As many of you may know, historically Apple updates have had a tendency to break BMW iDrive communicating with iPhones to sync contacts and make/receive calls.

Apple’s latest update, iPhone 3.0, is launched today (17th June 2009) and I thought I’d let you all know that I’ve had iPhone 3.0 up and running on my iPhone 3G a little early. I’m happy to report that over the last 7 days the iPhone has been working flawlessly with my BMW iDrive, all contacts have been syncing and calls received and made without any issues.

So rest assured you can update your iPhone software to iPhone 3.0 and continue to drive safely with your iPhone fully connected to your iDrive.

]]> http://blog.scoopz.com/2009/06/16/iphone-3-0-and-bmw-idrive-its-all-still-working/feed/ 40 http://blog.scoopz.com/2009/05/12/iphone-game-scramble-suggests-rude-words/ http://blog.scoopz.com/2009/05/12/iphone-game-scramble-suggests-rude-words/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 00:35:35 +0000 Scoopz http://blog.scoopz.com/?p=818

I recently downloaded a free iPhone game called Scramble in which players try and locate as many words as possible in a 4×4 matrix of seemingly random letters. At the end of the 2 minute round you are presented with your final score along with a list of all possible words that you could have selected.

I no longer check through all the words that I could or should have found but for my first few plays I went through the list of all possibilities and it came up with some surprising suggestions!

Firstly I’ll have to admit that I was bad enough to find and select the following examples, hence the words appear in the suggestion list in green:

But on one of my very first plays (hence the almost non-existent score) I was shocked at the suggestions:

and then there were words being suggested that aren’t even in the dictionary and only seem to appear in the online “urban” or “slang” dictionaries:

I remember not so long ago that Tweetie app was rejected from the App store as Apple deemed it to contain offensive language since looking at the trends on Twitter threw up a common swear word.

So have Apple now relaxed their policy or did Scramble just slip through the net?

Next time you play on Scramble just have a quick flick through the list of suggestions at the end of the game and if you come across any interesting ones post them in the comments below.

At first I thought I was going crazy and that it must have always been there, but then I thought the icons looked like they’d been squashed together a little, I compared it with another iPhone 3G which didn’t have it and I also put the question out on Twitter to see if anybody else had seen this.

A few on Twitter [1|2]said it happened to them too for no apparent reason, it’s not like I was roaming onto another network whilst abroad, i’ve not even hijacked/cracked my iPhone it’s 100% stock. The folks on Twitter suggested it will clear itself after a reboot of the iPhone but I wanted to see if it would clear itself and within a few hours that’s exactly what it did.

I’m at a complete loss as to what caused this to appear but if you no anything about it please leave a comment below.

This is what it looks like normally:

My iPhone 3G has started showing random “phantom” voicemails from “Unknown” dated 1st January 1970. There are three empty voicemails, 0 seconds long and they cannot be deleted.

Actually that’s a lie, they can be deleted and they go into the deleted messages folder, you can also clear the deleted messages, but as soon as you go back to the main voicemail screen they re-appear instantly.

Powering off and on doesn’t resolve the issue, I’ve not tried a force reset yet or last resort full restore.

A quick search of the web reveals many others have been having this problem over the last year, but as of yet I’ve not seen any explanations or resolutions.

My iPhone 3G wouldn’t connect to my TimeCapsule wi-fi. I rebooted the TimeCapsule and the iPhone but it still gave an error. I then tried with my 2nd home wi-fi network (Netgear DG384GT) and the same “unable to join the network” error message popped up. In case it was an issue with channel interference or WEP password mistakes I switched channels and turned all security off temporarily. This still didn’t solve anything, my MBPro, Air, AppleTV, Xbox etc could still connect perfectly as did my old iPhone 2G. I backed up my iPhone and then carried out a full restore but even the virginal factory fresh restored software refused to connect. Once a friend with another 3G came round and connected without a problem I had little choice but to book an appointment at Apple’s Genius bar.

The Genius tried to connect to the stores wi-fi and it failed, he checked the phone had the latest version, did a force reboot (I’d already done several) and then simply said “I’ll go and get you a new one”.

After checking for liquid damage using an otoscope to view the liquid damage indicators in the headphone socket and bottom port he gave me a new iPhone 3G and I was on my way.

Since I use MobileMe & Exchange PUSH, when I set up the accounts quickly on store on the new iPhone my contacts were pulled down onto the iPhone in under a minute which is useful since my iPhone backup was on my home machine a few hours away.

I know there is no Street View information live for the UK yet so I headed over to New York on my iPhone Maps app to see how the Street View interface looked, only problem was I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to view Street View images.

I tried switching from Map->Satellite->Hybrid view, zooming completely, turning the iPhone into landscape mode, nothing. Then I accidentally clicked on the little orange man icon on the push pin I’d dropped and presto, street view!

Just thought I’d put this brief blog entry up for anybody trying to figure out how to access Street View, now I know where to click it’s easy, but I wouldn’t say it’s one of the most obvious places to look.

If you’ve just finger dragged to an area you want to see Street View for it looks like you’re going to have to Drop a Pin in order to get the little orange man to click on.

PS – I also like the new 3D buildings in normal map view, nice little touch.

The iPhone is in perfect condition otherwise, there’s no marking on the rest of the screen or casing. He’s hoping to get it replaced/repaired under warranty but as the nearest Apple store is nearly an hour away he’s sensibly waiting until he’s next in the area.

Some people have mentioned that Apple won’t repair cosmetic defects under warranty but since this is under the glass and there’s no way he could have caused it himself I think they should.

Has anybody else has similar problems?

UPDATE [21st Nov 2008] – Apple have released iPhone 2.2 software update which appears to fix all known issues with BMW bluetooth and iPhones. If you had no contacts syncing or bluetooth kept dropping the connection every 20 or 30 seconds then update to 2.2 and you should find it’s all fixed.

Ever since Apple brought out iPhone 2.0 software many of us found that the iPhone contacts that used to appear on the BMW iDrive or BMW radio display suddenly disappeared.

Since iPhone2.0 we all waited patiently for a fix from Apple, 2.01 and 2.02 failed to deliver but hopes were high when reports that 2.1 fixed a similar problem with Chrysler uConnect systems but again no change for BMW drivers.

Recently I configured my iPhone to sync contacts with my Exchange server at work and this PUSHed another 2500 contacts onto my iPhone and suddenly all my contacts appeared on the iDrive. I suggested to others this might be because I had multiple address books on my iPhone but this theory was soon disproved, I then suggested that it might be because I had a high number of contacts on the iPhone keeping which may change a timeout option somewhere on the iPhone or iDrive.

Some blog readers tested this theory and created 2000 fake contacts with no phone numbers but that didn’t work, then they tried 2000 fake contacts each with a unique contact number and this worked! By using contact names beginning with Z they appeared at the end of the iPhone and iDrive list but it did take a while to sync so many contacts with the iDrive. Another reader then tweaked this to get 2000 fake contacts each with the same phone number, the iDrive ignores any contacts that have the same telephone number and only syncs with one of them, so now we had 2000 Z-contacts on the iPhone all with the same number and this allowed ALL the contacts on the iPhone to sync with the iDrive but only showed ONE z-contact at the end. [Thanks to Rajesh and vants for their help with this!]

So far the feedback has been extremely positive with around 10 out of 12 people reporting a success.

To make life easy for you I have compiled instructions on how to add 2000 fake contacts to Outlook for the Windows users and Address Book for the Apple users.

Apple OS X Users:

It really couldn’t be simpler for you, simply download the following zip file:

DOWNLOAD FOR APPLE USERS – 2000 Fake Contacts for Apple users

Open the zip file and you should have a single vCard file, simply double click this vCard file and Address Book should spring into life and ask you if you really want to import 2000 new contacts.

Just click add and you’re all done, 2000 contacts z0001 to z2000 should now be in your Address Book. 

All you need to do now is re-sync your contacts with the iPhone via iTunes. [Note - if you use MobileMe to PUSH all your contacts from your computer to MobileMe and then PUSH them down to your iPhone it will still work just have some patience and check your phone after 10 minutes]

If, for neatness, you want to have the 2000 z-contacts in their own folder simply click the +plus at the bottom of the group pane:

then give the group a name:

and now click on the Last Import folder, in the middle Name pane click on the first z0001 and then press Apple+A to select all the entries and then drag them onto the new group you just created.

You can now jump past the lengthy Windows Instructions to read what to do next..

Windows Outlook Users:

Its a little trickier for you guys, it seems it’s not as easy to simply import 2000 contacts from one vCard download, so instead you need to download the following CSV file:

DOWNLOAD FOR WINDOWS USERS – 2000 Fake Contacts for Windows Users

Once you have downloaded the CSV file in Outlook click on File from the top menu and select “Import & Export”

Then select “Import from another program or file”

Then select “Comma Separated Values (DOS)”

On the next screen click Browse and navigate to where ever you saved the CSV file to (in my case it’s on my Desktop)

Leave the option to allow duplicates and click next

Select a destination for all your contacts, in general this will be your Contacts folder

but if you want to you can create a sub-folder in contacts called “z Contacts” or “Fake Entires” and save them in there for neatness but this is not a necessity and has no influence on whether the fix will work or not.

Note: You cannot create the subfolder once you’ve started the import wizard so if you want to, you’ll have to click cancel to exit the wizard then right click on your Contacts Folder and select “New Folder” and name it “z-Contacts” or “Fake Entries” then restart from step one:

That should be it now, you’ll be present with the final screen of the wizard where you can choose to map custom fields. Originally this was necessary but I’ve since added a header row to vants CSV file so the Wizard picks the right fields for Name and Phone number automatically, just click Finish. It should then start importing all the contacts, leave this going, it can take some time, on my machine it took a few minutes but that’s because my profile isn’t store locally, you may find it’s done much quicker.

You should all be done now, if you look in your contacts your should see 2000 Z-contacts all with the same phone number.

All you need to do now is fire up iTunes and re-sync them all to your iPhone.

[Windows users - notice how much easier this whole process was on an Apple perhaps it's time to switch! Just kidding, lets not turn the comments section into an Apple vs PC bash. I spent most of my time on an XP machine at work and manage my entire office's Windows workstations and just use Apple in my free time]

Next Steps (Apple & Windows Users)

Ok so if all went well above you should now have 2000 contacts at the very end of your iPhone contact list, all of which should have the same phone number. [Remember it doesn't matter if you have the 2000 z-contacts in a sub-folder or not]

That was all I needed to do, the next time it paired with my iDrive (2006 BMW M5) the contacts list appeared after a short wait HOWEVER, some people have said it’s best to keep the iPhone from sleeping whilst waiting for the initial sync to happen and some have said they had to delete the iPhone-BMW pairing and re-pair, so lets be safe and do both.

Delete the pairing – On you iPhone go to Settings->General->Bluetooth and if you see BMW##### [where there #'s are the last 5 digits of your car's chasis number in case you didn't know that] click it and select unpair. Now go to your iDrive (or prof radio if you don’t have iDrive) and select info sources/settings and find the bluetooth page (it differs depending on software version, etc but I’m sure you know where it is) and delete any pairings for any phones you have in there to be safe. Now go through the whole re-pairing procedure again, I will try and post a video on how to do this with iDrive as a few have asked but until then just follow the manual.

NOTE – If you find your iPhone contantly connects and drops the connection via bluetooth then you may have another problem for which I don’t have a solution just yet.

Keep the iPhone awake – Once you have paired the car will try and connect with the iPhone and sync the contacts, if you go to the communications tab of the iDrive (push and hold up on the iDrive controller for 2 seconds) and try and browse A-Z it will probably say “Please wait” with a little clock. Now here’s what some say is important, whilst that is showing you need to open the contacts app on your iphone and just sit there scrolling the contacts up and down randomly to simply keep the phone from entering sleep mode.

Wait a few minutes (up to 5mins lets say)…..DONE?

Did it work for you? Your comments are much appreciated on this matter and many others reading this thread may benefit from knowing what combination of iPhone, software version, model, year, etc you have.

Good luck!

48 hours later and it’s already broken, the little ringer/vibrate switch has snapped and fallen off. I did notice the switch was much stiffer than my original iPhone, which I thought was a good thing as it would prevent mistaken switching of modes but unfortunately when I flicked it across the button popped off and landed on the street somewhere, never to be seen again.

There seem to be plenty of reports of this across the web too:

MacRumors – Broken Ringer Switch (and here too)
AppleiPhoneApps – Broken Ringer Switch
Apple Support – here / here / here and many more

Perhaps a faulty batch, design flaw or simply the result of substituting the expensive build quality of the original iPhone with much cheaper and more fragile plastics?

If you look closely at the photos you’ll notice a large rectangular green/blue area on the remaining stump where the button once lived. I wander if this is some sort or air bubble or impurity in the plastic from the moulding process? Also, when looking at the macro photos, the cutting of the casing around the switch seems rather jagged and rough, or perhaps I’m getting a little too fussy now?

 Back to the O2 Store tomorrow for a swap!

Here’s the obligatory photos, click to get larger versions.

UPDATE (27th August 2008): The local O2 store had no problems in issuing a replacement handset, and after a slow and painful restore I’m back up and running. The new handset switch feels even more stiff and fragile than the last one so I’m not holding out much hope of it surviving too long.

UPDATE (29th August 2008): The replacement iPhone has failed already! Exactly the same fault, the ringer/silence switch has just fallen off. I’ve been back to O2 and they’ve offered to replace with a 3rd unit (NB I got my first one 6 days ago) but I kindly pointed out to them that I think they’ve got a faulty batch so same thing would just happen again. I’m currently on hold to the Apple Store in the Trafford Centre to see if I’m allowed to exchange a faulty iPhone bought at an O2 store in the Apple Store.

[Also check the other post covering this with several hundred comments - iPhone 2.0 update breaks BMW iDrive contact/address book syncing!]

UPDATE – Sorry guys and girls, it looks like a was a little premature on this one. My contacts DID all show up on the iDrive screen and I scrolled through, jumped from A-N-W-etc and I came in to get the camera for a few shots for this article. When I went back out, my iPhone paired but after a long wait screen there were NO contacts shown! I removed both pairings, powered off the car and the iPhone and tried again but still nothing. I then updated my friends brand new 3G to 2.02 and tried syncing that (which has never been seen by the car before) and it paired but still no contact sync.

For those of you who have been experiencing problems trying to get your iPhone to sync contacts with your BMW iDrive here’s the good news you’ve been waiting for….iPhone 2.02 has finally fixed the issue! [or maybe not, I've just been out and tried it again and it's not syncing any contacts now, I've deleted both pairings, repaired and rebooted the iPhone and going to try again and see if that makes any difference, I thought it was too good to be true!]

I have just taken my original iPhone updagted to 2.02 out to my car (2006 BMW E60 M5) and am pleased to say that after a 30-60second wait all my contacts appeared on the iDrive screen as they used to before iPhone 2.0 update.

I know that Chrysler owners trying to pair the iPhone to uConnect had similar problems, as did some Mercedes, Jeep, LandRover, etc owners. If you’ve still got problems or found that iPhone 2.02 update has solved your problems please leave a comment below to assist others. Reports are coming back already that it’s not solved connection issues for those with uConnect systems.

I thought this was just the person on the other end not paying attention until I called a friend of mine and he didn’t appear to speak when he answered the call, when I asked him about it he too complained that even though he says “Hello” the third party cannot hear it.

I’ve just done a few tests calling myself from another phone and it does seem like Apple have introduced a short 0.5 second delay from sliding the answer tab to the mic being enabled with 2.01. I guess this is to give you time to get the iPhone up to your ear and start a conversation but I’d like the option in a menu somewhere to toggle “Instant Answer” on/off.

This is my experience with the original iPhone updated to 2.01, if you’ve noticed similar problems with your 3G iPhone and somebody not hearing you for a split second when you answer a call leave a comment below.

Just connect up your iPhone and iTunes should announce that there’s an update ready and waiting.

I don’t really care what other bugs it fixes so long as my contacts will syncronise with my BMW iDrive via bluetooth…soon find out.

[30 minutes later]…Bad news for BMW drivers, iPhone 2.01 still doesn’t sync address book contacts with iDrive. When Apple mention numerous bug fixes with this version I’m not too sure which “bugs” they’ve fixed but immiediately the phone does seem to be more responsive. The horrible lag when you click on contacts before you could scroll through all your contacts has not gone but it is much shorter now, and after sending a few SMS, the keyboard lag seems to be gone now too.

I’m sure there will be many other fixes “under the hood” but to me and 1000’s of other BMW, Chrysler, Mercedes, Jeep, etc drivers out there, not fixing bluetooth connectivity issues with 2.01 was a big mistake.

There are only 3 official sources for the iPhone 3G in the UK:

1 – Apple
2 – Carphone Warehouse (CPW)
3 – O2

If you are an existing iPhone owner and wish to upgrade you cannot go to an Apple store! All upgrades for current iPhone users have to be done through Carphone Warehouse or O2.

The problem is, Apple have so far not given any stock of the White iPhone 3G to either O2 or CPW. This effectively means that existing iPhone users cannot upgrade to the White iPhone 3G and must, for now at least, settle for the black version.

I’ve made near daily visits and several phone calls to both O2 and Carphone Warehouse trying to confirm a date that they’ll be receiving stock of the White iPhone 3G so that I can upgrade and some of the responses I’ve been getting are shocking:

“oh no sir, there’s no white iPhone only black, you must be confusing it with the iPods?”

“the White iPhone is going to be exclusive to the Carphone Warehouse, O2 won’t have any”

“the White iPhone is going to be for Pay As You Go customers only”

“The White iPhone will launch between October and December along with the PAYG version”

For Pay As You Go customers only!! Don’t talk rubbish, why would a PAYG customer (who’s going to be paying well over the odds for the phone in the first place) be restricted to getting the White one, which is 16GB only? Christmas time? Really? The Apple store has plenty of them in right now.

There have been a few people who decided they didn’t want to wait and purchased a White iPhone 3G in the Apple stores (who have plenty) and signed up to a new O2 contract in store. When they got home they just called O2 and played *dumb* pretending they thought that was the way they were supposed to upgrade and had their original contract moved over and the new contract just signed in store cancelled. This is risky though, if O2 don’t take pity on you or think you’re trying to pull a fast one they could leave you stuck with 2 simultaneous iPhone contracts!

I’m the kind of person who would have normally tried doing the above *playing dumb* trick by now but unfortunately it’s not that straight forward for me. I need to simultaneously upgrade my existing iPhone and migrate from a personal to the newly available business tarriffs. I also need to do the same for one of my employees and migrate us both to the same shared business plan and then migrate two current O2 Nokia users to the same shared iPhone tariff but using the two superseeded original iPhones…and as luck would have it, all this is possible but only at an O2 store who don’t have White iPhones.

If you happen to know of any O2 stores that have White iPhones in stock please do leave a comment below and put me out of my misery.

UPDATE (23rd August 2008): Good news, existing iPhone owners can now officially upgrade to the white iPhone 3G at any Carphone Warhouse or O2 store (stock levels permitting). I walked by both CPW and O2 stores today and saw signs advertising white iPhones now in stock. Half an hour later and I’m walking out the door with a white iPhone 3G. I asked when they had stock of the white ones and they said yesterday (22nd August) so if you’ve been waiting, go get one, the white is DEFINITELY better than the black in my opinion as it doesn’t show up any finger marks or scratches on the back!

Simultaneously press the Home and Power buttons (i.e. – press and hold the home button and briefly press the power button whilst the home button is held). The screen will flash white to indicate the screen capture has been done and you will find the screen shot in your camera roll in the Photos section, ready to be downloaded into iPhoto, etc When iPhoto loads the camera roll ready for importing, you’ll notice the screen shots do not have an associated thumbnail, just an blank empty thumbnail. Clicking the blank thumbs and hitting import selected still works though and they appear fine as PNG’s in the main Library.

Home screen right now:

My page for Apps:

My Web shortcuts page:

You’re not restricted to screen grabbing just the home pages either, you can do a screen shot whenever you want in ANY application, so you could screen grab your high score in SuperMonkey Ball and email the screen grab to your friends instantly, here’s a few examples:

NOTE – Do not press and hold the Home button and Power button for more than a few seconds, hold them too long and you will end up hard-rebooting your iPhone. No damage done or data lost but you need to know these things.

UPDATE – *FIXED* - It appears we’ve found a fix that will get all your contacts showing up on the iDrive again. You simply need to add 2000 fake contacts to your iPhone. There are detailed instructions, vCard/CSV files available to download and step by step screen shots in a new post here – Fix for Fix for iPhone and BMW iDrive address book not synchronising.

UPDATE (18th August 2008): There’s a FIX!

Looks like we’ve found a fix for this that involves creating a large number of fake contacts on your iPhone. Mine started working when I sync’d with my Exchange server and 2500 new contacts appeared on my iPhone and at the time of writing this 3 out of 3 people who tried the fix have reported back with success. Click below to jump to the relevant place in the comments and read a few above it from Vants and Rajesh too for more info:

iPhone and BMW iDrive address book sync fix

You’ll need to download this file to automatically add 2000 empty contacts to your address book:
DOWNLOAD 2000 fake contacts vCard [2000 unique names, 2000 identical numbers]

UPDATE (18th August 2008): ****FIXED***** ****NOT FIXED*****
Apple have just released iPhone 2.02 update and I’m currently downloading it. Hopeful that this update will finally fix all the iDrive address book issues, watch this space…..I’ve just got back from testing 2.02 with my iDrive and finally, it’s working again! (iPhone 2.02 fixes BMW iDrive contact syncing)Sorry guys and girls, it looks like a was a little premature on this one. My contacts DID all show up on the iDrive screen and I scrolled through, jumped from A-N-W-etc and I came in to get the camera for a few shots for this article. When I went back out, my iPhone paired but after a long wait screen there were NO contacts shown! I removed both pairings, powered off the car and the iPhone and tried again but still nothing. I then updated my friends brand new 3G to 2.02 and tried syncing that (which has never been seen by the car before) and it paired but still no contact sync.

UPDATE (6th August 2008):
If you are affected by issues relating to the iPhone pairing with your BMW bluetooth please spare 2 minutes to complete 13 questions about car year, model, iphone version, etc.:
Online Survey – BMW / iPhone pairing issues 

UPDATE (5th August 2008):
Apple have just released iPhone 2.01 update but don’t get too excited, it doesn’t seem to resolve any of the BMW iDrive issues.

I downloaded the 240MB update, waited patiently for the iPhone to backup, update and then restore and then nipped out to my car (at 1:30am) excited to see if it worked…NOPE….seems Apple thought better of it than to help us BMW drivers out. It still doesn’t sync the address book with my M5’s iDrive.

I deleted both pairings and then repaired, gave it plenty of time to search for and sync contacts and it still shows no contacts available.

Thanks Apple!

UPDATE (18th July 2008):
I’ve had an email from Apple about this issue but unfortunately:
********************************************
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS
MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE
********************************************
so I’m going to play things safe and not simply cut and paste their email on my blog but let’s just say if I owned a software company I would most likely only send out an email in response to a bug report if I was aware of the reported issue and getting engineers to look into it.
Summary:
OK some bad news for all iPhone owners (original and 3G version) if you drive a BMW that has an iDrive; in summary the iPhone 2.0 software stops your BMW iDrive from seeing your iPhone’s contacts list.

IMPORTANT – If you are affected by this issue, which many seem to be, please submit a quick feedback/bug report via Apple’s iPhone feedback form. The best thing to do is to post your iPhone version, car make, model and year as a comment to this thread then copy and paste the same to the Apple Feedback form. The more feedback Apple get the more likely they are to bring out 2.01 fixing the issue.

In Detail:

The original iPhone running all versions up to and including the latest 1.1.4 would connect to BMW’s bluetooth perfectly and then all your contacts would appear on the iDrive display for you to scroll through or better yet voice-dial if you had that as a factory option.

I have just downloaded and installed iPhone 2.0 onto my original iPhone (yes 1 day early so it might not be the official version i know – it’s showing as version 2.0 5A347) and went out to the car (2006 BMW E60 M5) to check the compatibility with my iDrive via bluetooth.

I really wasn’t expecting there to be a problem, since BMW actively advertise they are working in partnership with Apple to make the iPhone integrate with iDrive and since there’s not been any hardware change as it is my original iPhone that has always worked with iDrive from v1.1.2 to v1.1.4.

BMW also sell the iPhone snap-on adapter for the iPhone (see this earlier post: Official BMW iPhone snap-in adapter / cradle [PICS]) so it’s in their interest to ensure the iPhone remains compatible with iDrive.

I turned on the ignition and at first I thought I’d have to pair up the phone again having had to update the software and restore a previous backup. To my surprise when I checked in the Blueotooth menu on the iPhone, all my old paired devices were still there and sure enough it connect to the BMW bluetooth automatically. I waited until the signal meter appeared along the bottom of the iDrive screen showing the pairing was successful and then I opened up the iDrive communication page to list my A-Z of contacts and they all appeared…briefly!

After my initial relief that iPhone 2.0 didn’t “break” anything in the way of BMW iDrive to iPhone contact syncronising, I slowly realised that the initial list it shows is a cached version from the last time the phone was connected and then the little clock timer appeared indicating it was searching the phone for new/modified/deleted contacts to refresh it’s cached copy. After about 20 seconds it was done and I was presented with a BLANK A-Z, it had wiped them all off the iDrive.

I powered the car off, powered the phone off, powered them both back on, let them pair and sync and still nothing. The iDrive was reporting that there were NO contacts on the iPhone that it could see. I check the iPhone to verify I’d not been an idiot and told iTunes not to sync contacts but they were all there (600+), in the nice new Contacts icon on the home screen with the new search feature.

I decided to start from scratch and removed the pairing from the iDrive bluetooth menu and from the iPhone bluetooth menu. Then I began the setup new phone procedure on the iDrive to connect my iPhone as though it was a new one. iDrive went into bluetooth visible to all devices mode, iPhone found the BMW bluetooth, paired, asked for passcode, 0000 on iPhone, confirmed 0000 on iDrive and connected.

It showed a “Please wait…” message along with that damn annoying clock timer icon again as it browsed the iPhone to suck all the contacts out of it. It returned NOTHING. The A-Z was empty. I tried voice-dialing from the BMW voice dial button, feature not available.

When the phone rings for an incoming call it shows the you number on the iDrive display but doesn’t link it with the name in the contacts. If you have the iPhone in your pocket and want to call somebody, unless you’ve received a call from them recently so that they’re in the iDrive recent received list you’re going to have to get the iPhone out your pocket, unlock and find the contact the old fashioned way.

This is really bad news for those in the UK and other countries where not only talking on a mobile whilst driving is illegal, but where even touch your mobile whilst driving carries fines and penalty points. I’ve gone from being fully legal with hands-free voice dialing to illegal overnight, thanks Apple!

Please use the comments section below to post your findings stating your car model and year plus your iPhone version. If you have other cars that sync the contact list (Mercedes? Audi? etc) then post your results for them to for others to see.

UPDATE (14 July 2008) - The following is an extract taken from BMW’s official website, I’ve taken a time-stamped PDF copy (download here: PDF copy of BMW website stating iPhone address sync) just in case they ever try to deny they said address book sync’ing would work:

It’s the kind of innovative forethought you expect from BMW: the Apple is compatible with most BMW models from day one. The communication and music functionalities of the Apple iPhone can easily be operated with the in-vehicle control elements and displays.
All you need besides the Apple iPhone to make a call, listen to music or access your address book in a BMW is the USB/audio interface and a suitable mobile phone preparation with Bluetooth interface. Enjoy your Apple iPhone and your BMW in parallel, for the sheer pleasure of both worlds.

iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc.

With the immenent launch of Apple’s iPhone 3G a week today, I’ve been searching the internet high and low to find out whether or not it’s going to be compatible with and sync with BMW’s bluetooth and iDrive. I also need to know whether it will fit in the BMW snap-in adapter I have for the original iPhone or will I have to buy another cradle from BMW?

Once I get the new iPhone 3G on 11th July I’ll update this topic with the actual answers, but for now I shall just give my preditions:

My predictions:

1. Bluetooth & iDrive: UPDATE – Be aware that several people have reported that the iPhone 3G does not sync the contacts with the iDrive, this is also the case for people who have updated their original iPhone to 2.0, including myself (more info here). The iPhone 3G doesn’t appear to have any hardware changes in relation to its bluetooth module and since the iPhone 3G and iPhone original will both be running iPhone software v2.0 next week, other than addition coding for the GPS module and 3G connections they should be identical. So I am predicting that the iPhone 3G will work with BMW’s bluetooth and iDrive, [Note: if you have an older vehicle that the original iPhone didn't pair with don't expect the iPhone 3G to suddenly work, I'm only referring to vehicles that pair and sync with the original iPhone]
2. BMW snap-in adapter: Looking at the profile of the new iPhone 3G with its more sculptured and curved back, coupled with the fact that many case manufacturers are launching new cases for the iPhone 3G lead me to believe that the iPhone 3G will not fit in the BMW snap-in adapater for the original iPhone and that BMW will bring out a new cradle for the iPhone 3G in a few months. But then part of me thinks that the iPhone 3G uses the same screen, iPod port, etc, is the same height and width and that it may fit in the snap-in cradle for the original iPhone albeit it a little loose and wobble. My final thoughts…I predict the iPhone 3G will fit in the original BMW snap-in adapter but it won’t lock down into place fully but will charge and connect to the external antenna.

The actual facts:

1. The iPhone 3G and original iPhones updated to iPhone 2.0 appear to not work properly with lots of manufacturers factory blueotooth kits. BMW, Mercedes, Jeep, Chrysler, Land Rover, and many more are all affected.
2. The iPhone 3G *does* fit in the original BMW iPhone cradle….just! But it’s not a comfortable fit as the iPhone 3G is a few mm longer. Prolonged forced insertion into the cradle will badly scratch and damage the back and top edge of your iPhone 3G.

The BBC has now launched a special iPhone specific web page to allow you to browse and listen to all the BBC podcasts on your iPhone.

You can simply go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts on your iPhone now, the site will recognise that you are browsing from your iPhone and take you straight to the iPhone-formatted version of the page.

If you go the the link from a normal web browser on your computer you will be presented with the normal full version of the page. For those of you who want to see what the iPhone version looks like in your normal browser then go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/ip/#_welcome

I’ve just quickly tabbed through the directory and started streaming the Chris Moyles podcast, started instantly from within Safari as a “video”, basically the quicktime player.

If you’d like to listen to it on the journey to work/college/etc I’ve just tried turning my wifi connection off and it continues to play. If you start listening to it while you’re at home and give it enough time to cache the entire podcast (keep an eye on the white timebar, that’s showing you download progress you can continue to listen on the move.

BBC – Radio – Podcasts – Directory

The firmware is supposed to address some of the “bugs” introduced with 1.1.3 such as the SMS sorting bug and wifi connectivity problems. 1.1.4 is also rumoured to contain the framework to allow 3rd party application to be installed without the need to hack/jailbreak your iPhone. Some of these 3rd party apps and games will be made available for download from the iTunes store in due course.I am currently updating my iPhone to 1.1.4 as I type and shall hopefully report back with some good news on bug fixes……

…..140MB download and 5 minutes install time later….

1.1.4 has successfully downloaded and been installed on my iPhone. I didn’t encounter any errors, warnings, or weirdness (using iTunes 7.6.1(9) under OS X 10.5.2)

Unlike 1.1.3 there aren’t any NEW features  for those of you who are looking, but I have checked on the SMS sorting bug by sending myself a series of SMS in a short period of time and I’m happy to report it works as expected now.  I didn’t have any SMS conversations saved that were in a mess from 1.1.3 so if anybody reading this has a conversation that was in the wrong order could you please have a look at it after updating to 1.1.4 and report back in the comments section below?

There haven’t been any immediate issues with wifi connectivity either which is promising. If you’ve read my post about wifi problems with 1.1.3 you’ll be aware that there were problems as soon as the phone had finished updating to 1.1.3. One person has so far reported that under 1.1.4 his wifi issues are almost resolved but the widgets (stocks/weather) are unable to update when connected to wifi. I have just done some thorough testing of stocks and weather running under 1.1.4 connected to my Airport Extreme and can report I have no problems.

Summary

• SMS Sorting Bug = FIXED
• Wifi connectivity = FIXED (no problems for me at least)

BMW has released an official snap-in adapter for most of it’s model range. Costing £60 (~$130) it allows the iPhone to remain on charge whilst also connecting it to the car’s external antenna for a stronger boosted signal.

UPDATE (14th July 2008) - There has now been a software update for all iPhones taking them to iPhone 2.0 which seems to cause lots of problems with iDrive integration. Read more about that and other issues with iPhone 2.0 and iPhone 3G here: iPhone 2.0 and 3G break BMW iDrive address book synchronising

I picked up the cradle this morning, BMW part number 84-10-9-182-792 costing £59.99 in UK money which was the same price I paid for the Nokia 6230i snap-in I previously bought. Installation is…well I wouldn’t even call it installation, press down on the snap-in eject button, the old Nokia 6230i cradle pops out, snap-in the the new one…I’d say 10 seconds at most!

NOTE – it seems all UK spec cars have the snap in holder (eject box) as standard, those in the USA may have a money tray here instead, in which case you need to buy two other parts to replace the money tray and other users have reported a 30 min installation time for those, see this thread, but the extra parts needed are 84 21 6 946 075 [snap in adapter / Eject box] and 51 16 7 060 175 [Eject box frame]

First impressions are good, feels heavy, solid and robust, the pop up spring mechanism when you eject also feels sturdy yet smooth. You position the lower edge of the phone in the adapter and then press on the top edge of the screen to lower the phone down until it locks in place. There is a small plastic lip that then pops out to lock the top of the phone down. To remove the iPhone simply press the eject button and the top lip slides back and the phone lifts up at an angle for easy access. At first I had to press several times and with some force to get the eject mechanism to work but it’s much easier now once it’s been used a couple of times and things have “freed up”.


The snap-in charges the phone and connects it to the external antenna of the car. I’ve NEVER noticed any signal difference on any of the phones I’ve ever owned with BMW/Nokia car kits using external aerials but this is more likely due to strong signal everywhere I go. There aren’t any areas I can think of where i’d normally have little to no reception to test if there is any gain using the external antenna.

NOTE – the snap-in does nothing other than listed above [charge and aerial], it does NOT offer a hard-wired connection to the iDrive, the connection between phone and iDrive has been and always will be bluetooth. Several people have also wandered if this would allow you to access the iPod features on the iPhone through the stereo but it DOESNT.

I’ve taken far too many photos of the adapter, to see ALL the phone click here or click on the image above.

see more photos | digg story

Obviously not content with the iPhone sales figures in the UK, O2 have announced they are changing all three iPhone tariffs to the benefit of the end user.

Those on the lowest £35 tariff get triple minutes and double SMS!
Those on the £45 tariff now get the same as the old £55 tariff, basically double mins, same SMS.
Those on the £55 tariff get dropped down to the new £45 tariff, so basically you’re saving £10 a month but you do have the option if you wish to jump up to the new £75 tariff if you really feel you need 3000 minutes!

For them to make such drastic tariff changes less than 3 months after it’s UK launch is a bold move, but definitely in the right direction. I know of 4 people who have all bought an iPhone after I’ve shown them all the features on my own device, but there are so many of my friends who would all love to get an iPhone, the cost of the handset itself doesn’t bother them, it’s the over-priced tariffs that have stopped them from taking the plunge. For the early adopters it’s a welcome break as many can now drop down a tariff and save some £££ over the course of the 18 month contract, I still wish they’d add an unlimited SMS option to the tariffs though.

The new tariffs come into effect as of today but depending on when you’re billing cycle is you may not notice the changes on your bill until mid March at the absolutle latest.

All current O2 iPhone customers should have by now received an SMS from O2 detailing the changes with a link to tell you more about it. The link varies depending on which tariff you were on, £35 link, £45 link and £55 link and includes instructions on how to easily change to a different tariff or you can simply click here and follow instructions to change tariffs.

It looks like there’s a bug with software version 1.1.3 that affects most people but only under a few certain conditions:

1. If you send short SMS to people and they reply very quickly
2. The clock on your iPhone is set slighlty off true “atomic” time (GMT) in my case.

I have taken a few photos to demonstrate this to you but to give an overview, the new software seems to sort outgoing SMS by the iPhone time it was sent but sorts incoming messages by the time on the SMS server of the 3rd party. If you’re iphone time happened to be 1 minute behind the time of the SMS server, then if your 3rd party replies and you send another message out in under 1 minute, initially the SMS will look ok on the screen, but exit to all SMS list and then re-view the thread and your messages will all be out of sync.

Trust me it’s much easier to visual in the photos and try replicating by sending yourself some SMS:

I then tried updating my iPhone clock to exact GMT but it doesn’t allow me to set seconds, although seconds may set to zero when hitting save. As you can see in the last two image, I must have set the phone a little ahead of GMT as the problem was reversed with my messages grouping after the replies!

1. Two finger text entry for capital letters. To get a single captial letter prior to 1.1.3 you had to press shift then press the letter you wanted. With 1.1.3 you can now press shift+letter simultaneaously and it gives the same result as a standard full sized keyboard.
2. SMS alert popup now rotates between portrait and landscape, pretty sure it didn’t do that in 1.1.2
3. You can tap white circles to jump to another home screen rather than swiping. This has always been the case in weather app, etc but there are still iPhone users out there who don’t know this.
4. Enhanced gmail access via IMAP now rather than POP, although I already have my gmail setup via IMAP using the “other” option pre-1.1.3
5. iTunes store gift voucher redemption from the phone, should any body give you an iTunes gift card and you need to buy some songs/movies whilst out and about.
6. Manually manage music/videothrough iTunes

….I did have lots more but they’re pretty much well known about know so I’ve left this post unfinished but feel free to post in the comments section.

Well having successfully updated my iPhone to 1.1.3 I have noticed that I am no longer able to join wi-fi networks, it says i’m connected to my Apple Airport but browsing web pages fails stating unable to connect to server.

I jumped into settings and turned wi-fi off then back on and let it join the network again. Same problem.

I then tried the advanced tab for the network and told it to forget the network and then find it again, same problem.

I tried force closing Safari (by holding down the home button) and then relaunched Safari, still not working.

Next was to reboot the airport express, didn’t solve it.

I tried my MacBook Pro on wi-fi, worked ok so it’s not an internet or airport problem.

Finally I noticed in the advanced tab of the wi-fi network that the phone was getting a self assigned IP address (169.xxx.xxx.xxx) not picking one up from Airport DHCP. Clicking renew lease didn’t work, still self assigned IP so this appeared to be the problem, the iPhone wasn’t being assigned an IP by my airport express. I tried my netgear (Sky) router and the same problem with that.

I finally turned the phone off and back on (with a forced reboot, holding down home button and power button for up to 10 seconds) and then checked the wi-fi advanced page, finally it picked up a DHCP assigned IP and all is well again.

Not sure what 1.1.3 did but I’d never had that problem before.

On a side note: a family member also has an iPhone and updated to 1.1.3 last night. He said it all went well, he was playing with the new features before he went to bed and then turned his phone off last night. On the way to work he powered his phone back on and it’s simply showing an icon saying connect the phone to iTunes, emergency calls only. So it looks like its gone back to the “virginal” or “as new” setting for some reason. So he’s without his phone and all his contacts until he gets back from work.

UPDATE: Two friends updated their iPhones to 1.1.3 and neither could then connect to wifi (Apple Airport or their Orange Livebox Router). Same problem with it not picking up an IP via DCHP. They gave me a call so I pointed towards this blog to follow the instructions. They both followed all the steps above and this worked for one of them only. The other iPhone still wouldn’t pick up an IP. In the end he fixed it by simply going into the settings menu and choosing

“Settings”->”General”->”Reset”->”Reset Network Settings”

so you might want to try that first as a quicker and easier fix?

Back to the iPhone update. Upon reading about the announcement I clicked the Apple logo in the top left of the desktop and ran a manual software update to obtain the latest iTunes, etc. Half way there…….After opening the new iTunes and connecting the iPhone I clicked “Check for Updates” only to be informed that Apple’s Software Server is Busy or unobtainable, check internet connection or try again later. Since my network was functioning correctly and all web site were accessible I assumed the server had reached its connection limit with everybody trying to get the update.

True enough, half an hour later iTunes asked me to agree to some new T&C’s before downloading the 1.1.3 software.

I thought it had already downloaded the update but a quick look at my network activity showed it downloaded at full speed (1MB/s) for a while:

Finally the update of my iPhone firmware began:

and I am pleased to say all went smoothly.

I eventually narrowed the sound down to the plastic housing for the speaker and microphone, applying gently pressure to the sides of the housing when holding the phone caused the plastic to flex and creak. As the microphone is housed in this area the small sound was greatly amplified down the line to my friends.

I took a trip back to the Carphone Warehouse the next morning, explained and demonstrated the problem and they instantly agreed it was a fault and would issue a replacement. The problem was none of the sales staff were able to talk me through the exchange procedure for the iPhone as I was the first to return a faulty iPhone. They seemed to be under the impression when I connected the replacement iPhone to iTunes I would have to start a new 18 months contract and ask for a refund and termination of the previous contract. This seemed ludicrous to me so after an hour wait in store whilst they called somebody for advice they finally gave me a new iPhone but removed the SIM from my old faulty phone and installed it in the new one.

That was it as far as they were concerned, it should just work! WTF of course it won’t, I powered it on in front of them to prove my point, and sure enough the phone was in Emergency Call only mode until I connected to iTunes.

Somebody then reassured me that iTunes would recognise the phone as a replacement and I’d simply have to enter my old number to migrate my account to the newer handset. This brought up a new problem, since I was migrating from Vodafone to O2 and was porting my number, I had been issued with a temporary O2 phone number for 7 days. Did I enter this temporary O2 number or my number being ported across if iTunes asked?….blank faces from all the staff again!

I left the store and decided to just try it and see what happened, and for the benefit of anybody else wandering how the replacement iPhone process differs from the new sign up procedure I took screen shots at each stage:

Step 1: First Screen shown when replacement iPhone connected.

Step 2: iTunes knows an iPhone is already registered to my account and asks for my existing mobile number. At this stage I decide to enter the temporary mobile number that I’ve been assigned until my number ports from my old network.

Step 3: It then asks me to confirm my Apple ID and password.

Step 4: A brief wait while it checks my Apple ID against the mobile number given.

Step 5: I am then asked to review the Bill name and change to mobile number. I notice that it’s defaulted to the 9991231234 phone number for some reason but I go with it and see what happens.

Step 6: I’m presented with an error saying the iTunes store may be busy!

Step 7: I’m then present with the same review your O2 account information page but this time it’s picked up my O2 username and external email address I signed up to O2 with along with the temporary phone number I previously entered.

Step 8: Another short wait while it processes my activation. You’ll notice that it didn’t ask me to agree to any T&C’s again, nor did it ask me to verify my tariff.

Step 9: Activation complete it now asks if I wish to restore a backup taken from my previously faulty iPhone.

Step 10: I chose the most recent backup and hit continue and it takes a few seconds to restore the backup. (note I didn’t have any music or photos in the backup simply contacts, calendar and email settings)

Step 11: All done. The replacement phone is now connected to my iTunes and O2 accounts, the old phone contents have been restored on the new iPhone and I’m all set to go.