It's a little early for festivus, but after more than a year with MINI Connected, I'm ready for a rant.

Background:
I took delivery on a built-to-order 2012 Countryman in June of 2012. I opted for effectively every option except the sport suspension. I also purchased the iPhone 4 Media Snap-In adapter. The Y-cable was included with the car, although not the cell phone cradle. I believe this may be due to the inclusion of the arm-rest. My MA failed to follow up on this several times before I finally gave up.

This is my second MINI and unlikely to be my last as I'm already considering a Coupé.

The Good:
I like the ability to drop my iPhone in the arm-rest and have it charging / out of the way. The Connected application does provide some utility and a lot of unimportant (but fun!) features.

A lot has been said about what MINI Connected can do, so I won't rehash this.

The Bad:
A) The version of the app available when I took delivery didn't require the phone to remain unlocked. Some months later, there was a software update that mandated that the phone remain on/unlocked. I realize this is a software limitation and quite possibly something BMW/MINI could do nothing about. However, I dislike having my screen on all the time and have noticed (through observation only, nothing quantifiable) that my phone is significantly hotter.

B) Mission Control is a favorite feature of Connected that remains on all the time. There is no normalization of audio compared to music output, which means that sometimes it's indecipherably quiet, and other times it's ridiculously loud. This may be a software limitation, but I would like it if there were some way to adjust the app specific volume independent of the music playback volume. This feature is present in other apps (Waze comes to mind), so it seems like it would be fairly trivial to implement.

C) Mission Control exhibits a bug on my system where it "repeats" itself when crossing milestones. I will hear something to the effect of "Another 500 miles" and then a minute (almost exactly) later I will hear another milestone announcement, for the same milestone. This is when using the snap-in adapter.

D) When using the Y-cable, occasionally Mission Control audio will "stutter". I am uncertain if the Milestone bug manifests at this point or not

E) For reasons not entirely clear to me, the "plugin" mode doesn't work when using the snap-in adapter. I realize there may be a technical limitation here, but it seems a bit silly.

F) When using the "plugin mode", the interface scrolls in the complete opposite direction. This is bad UI as it provides an inconsistent experience.

G) Speaking of UI, as a whole the MINI system is inconsistent, the alternate or context menus sometimes aren't uniformly navigable and provide vastly differing options.

H) Not a Connected specific issue I suppose, but I'm a bit annoyed that while the system supports RDS/HD radio, it doesn't display Artist/Song information. This was a feature that worked just fine on my R53 H/K, why can't I display this on a newer/enhanced system?

J) Taking a phone call exits the Connected App. This is only problematic because it resets the "state" of Mission Control, causing the system to greet you / announce fuel status / etc.

I) The new apps to feature Connected integration (Glympse, etc) require lengthy app switching on the system. It's faster for me to remove my phone from the armrest, switch to the app, perform a function and then switch back to Connected. If I use the in car UI it takes significantly longer and also causes the Mission Control state reset previously mentioned.

J) I have an issue where occasionally audio will refuse to play via the snap-in adapter. It will instead play via the built in speaker. If I move the phone to the Y-cable, the issue goes away. I'm positive that it's not my phone, but I cannot confirm that it isn't hardware issue with the snap-in adapter. HOWEVER, I do not suspect it's a hardware issue because I can power cycle my phone and it goes away. Reseating the snap-in adapter does nothing.

K) Apple Eyes-Free / Siri integration was promised for Mid-2013 integration. This hasn't happened yet.

L) I intentionally didn't upgrade to the iPhone 5 because I didn't want to lose the snap-in adapter. This was a first for me, as I've had each iteration of the iPhone since it's initial launch. By the time the iPhone 5 snap-in adapter was released (in Europe), it was impractical to upgrade due to the anticipated Apple release cycle. Moreover, my opinion is that the cost was excessive by even BMW standards (Yes, I'm serious).

M) Failure to incorporate existing MINI Apps. Specifically I'm referring to MINI Link. This was a favorite app that now goes completely unused due to the location of my phone and the state-loss/context switching. My co-pilot really enjoyed this feature and she's been sad that we can't practically use it.

N) This is probably the same issue as the Connected integrated Apps- Switching from MINImalism analyzer to Motoring Excitement (and vice versa) in the latest iterations of the Connected app take a ridiculously long time.

O) This is totally not related to Connected, but the bluetooth microphone is complete and utter garbage.

P) Also not related, but the sound quality when using bluetooth audio is often times "staticky". It's possible that my specific vehicle is generating a lot of interference or that there may be some other interference. However, it's not consistent. Same phone and same trip will somedays be terrible quality, other days just fine.

Q) There doesn't appear to be any way to provide feedback to the developers. This may seem silly, but for a brand built on "community", they are terribly unresponsive.

R) A feature that should be implemented, IMHO, is checking the vehicle firmware. I have updated the firmware via USB a few times. I don't suspect it would be that hard to have Connected periodically check for an update and notify the driver.

So there you have it. Not quite a full alphabet of complaints / comments, but enough that it honestly makes me reconsider this feature in my next MINI.

 

My complaint is why does the screen on the phone need to be on. Is this A in your bad above? I use the Pandora app a lot and it does the same thing. If I just turn on Pandora and let it play I can listen to it through the media devices page and selecting my phone there, but then I give up control on the connected screen as well as the artist information. I filed a bug with Pandora for this, but maybe if more folks do they may press for a fix?

I also wish the radio interface was more consistent, I'd like presets to be like the normal station selection with artist/song info on the top two rows, instead of having to move two screen to the right to see this.

 

The radio interface is pretty crap. I keep thinking that I'm somehow missing something, but apparently not.

 

Anyone find a way to get the navigation screen to go into night mode automatically? Why would I have to toggle it manually this seems really broken.

 

I don't have the Nav package, I learned my lesson on the last one. It was garbage then and I suspect it isn't much better today.

Looking around the forums it appears there is still no automagic day/night mode, which just seems ridiculous.

I love my quirky car, but I do NOT love its quirks.

 

I must be in the minority because I like the factory nav system. It's accurate,almost all addresses are in the system and the traffic function works well. The system tells you the best lanes to be in and how many feet until the turn along with a visual guide how close the turn is. Imo, the systems pros far outweigh the cons.

 

I have a Garmin Nüvi 3790LMT that does all those things and more. I absolutely love it. The best part, the voice activation actually works fairly decent, something the MINI fails miserably at.

And it has a bluetooth OBDII interface that gives me great engine metrics, which is very useful when I'm towing the trailer.