[DaveA]

Has anybody else noticed that the control/delivery of music from iPhones etc that are connected by USB has gone flakey with recent iOS releases..?

Basically, mine used to work fine using the interface in the media system, even though the searching was a bit clunky, until sometime in the last few months (possibly coincidental with an iOS update). Just plug in the phone and control was taken up by iDrive...

Now, though, when I connect through USB, it's often as if the music is frozen and you cannot start new tracks from the media interface (even though you can select them). When you look on the phone itself, the music is in pause. If you restart the track from the phone it plays through the car but then you can freeze it again selecting a new track.

Rebooting the phone seems to "clear" things for a while, but it can go flaky again pretty quickly.

I suspect this is something in the software of the phone... Perhaps the iPod profile or something...?

I hope it has nothing to do with Apple developing the new in-car interface with other manufacturers....

There is some discussion about this on the net, if you search, and I don;t think the problem is restricted to BMW. But some of the solutions preferred are pretty nuclear..!!!

[DaveA]

I just noticed that the BMW software updates, even the latest ones, only include up to iOS7... Maybe it's just something as simple as there needs to be a software update to accommodate iOS8..?

[SkyJawa]

Software update and reset iDrive help at all? Mine has occasional glitches but nothing like you've mentioned.

[SaintMac]

Pretty much have this all the time on my iPhone 5 with iOS 8.2. Didn't have the issue with iOS 7.

[DaveA]

Originally Posted by SkyJawa

Software update and reset iDrive help at all? Mine has occasional glitches but nothing like you've mentioned.

No, I've updated to the latest software, but BMW seem miles behind in some ways, as the latest media update only has support for iOS7.

I suspect that it's one (or a combination of) two things.

Either, the "controllers" within the BMW software were not 100% compliant with the Apple requirements for controlling the media on the iOS device via USB cable/cradle and the update from iOS7 to iOS8 has exposed this by tightening up on some requirement of other...

Or, iOS8 has introduced something new (the "handoff" feature, perhaps) that has impacted/changed on how the controllers work.

What has resulted seems to be an incompatibility between the two when connecting through USB that puts the iOS device in "pause" and does not allow the controlling device (the BMW media interface) to override that.

I suspect that both causes would need the BMW software to be updated to fix it.

What's interesting is that this seems to have affected other manufacturers as well, as (even just with a casual search) I have read of problems with Ford and Chevy...

As an aside, it seems that the car manufacturers cannot keep pace with the speed of development of the devices. When I got my car, the cradle for the iPhone 5 was just out yet the phone itself was over a year old and had had iOS updates since it was new...

[SkyJawa]

I've not had anything like that myself on my iPhone 6 with the latest IOS and the latest media updates applied to my car about 2 months ago. That being said I had the PPK fitted so the car was updated to all the latest software so maybe that in conjunction.......

Worth a call to BMW to see if anyone else has reported similar?

[djcowlin]

It's been unreliable ever since the upgrade to iOS 8. The dealer told me that Apple hadn't yet released the software specification to BMW, hence the lack of support for iOS 8.
The latest thing I've tried is to delete the phone in the Bluetooth menu and then re-pair it. This seems to have done the trick (famous last words).

[DaveA]

Originally Posted by djcowlin

It's been unreliable ever since the upgrade to iOS 8. The dealer told me that Apple hadn't yet released the software specification to BMW, hence the lack of support for iOS 8.
The latest thing I've tried is to delete the phone in the Bluetooth menu and then re-pair it. This seems to have done the trick (famous last words).

Yes... This kind of accords with what I can find out... except that I think it's BMW been slow in resolving the issue, rather than Apple not releasing the specs (they release the specs to developers well in advance of the release of the new iOS...)...

I found that it's far more reliable playing audio from the iOS8 device through bluetooth (presumably because there's a bluetooth standard to adhere to), but the volume is really low that way, and that's why I am sticking to trying to resolve the USB issues...

[SkyJawa]

Originally Posted by DaveA

Yes... This kind of accords with what I can find out... except that I think it's BMW been slow in resolving the issue, rather than Apple not releasing the specs (they release the specs to developers well in advance of the release of the new iOS...)...

I found that it's far more reliable playing audio from the iOS8 device through bluetooth (presumably because there's a bluetooth standard to adhere to), but the volume is really low that way, and that's why I am sticking to trying to resolve the USB issues...

When its over BT you have to make sure iPhone volume is turned up to max. That said I agree seems a bit lower than usb.....

[djcowlin]

Those of us that didn't spec EBT don't have that option. But on my Golf, where Bluetooth audio comes as standard (d'oh), the volume is definitely lower.