F82 M4- Apple carplay worth it?

[Jamescrs]

I have a 66 plate F82 M4, absolutely love the car.

I bought it on the assumption it didn't have Apple Carplay or Android Auto ho9wever when I go into the My BMW app where the car is registered BMW give me an option to activate Apple Carplay for £260, I assume my car must be one of the very early ones where Apple Carplay was an option?

It's obviously not a cheap option and to add complication I currently have a Samsung phone however I would be willing to swap to Apple if the Apple Carplay is worth it on this model of BMW.

I know an option would be to swap out the headunit for an aftermarket product but I personally prefer to maintain the originality of the car even if it will cost me a chunk of money.

My question is does anyone have Apple carplay on this age of BMW and how does it function, is it a smooth experience worth having?

[Jamescrs]

AB said:

I had Carplay in mine and used it all the time. But not everyone loves it. Certainly didn't find it hard to use. Bonus being everything is always up to date and you can jump from car to car and have the same set up immediately.

Not a deal breaker though as I never struggled with the standard Pro Nav set up.

I must admit I do like the Pronav, its a big improvement on the small screen I had previously in my M240i.

Thanks for your reply, appreciate it

[Jamescrs]

AB said:

Just to add another couple of thoughts, it integrates well into the car with being able to hold down the voice button on the wheel to launch siri and major bonus is better routing assuming you don't have connected services still activated? Google Maps/Waze i find much better than the built in nav and it's SO much easier with podcasts/music etc.

I currently have connected services having just bought the car approved used but im.not keen on renewing them.every year again like I did with my last BMW.

Being able to.use Google maps on the in car screen is a major draw for.me to go.down the car play route.

[Jamescrs]

Pupp said:

Same for me on a M2C save for Waze… was a shock when Android wasn’t supported. I did migrate to iOS but resented having to.

I'm.a bit the same way, I have a Samsung watch, Samsung buds and Samsung wireless charger.

Seems like the buds will work.as bluetooth earbuds so.i can live with that, the wireless charger may work but the watch would probably have to be sold.

[Jamescrs]

dxg said:

You can buy boxes that plug into the car's usb port and pretend to be an iphone. You then connect your android phone to that box and it will send android auto to the car using the carplay protocol.

https://www.carplaylife.com/feature/top-5-best-car...

Thats very interesting thank you, will have a look.

Still not sold on the IPhone, webt to the apple store today and as a long term Android user I found Apple very difficult to use though I'm sure I'd get used to it.

[Jamescrs]

I forgot I started this thread.

So in the end I have changed to an I phone 15 Pro and I paid BMW to activate Car play on my car.

I have now got used to the Apple way of using a device and whilst I don't think theres any great benefit of Apple Over Android or vice versa I do like the way the I phone does some things, it has certainly moved on since I had an I phone 6.

I do very much like having Car play in the car, it's a very nice feature to have albeit it's not been cheap to get to this point.

[Jamescrs]

carguy45 said:

I have it in mine and use it daily. But I think usage depends on how much you use things like music and google maps and so on through your iPhone, I would use them regularly so find access to them via the car hmi to be very handy.

My only gripe is that it doesn't utilise the full screen area but this seems to be a common complaint. I'm pretty sure there's a way to enable full screen via an iDrive update but I haven't explored it yet in detail.

I'm finding the same regarding the Full screen, there is a guy local to me who advertises BMW coding on Facebook who has said he can do the update to make it full screen and said the cost would be £100-£200 depending on what I drive version I have.

I'll probably do it at some point but I just haven't been bothered to get the idrive version number for him so far