Thread: iPhone
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      12-09-2011, 09:39 AM   #8
jphughan
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Drives: '16 Cayman GT4
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Austin, TX

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If you do NOT have BMW Apps, the only real benefit to the dock is that it keeps your USB port free to charge and/or play music from another device, like your passenger's iPhone. It also keeps your phone more securely mounted if you're going to be driving hard, but that's pretty minor. Some have claimed improved antenna reception using the dock, which the 6NR/6NF option supports, but the iPhone doesn't have an external antenna pin connector in the dock, so at best it would be an improvement from signal induction through the baseplate. And lastly the new iPhone 4/4S cradle has a fan to address thermal concerns, though I actually managed to have my phone overheat even while it was in the cradle with the fan running. When I first took delivery of my car and heard the fan buzzing I thought something was wrong with the stereo; took me a while to figure out it was the cradle since the fan runs even while the car is off.

If you DO have BMW Apps, then buying the Media cradle (NOT the Music cradle) will allow you to use PlugIn and play videos from your device (the latter only while the car is stopped). All other BMW Apps features (BMW Connected, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, etc) are available with the standard USB connection. I have both BMW Apps and the Media cradle and honestly it's not a big deal. PlugIn is kind of cool to see once and show off to friends, but honestly iDrive's iPod/iPhone navigation is so good that I never use it. I don't care about video playback and I DEFINITELY don't care about Twitter and Facebook. Unless you really like Genius Playlists, you probably won't either. And actually the PlugIn and video features are no longer working, I think because of my rearview camera, but I haven't bothered to test that theory by disconnecting the camera because even if that turns out to be the reason, I'd still rather have the camera. Everything else works fine though.

At the end of the day I usually just stream music over Bluetooth, a Combox feature which I never expected to care about due to battery drain and audio quality concerns but which has turned out to be a godsend. I was always annoyed at having to take off my iPhone case to snap it into a cradle and/or forgetting my phone in the center console, so for shorter trips Bluetooth Audio is perfect. Plus the iOS 5 update allowed the iPhone to send track information over Bluetooth, which makes it even nicer. The only thing you can't do is browse your library to switch playlists and such, which is unfortunate because iDrive supports that but the iPhone doesn't (you need AVRCP 1.4 and the iPhone only goes up to 1.3 on iOS 5).
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'16 Cayman GT4 (delivery pics, comparison to E92 M3 write-up)

Gone but not forgotten:
'11.75 M3 E92 Le Mans | Black Nov w/ Alum | 6MT (owned 5/2011 - 11/2015)

Last edited by jphughan; 12-09-2011 at 09:52 AM..
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