Apple CarPlay is finally a free feature in BMW vehicles

[bimmer456]

I actually prefer not to use CarPlay and would not pay a subscription for it. But this is one of those features not offered by Tesla.

[firedown31]

Originally Posted by Alpine300zhp

Right. Which is why I don't see people getting refunds.

Except you know for a fact Apple will be releasing a new iPhone every year, around the same time in September. No one goes into a store in August and buys a new iphone and then come September flips there lid on Apple when the next iphone comes out.

BMW gave no hint of ever offering carplay for free, nor could we have ever assumed they would. I can assume and and am 99.9% confident Apple will release a new iphone next September. Two completely different concepts here.

A better comparison is when a company drops the price of a product hundreds of dollars without warning.

[LogicalApex]

Originally Posted by GodfatherNiko

I bought mine YESTERDAY. Seems like this will be my last BMW. Engine problems and now this.

You can probably call them and get a refund and wait out the free version to be safe.

This has only so far been announced in the press so I'm sure we'll hear from BMW at some point soon noting what vehicles are covered, for how long (meaning does lifetime still mean 20 years, etc), and if they'll offer concessions for users who purchased already.

My guess is they'll make this limited to iDrive 7 since all 2020 cars are on iDrive 7. But I'm hoping they make it universal across their entire lineup for all cars that support CarPlay.

[clee1982]

i6 better be included...

[xlover]

Originally Posted by firedown31

Except you know for a fact Apple will be releasing a new iPhone every year, around the same time in September. No one goes into a store in August and buys a new iphone and then come September flips there lid on Apple when the next iphone comes out.

BMW gave no hint of ever offering carplay for free, nor could we have ever assumed they would. I can assume and and am 99.9% confident Apple will release a new iphone next September. Two completely different concepts here.

A better comparison is when a company drops the price of a product hundreds of dollars without warning.

I do not see a world where anyone gets full refund of money paid

My guess is
A. they will only make free on go forward vehicle purchases (simple choice, but lots of pissed off existing owners)
b. Pick a go live date to make globally free: if they choose to offer it retroactively to existing vehicles then they will offer a prorated refund from the date they "go live" at free. Its not that complicated of script to run on each account and if they have been accounting for this properly (I am not CPA) i believe they should only be booking revenue for each period in a subscription so it wont be a "loss" to refund it will be reduced future revenue

[LogicalApex]

Originally Posted by tsbrown

While I didn't use CarPlay until the past month when I figured out that my Tunein Radio app works MUCH better with it, my current new-car subscription ends on 12/15. My ConnectedDrive page still shows the subscription renewal charges as others are seeing so I called the 1-888# to ask a rep about the announcement. I asked specifically about the end of the subscription cost requirement to continue using and after checking with a supervisor, she told me the announcement story was a hoax...there will continue to be a subscription cost.

For now I'm taking this with a grain of salt, but I'm getting the rear camera software recall done next week and will ask my dealer at that time. Any new/additional information should be much better communicated through the dealer network or BMW NA by then if this is true. I hope it is because I don't want to pay to continue using it.

This is like when they leak details on the G30 LCI. We don't know how accurate the rumors are until BMW officially announces it. They haven't yet and that might be in another week or another month, but I expect it will be sooner than later. As I'm sure the shift will make it a bit easier for the sales staff to convert sales heading into the holiday season and a push for a strong Q4.

That being said, customer service staff are the last people to be updated on changes like this. They'll know once BMW officially announces it and not a moment before. If you're concerned, I'd imagine it would be prudent to hold off on renewing for a while unless you absolutely can't live without CarPlay.

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by JCZ5

I think people are forgetting Apple CarPlay is a platform. You don't have to use Apple Maps. You can use any maps installed on your phone e.g. Waze, Google maps, etc.

This in it self makes the maps much more valuable as it is updated frequently. In addition, it takes in my robust traffic and crowd share data than the native BMW system.

Agree 100%, and I appreciate the ability to go back and forth, use multiple map apps, etc.

Perfect example: On my last road trip, BMW/iDrive had me at 5 hours drive time, because of traffic on the interstates. Waze got that down to 4 hours because it was able to route me around the traffic using local/state highways.

I will probably use iDrive 90% of the time because of the better integration with instrument cluster, HUD, etc... but it's great to be able to use the others whenever I want.

[Poochie]

It's probably not "Free" per se, more like in future models they'll bake the lifetime cost into the overall price of vehicle, instead of itemizing it, like they do now.

They didn't make this change because they actually wanted to save you a bunch of money, more like the bad publicity of charging for it made them cave and restructure the way it will be billed.

Consumers are sometimes very black and white in their purchase decisioning making. For example, my stepdad walked on a $50,000 vehicle I had just negotiated $7,000 off on for him, simple because it didn't include the $600 remote start feature for free. That's the level of tone-deft reasoning is common for the typical auto consumer today.

BMW marketing knows what they're doing and BMW does use the in-vehicle data stream to support certain aspects of CarPlay, so they do incur an active cost, it's just now they choose to eat it to save face in eye of the consumer.


.

[nomoracin]

My trial expired a couple months ago and I didn't subscribe...so, will it just work again or will I need to do something first?

[pyakoub]

Can I use car play in my 320i 2017 ? And how please...

[clee1982]

Originally Posted by LogicalApex

This is like when they leak details on the G30 LCI. We don't know how accurate the rumors are until BMW officially announces it. They haven't yet and that might be in another week or another month, but I expect it will be sooner than later. As I'm sure the shift will make it a bit easier for the sales staff to convert sales heading into the holiday season and a push for a strong Q4.

That being said, customer service staff are the last people to be updated on changes like this. They'll know once BMW officially announces it and not a moment before. If you're concerned, I'd imagine it would be prudent to hold off on renewing for a while unless you absolutely can't live without CarPlay.

unless it's official official, I would imagine customer service is trained to say no, otherwise imagine they have to eat their words...

[clee1982]

on another note, how can you switch between various map "easily"

[Aliendrive]

This article said it would take several weeks to implement. Hopefully this is for the people on X5 forums that have been unable to renew Carplay. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/2...al-fee-vehicle

[drjolokia]

My 1 year trial ended literally 3 days ago and I subscribe for a year 🤬

[Darth One]

Wooooooww....so bmw actually shows signs that it's listening to its customers? Out-fucking-standing.

Now let's not get our hopes up yet because this move was the most indefensible and egregious of their stupid moves, and one that made them stand out as an outlier. I want to see if they are also listening to more important customer concerns (to me) like car design

[izzyM2]

Sooo... I guess one less thing to worry.

[uniqueMR]

Excellent news

[jkoral]

In older models it shows subscribed from in-service-date + 20 years. So in my ConnectedDrive account under CarPlay I get:

This service has been subscribed to your BMW until 06/28/2037.
It can be extended once you are within 3 months of service expiration.

[AndrewC1989]

Originally Posted by f30_416

can i get apple carplay in my 2016 340i? i think i have idrive 4.0

Can only be legitimately added on id5+. It has to be retrofitted on anything older.

Cheapest/best way is probably this:

https://www.bimmer-tech.net/shop/bmw...ts/carplay-mmi

[JayPichardo]

Just signed someone up today and it is already free!

[BMWZ4]

Just checked the connected drive site and my wife's X1 seems to have been "extended" - she never paid for it, has an iphone. Looks like it's free in Canada...I'll tell her to hook it up tomorrow. My X3MC still shows expiry for next April. Maybe it'll change in the coming days. Not that I'll use it.

EDIT: just saw jkoral's post above

"This service has been subscribed to your BMW "*******" until 19.04.2038. It can be extended once you are within 3 months of service expiration."

[BMWZ4]

Originally Posted by drjolokia

My 1 year trial ended literally 3 days ago and I subscribe for a year

I would think you'd be ripe for a refund