Photo: BMW
You’ve heard it before, and we’ve talked about it too. BMW came under fire in July 2019 for charging $80 per year for Apple CarPlay or $300 for a lifetime subscription, a practice that doesn’t bode well with any iPhone user.
Look at Toyota, Nissan, and so forth. Have you heard these companies charging a subscription for using Apple CarPlay in their cars? The situation BMW finds itself in has a bit of ridiculousness to it as well, more so because Apple doesn’t charge a cent for iPhone users to utilize CarPlay. But at long last, the Bavarians got a clue and decided to make smartphone mirroring completely free of charge.
“This change is taking place immediately. All 2019 and 2020 models equipped with Apple CarPlay will not have to pay an annual subscription,” reports Autoblog, and no, there’s no word if refunds will be made to the customers who were fooled into paying their hard-earned dollars on the $80 and $300 subscriptions.
Charges in the United Kingdom are also going away, and looking at the bigger picture, what was BMW even thinking? Wireless CarPlay is nice and all, but the automaker’s implementation proved to be extremely buggy at best. Make no mistake about it; BMW just couldn’t fake this cash grab any longer.
What about Samsung and Huawei users? If you’re happier with Android rather than iOS, the bad news is that the Munich-based automaker still hasn’t adopted Android Auto. BMW didn’t confirm when Android will be coming to its cars and SUVs, but chances are that it will happen in 2020 for the 2021 model year.
Also worthy of mentioning, G20 forums are full of adverse comments about the iDrive system of the 3 Series. A common glitch of iDrive 7.0 is the audio system losing the track names after 20 to 30 minutes of playing music from your mobile phone through Bluetooth. Adding insult to injury, this has also happened to the owner of an M340i, the second-highest tier available after the M3.
“This change is taking place immediately. All 2019 and 2020 models equipped with Apple CarPlay will not have to pay an annual subscription,” reports Autoblog, and no, there’s no word if refunds will be made to the customers who were fooled into paying their hard-earned dollars on the $80 and $300 subscriptions.
Charges in the United Kingdom are also going away, and looking at the bigger picture, what was BMW even thinking? Wireless CarPlay is nice and all, but the automaker’s implementation proved to be extremely buggy at best. Make no mistake about it; BMW just couldn’t fake this cash grab any longer.
What about Samsung and Huawei users? If you’re happier with Android rather than iOS, the bad news is that the Munich-based automaker still hasn’t adopted Android Auto. BMW didn’t confirm when Android will be coming to its cars and SUVs, but chances are that it will happen in 2020 for the 2021 model year.
Also worthy of mentioning, G20 forums are full of adverse comments about the iDrive system of the 3 Series. A common glitch of iDrive 7.0 is the audio system losing the track names after 20 to 30 minutes of playing music from your mobile phone through Bluetooth. Adding insult to injury, this has also happened to the owner of an M340i, the second-highest tier available after the M3.
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