2012 Coupe w/ Y cable, 30-pin to Lightning connector, first to an iPhone 5, now to an iPhone 6 Plus.

The big issue is one I had this morning, one that I've encountered on very rare occasions. Plugged in my iPhone, started the car, drove out of the garage, switched to iPhone. It had "forgotten" again that I was in the middle of a playlist, so I pressed the playlists button, selected the one that I wanted (actually an iTunes radio station, which also appear as playlists), selected to play the track, and when I pressed the back button to go to the main display, the head unit switched to radio.

I tried to get back to the iPhone, but it showed the AUX/USB combination.

I unplugged and plugged the iPhone back in a couple of times. Even though I hadn't touched the cable while I was fiddling with the head unit, I scrunched the cable connections in. Nothing worked. During my whole drive to work, I could never get the unit to recognize it as an I-device.

When I got to work, I tried a few combinations of disconnecting the phone, restarting the engine, etc, and nothing was able to get the head unit to recognize the iPhone, staying stuck on AUX/USB.

I've seen a few posts referring to a service bulletin about the AUX jack. I've printed it out. But could that be the issue here, as the iPhone was recognized one moment and then not recognized the next.

I've also had this long-standing annoyance: the head unit often--but not always--"forgets" where I was. Whether it's a playlist of tunes on my iPhone, a "playlist" that's an iTunes radio station, or another app (such as Slacker) streaming music, sometimes when I plug my iPhone in and start my car and select iPod, it'll "remember" where I was and start playing from where it left off, and sometimes it'll "forget," which means that once I select the iPhone in the head unit, playback starts at the "first" track, that is, in the entire library, the track that comes first alphabetically.

I have found no pattern to this. Sometimes it'll "remember" a day later, and other times I'll be stopped at a store for an hour and it "forgets." Any idea for tracking down what the issue is? I'm fairly confident it's in the software that controls the head unit, which suggests to me that MINI would have zero incentive to fix it.

 

I had a similar issue, it turned out the 30 pin to 8 pin adapter is dying, got a new one, the problem went away.

 

We routinely see the iphone connection get hosed... we'll see Unnamed Artist/Unnamed Track or something like that on screen of the HU. Sometimes unplugging and replugging fixes, sometimes it's reboot of phone and/or restarting car. It's kind of hand waving and throwing a smoke bomb and crossing fingers. It works or it doesn't.

When the 6+ first came out, something buggy in *I think* the MINI firmware made it not respond to car controls. If you touched the steering buttons or HU buttons the music would pause. Sometimes album art would get sticky.

But these days, more often than not, it works...this is all R series cars. Haven't tried the F yet...

 

Of course, when I got in my MINI for the drive home from work, I plugged my iPhone in and it was recognized as if nothing at all had happened that morning. That it is so random and sporadic makes actual diagnostics very difficult.