Hi all -

Just bought my first mini, been eyeing them for a couple years and finally my old car bit the dust. It's an '09 Cooper with just the USB/iPod factory option. It did not come with the "Y adapter", the previous owner didn't have it.

So here's what happens when I use the USB port:

USB > old iPod 5th gen over 30-pin cable: head unit sees songs on the iPod and streams them over USB, but shows funky song titles/artists (e.g. fxkvv) and all of the files are properly tagged. Steering wheel playback buttons work but seems to be only play a small portion of the songs on the iPod
USB > iPhone 4 over 30-pin cable: display reports "EMPTY" and I get nothing; no music over USB, no track control.
USB > iPhone 5 over lightning cable: display reports "ERROR" and again, nothing works.

One puzzling thing is that in the manual, the illustrations of the display always show "USB/iPod" but on my display, it only ever displays "USB" even when the older iPod is plugged in.

Any clue what the issue is? Is there a software update for the head unit? Does it only work if I'm using the official MINI Y-adapter and not Apple's USB cables?

I'm stumped. Who want's to help a newbie out?

 

Short answer is you need the Y cable for anything with a 30 pin connector. It plugs into both the usb and 3.5mm headphone jack.

For anything with the lightning connector, just use the headphone jack.

 

Thanks for the speedy response. So there is something proprietary in the MINI 30-pin Y adapter that allows it to work?

Also, in poking around the forums it looked like MINI was going to release some parts for lightning connector devices, is there any hope they will release a Y adapter cable that will allow me to control my iPhone 5 with the steering wheel buttons over USB?

 

You need the Y-Adapter as chrunk says.

You DO NOT need MINI's $$$ version. This one work.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-BMW-E60-E61-E93-E71-E88-iPod-iPhone-4-4S-USB-AUX-INTERFACE-Y-Cable-Adaptor-/230981724278?pt=US_Adapters&hash=item35c7956876

 

Cheers, thanks for the link! Will order one up pronto!

 

Well, I ordered the Y adapter from eBay and it didn't change anything... older 4th gen iPod streams music over the Y-adapter to the headunit but still shows the funky characters for song titles,etc. and still no steering wheel control. Also same result as before with iPhone 4... namely that the headunit just reports the USB port as being "Empty" with iPhone 4 plugged in to Y adapter.

So what gives? Again, the fact that the headunit doesn't display "USB/iPod" seems to be a clue to me that the headunit may not recognize iPods/iPhones even WITH the Y adapter. Is that possible?

This is pretty frustrating, I was really hoping I would be able to control iPhone/iPod playback from the steering wheel.

Any other suggestions?