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      11-05-2011, 08:18 PM   #1
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Pandora 3.1.15, iOS5 and 6FL iDrive

I posted this on the tri-state facebook page, trying to get more comments on the topic.

1) Update to 3.1.15 (102581) and iOS5
2) Kill "Music" app from running if it is
3) Plug in phone (6FL)
4) Connect USB and the 3.5mm aux in
5) Goto CD/Multimedia
6) Choose your phone
7) Launch pandora and a station
8) Use the down arrow on steering wheel to change songs

I can confirm the entertainment details semi-working. It shows the artist, album, song name, and the time of the song.

The track time resets when the next song plays, but isn't updating the track info. One step closer though, and I sent pandora an email inquiring about how pandora sends out its track information.

Can anyone else confirm?

EDIT: It most definitely is software related. Pandora now shows up where the "ipod" controls used to be on the phone when you double press the home button and swipe to the right.

Previous software did not do this, kept ipod there all the time.

Last edited by cole92; 11-07-2011 at 07:50 PM..
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      11-06-2011, 06:06 PM   #2
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Guess no one else has tried this, however I did get this response from them today:

"Jonathan | Pandora Support
NOV 06, 2011 | 02:44PM PST
Hi Cole,

Sorry about that. We're aware of this issue and we're working on it. Thanks so much for your patience in the meantime!
--
Jonathan
Listener Support
PANDORA® internet radio
Need help? http://help.pandora.com"

This is in reference to me saying this: "My only request, being a pandora one subscriber, is on song change send out an update of the track information. I can view the track information of the first song playing, but the next track information stays the same.

I am not sure if this is a pandora issue or an issue with the vehicle. I understand pandora isn't supported in this manner but was merely inquiring on if it would be possible."
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      11-17-2011, 11:23 PM   #3
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Pandora 3.1.16 is out. Solves the song name update as it switches to the next song.
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      11-18-2011, 12:31 AM   #4
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Thanks for the reply! All in working order how it should be now.
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      11-18-2011, 07:57 AM   #5
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my bluetooth now shows the pandora song/album info etc. just like it would normally if you play your ipod except no album art. Thats a huge difference from me just upgrading my normal iphone 4 to IOS5.0.1
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      02-07-2012, 02:07 PM   #6
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Hey all - Just wanted to comment.

I tried getting Pandora to work with my CIC via the USB plug but could never get the controls to work. Last night I tried playing Pandora via Bluetooth since I figured it would be easier to get to my phone and change the song.

Much to my surprise the down button on the steering wheel now works to change songs! Other than the battery drain this works better for me anyways. I guess I'll just get a charger to plug in under the glove box and use Bluetooth from now on.
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      02-08-2012, 01:29 PM   #7
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Another update:

Over the last day or two I have been using Pandora via Bluetooth. It turns out it's even better than I expected in how it interacts. When I shut off the car, I have found that Pandora automatically pauses the track being played. Then when I get back in and start the car, the phone reconnects and Pandora automatically starts playing from where I last left off.

I don't know why I hadn't tried this before! Since I have an unlimited data plan on my phone, I think I'll be saying bye bye to Satellite as soon as my free year is up!
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      02-09-2012, 02:42 PM   #8
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Interesting, I haven't tried this yet. What were the steps in which you performed to get this to work?

EDIT: or are you using a gateway?

Last edited by cole92; 02-09-2012 at 06:02 PM..
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      02-09-2012, 06:35 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cole92 View Post
Interesting, I haven't tried this yet. What were the steps in which you performed to get this to work?

EDIT: or are you using a gateway?
I don't think I did anything special but maybe it's my setup.

I have a 2011 E93 with:
- Navigation System (609)
- BMW Assist with Bluetooth (639)
- Harmon Kardon Audio System (688)
- Satellite Radio (655)
- IPOD/USB adapter (6FL)
- Smart phone Integration (6NF) (Although, I do not have a Snap-in & therefore don't use this.)

My phone is a Verizon iPhone 4 with iOS5 version 5.0.1 (9A405).
I have Pandora version 3.1.20 (113569).
And lastly I just updated my CIC / Bluetooth with the update listed here.

Other than that, I've just setup the phone for phone & audio in the Bluetooth setup in the car. I start the car, let the phone pair, select "external audio" from the CD menu and pick my phone. Then I start Pandora and it works! As long as I leave it on that external source, it reconnects & restarts playing every time I get in the car.

Not sure if maybe the CIC / Bluetooth update did something but I don't know since I don't remember trying it like this before.

Hope this helps!
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      02-09-2012, 06:43 PM   #10
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Ah, yes it was the combox update! Thanks for sharing!
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      02-09-2012, 07:11 PM   #11
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Good to know! Glad it helped.
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      02-17-2012, 03:57 PM   #12
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does pandora use up your data plan?
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      02-18-2012, 07:11 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by D-Raw View Post
does pandora use up your data plan?
Yep. It is streamed over the wireless (cellular) network.
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      02-23-2012, 11:06 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr_milo View Post
I don't think I did anything special but maybe it's my setup.

I have a 2011 E93 with:
- Navigation System (609)
- BMW Assist with Bluetooth (639)
- Harmon Kardon Audio System (688)
- Satellite Radio (655)
- IPOD/USB adapter (6FL)
- Smart phone Integration (6NF) (Although, I do not have a Snap-in & therefore don't use this.)

My phone is a Verizon iPhone 4 with iOS5 version 5.0.1 (9A405).
I have Pandora version 3.1.20 (113569).
And lastly I just updated my CIC / Bluetooth with the update listed here.

Other than that, I've just setup the phone for phone & audio in the Bluetooth setup in the car. I start the car, let the phone pair, select "external audio" from the CD menu and pick my phone. Then I start Pandora and it works! As long as I leave it on that external source, it reconnects & restarts playing every time I get in the car.

Not sure if maybe the CIC / Bluetooth update did something but I don't know since I don't remember trying it like this before.

Hope this helps!
Thanks! I'm gonna update and give this a try when I get home from work.
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      05-09-2012, 03:30 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr_milo View Post
Another update:

Over the last day or two I have been using Pandora via Bluetooth. It turns out it's even better than I expected in how it interacts. When I shut off the car, I have found that Pandora automatically pauses the track being played. Then when I get back in and start the car, the phone reconnects and Pandora automatically starts playing from where I last left off.

I don't know why I hadn't tried this before! Since I have an unlimited data plan on my phone, I think I'll be saying bye bye to Satellite as soon as my free year is up!
And I assume that you are using an Iphone for this ability?

I gave up my iPhone and have been trying get my iPad to play nicely. Plugging it into the center console USB, I can get Pandora to do the Connection with the car and play Pandora as a BMW App I guess you'd say. My complaint is that it won't play in the background so I can't use the iPad for any other app without losing Pandora.

Reading your post made me wonder about my Android phone that is connected via bluetooth. If I play Pandora on it and go to CD/Multimedia and select my bluetoothed phone I can hear Pandora (along with any other Andorid app such as Google Maps, etc.) SO I got that going for me.

Using IDrive I can skip a song bu that seem to be the extent of it. No pausing. No album art. Contrary to ours, when I turn off the car the connection drops and the phone keeps playing Pandora out the phone speaker rather than pausing like yours. I realize that the Android phone is not running a BMWConnected app like iOS devices are but not sure exactly what that means.
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      05-09-2012, 06:13 PM   #16
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BlackHawk55,

I am not running BMW Connected or BMW Apps. I don't have those installed on the car yet. I was trying to get my car updated but that requires tools I haven't purchased yet.

For the most part the iPhone and Pandora have been working great. I have had a few situation where my phone acts like yours and keeps playing. This mainly occurs if I take a call and am talking on the phone when I turn off the car. If I do this, then Pandora starts to play out of the speaker when I finally hang up the phone. Otherwise, if I'm not on the phone it works great.
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      05-10-2012, 08:38 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr_milo View Post
BlackHawk55,

I am not running BMW Connected or BMW Apps. I don't have those installed on the car yet. I was trying to get my car updated but that requires tools I haven't purchased yet.

For the most part the iPhone and Pandora have been working great. I have had a few situation where my phone acts like yours and keeps playing. This mainly occurs if I take a call and am talking on the phone when I turn off the car. If I do this, then Pandora starts to play out of the speaker when I finally hang up the phone. Otherwise, if I'm not on the phone it works great.
9 times out of ten or more my Android phone plays great through Bluetooth. The only noticeable difference between it and iOS is since it's not USB and not using Connected, the car does not display song data or have the ability to change Pandora stations (neither are dealbreakers).

All in all, since Android and bluetooth (even without a Connected App or cable) does so many things better than iOS (multitask, Google Maps turn-by-turn, etc.) , I think my iPad is getting regulated to doing extra tasks rather than being the center of my infotainment features. Not having the iOS features like extra Pandora controls or BMWApps for facebook, etc. aren't worth the downgrade in total ability I feel.

Last edited by Blackhawk55; 05-10-2012 at 08:53 AM..
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      05-11-2012, 10:28 AM   #18
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Anyone know how to get the Pandora app working in the UK? I can't download the app from Britain.

I will be going to the USA soon, so is there any way I will be able to get it working when I'm over there and continue using it when I get home?
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      05-12-2012, 10:30 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr_milo View Post
BlackHawk55,

I am not running BMW Connected or BMW Apps. I don't have those installed on the car yet. I was trying to get my car updated but that requires tools I haven't purchased yet.

For the most part the iPhone and Pandora have been working great. I have had a few situation where my phone acts like yours and keeps playing. This mainly occurs if I take a call and am talking on the phone when I turn off the car. If I do this, then Pandora starts to play out of the speaker when I finally hang up the phone. Otherwise, if I'm not on the phone it works great.
I have BMW Apps but I'm not impressed, to the point that I'd consider not getting it again. However, since it sounds like you have a car that has Combox but does NOT have BMW Apps, hopefully you can answer my question: If you connect the phone via USB (not a Y-cable, just the standard white cable that Combox cars can use) and launch Pandora, my understanding is you can hear Pandora by selecting your USB input on iDrive. But can you skip tracks with the steering wheel button, or is that only possible when playing Pandora over Bluetooth?

I unfortunately can't test this scenario on my BMW Apps car. If you can't even skip tracks when connected via USB without BMW Apps, that would be a major pain, but if you can then I will likely skip BMW Apps the next time around. Someone mentioned above that they couldn't get controls working over USB but I thought that might have been due to an older iOS/Pandora version.
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      05-15-2012, 12:48 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jphughan View Post
I have BMW Apps but I'm not impressed, to the point that I'd consider not getting it again. However, since it sounds like you have a car that has Combox but does NOT have BMW Apps, hopefully you can answer my question: If you connect the phone via USB (not a Y-cable, just the standard white cable that Combox cars can use) and launch Pandora, my understanding is you can hear Pandora by selecting your USB input on iDrive. But can you skip tracks with the steering wheel button, or is that only possible when playing Pandora over Bluetooth?

I unfortunately can't test this scenario on my BMW Apps car. If you can't even skip tracks when connected via USB without BMW Apps, that would be a major pain, but if you can then I will likely skip BMW Apps the next time around. Someone mentioned above that they couldn't get controls working over USB but I thought that might have been due to an older iOS/Pandora version.
I'd like to find a definition of what BMW Apps is supposed to feature and how it should work as so far what I've found is very little payback.

As I've documented earlier, I've run an iPhone 4S off of the snap-in adapter and an iPad off the center console USB with white cable. If I start Connected Drive on the car then BMW Apps then start the BMW Connected iOS App, I can see the Facebook, tiwtter, web radio apps addded to iDrive. OR (and I mean OR) if I start Pandora, I see Pandora added to the iDrive.

Where it comes up way short is that if listen to Pandora that way, then the iPad is rendered useless and the music stops if I try to do any other application (the USB connection drops I'm told). But considering I have BMW APP(s), I'd think I could do Pandora and check Facebook at the same time but no.

For a while I switched to a bluetooth connection with my Android phone and was able to do Pandora, use step-by-step Google Map Navigation and check email and facebook all at the same time. The downside came as I found that the connection seems to work about as often as a solar eclipse.

I then got a new cable for the iPad with USB and aux on one end, iPhone on the other (is this the Y cable mentioned)? Then telling the car to use the aux Front input as been the most solid connection type so far.

I expected a better experience but keep thinking it must be me and my lack of knowledge yet I don't find anything helpful anywhere else.

Last edited by Blackhawk55; 05-15-2012 at 12:56 PM..
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      05-15-2012, 07:06 PM   #21
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jphughan -

I haven't tried that for a long time (probably before my update) so last night I tried it out. I now remember why I stopped using the white cable.... it's a PITA. Every time I connect it automatically starts up itunes (or the ipod player....whatever it's called). Then when I start up Pandora it switches to Pandora but the track listings from the itunes stay on the display. Eventually the album art and track will show up for Pandora some of the time but it's hit or miss. If I stop the car or unplug the phone we go through the dance all over again. Also, skipping tracks was hit or miss too. At one point I had to double tap the steering wheel button to get it to skip a track but later the double tap was a double skip.

I then had to restart the Bluetooth Audio and Pandora worked like a charm. The first time itunes did start again but once I closed it and started Pandora the display on the screen switched to Pandora. The display is very different with no album art but all the information is there. The skip button also works great with only one push to skip.

Hope this helps.
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      05-15-2012, 11:05 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackhawk55 View Post
I'd like to find a definition of what BMW Apps is supposed to feature and how it should work as so far what I've found is very little payback.

As I've documented earlier, I've run an iPhone 4S off of the snap-in adapter and an iPad off the center console USB with white cable. If I start Connected Drive on the car then BMW Apps then start the BMW Connected iOS App, I can see the Facebook, tiwtter, web radio apps addded to iDrive. OR (and I mean OR) if I start Pandora, I see Pandora added to the iDrive.

Where it comes up way short is that if listen to Pandora that way, then the iPad is rendered useless and the music stops if I try to do any other application (the USB connection drops I'm told). But considering I have BMW APP(s), I'd think I could do Pandora and check Facebook at the same time but no.

For a while I switched to a bluetooth connection with my Android phone and was able to do Pandora, use step-by-step Google Map Navigation and check email and facebook all at the same time. The downside came as I found that the connection seems to work about as often as a solar eclipse.

I then got a new cable for the iPad with USB and aux on one end, iPhone on the other (is this the Y cable mentioned)? Then telling the car to use the aux Front input as been the most solid connection type so far.

I expected a better experience but keep thinking it must be me and my lack of knowledge yet I don't find anything helpful anywhere else.
BMW Apps is essentially a platform that BMW has developed for third-party developers to write apps to interface with the car. BMW Connected is just a first-party example of such an app, and then there are the bundled PlugIn and video playback features if you purchase the ridiculously expensive cradle (which only lasts as long as your phone's dimensions remain unchanged). That's about it.

You're right that you can only access the functionality of a given app while it's active on the phone, and the fault for that lies with Apple for severely restricting what non-Apple applications can do while in the background. I suppose BMW could incorporate Pandora/MOG/whatever into their BMW Connected app so you could just launch that and have everything, but I'm guessing BMW doesn't want the responsibility of coding those features (and probably thinks it's Apple's fault that this limitation exists in the first place and that they should therefore be the ones to fix it) and Pandora/MOG probably don't want to trust BMW to keep BMW Connected current to support new feature releases from Pandora/MOG and don't want to leave BMW responsible for Pandora's customers' experiences of Pandora.

Running over Bluetooth does indeed allow Pandora to run in the background and continue piping music to iDrive, but you lose the ability to control Pandora beyond skipping tracks, i.e. you can't switch stations, thumbs up/down songs, view album art, etc. And I haven't used it in a while so I'm not sure about this, but I think you also lose track info over Bluetooth, even though you can get it playing back locally stored music; if true, that would be a limitation of the Pandora app not properly supporting Bluetooth AVRCP 1.3. However, my experience with Bluetooth streaming is that it's completely reliable, though I use an iPhone rather than Android.

Piping audio through the AUX In cable as you do (yes, that's the Y-cable that's mentioned elsewhere) leaves you with analog-quality sound, so I'm not much of a fan of that solution -- and in that situation I don't think you can control Pandora at all except directly on the phone, which is a hassle given that the jack is inside the center console.

In the end BMW Apps is a subpar solution for which there isn't a clear improvement solution. Ideally Apple would relax some of their restrictions, but that'll never happen since Apple doesn't bend to other corporations' needs/wants. And the alternative "one stop shop" app from BMW would be hamstrung with the issues I mentioned above -- plus BMW isn't exactly known for timely software updates.
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