and will stick with BT as my way of listening to music. I don't need anything fancy as I don't live in my car.

 

I am almost certain that everything but the video and plugin app will work fine. Although a jailbroken iPhone and connected was quite the toy. Used it Sunday house shopping with a realtor app to view photos on the screen for everyone in the car. Otherwise it was pretty much worthless for me. I am still going to get video out with my iPad and wife's 4s with VIM..... Heck I could even load a DVD. I can't wait for connected with the five.

 

Anyone try this today? I got an iPhone 5 for my wife but forgot to buy the adapter. I'm getting mine in about 2 weeks...

 

How do you display photos to the screen with a jailbroken iPhone? Does the iPhone see it as a display to mirror to, or did you have to have special software?

 

She didn't forget. There are none to be had! The adaptors missed launch, currently I am hearing October before we see the adaptors. Possibly sooner, I'm going to check stores this weekend.

In the meantime I'll just run audio into the car, and you can still plug the phone in for charging into the USB port that comes with the car and the cable that comes with the iPhone5 - No Connected that way though.

 

You have to download "Display Out" which causes the phone to output everything but tricks the mirroring device into thinking it is all ipod out.

 

Turns out I've never used the Plug In, I don't even know how to!

Still eagerly awaiting someone's update with iPhone 5, Apple adapter, and MINI Connect.

 

Adapters aren't out yet. Should be a few weeks.

 

I was able to play with it a little today. With the lightning cable connected to the car's USB, and a stereo plug to stereo plug audio cable from the iPhone headphone jack into the other plug in the input to the car, the "Driving Excitement" function of the MINI Connected app seemed to work. If you go to the function on the car where you would play an ipod, it only works if you connect the audio cable. If you don't connect the audio cable, it plays through the iPhone, but shows cover art on the MINI Connected screen. If you go to the "iPod out" function, it states the iPhone doesn't' support it. I may play with it more tonight, and I'll see what else it will do.

 

Do all the other Mini Connected features work? Twitter, Google, etc?

 

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How about podcasts? I've found that podcasts are no longer part of the Music app and, thus, will not play over my factory installed Apple integration kit. Wondering what else's broke with iOS6/iP5.

Cheers!!