Current BMW USB ports and MTP mode - Android supported?

[mephiska]

Hello,

I recently switched to a Samsung Galaxy Nexus from an iPhone 4 and am having a hard time coping with the lack of old style USB support on this phone when it comes to connecting to my 2010 135i.

Since the Galaxy Nexus only supports MTP mode, the iDrive can't read the phone and says not supported.

Are the more recent versions of iDrive compatible with this newer protocol? My lease is up in about 10 months and I'm wondering if I'll be able to use this phone with a newer, possible 3 series.

Thanks!

[mephiska]

No replies yet huh.

Well I tried it today on my aunt's new 2012 328 with iDrive. It recognized the phone this time and said "Galaxy Nexus" but didn't actually list any song data. I could go in and only the first entry was lit up. Still not ready for prime time.

Anyone else have a better experience?

[fontana302]

Have a look here & see if there's a software update for your car:

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/owners/nav...ndingpage.html

I updated mine via the USB no problem, mine was an Oct 2011 build & there was a substantial update fornthat, may be similar for older vehicles. Just need your VIN handy to see what's the case.

[mephiska]

Unfortunately the build date on my 2010 is Sept 2009, so the update doesn't apply

[Sinister Crayon]

This thread's almost a month old, so I don't know if you found a solution yet. However, I have; I have a Galaxy Nexus as well and while I love to be on the leading (and sometimes bleeding) edge of technology, that whole "MTP" thing really annoyed me.

Anyway, I have a late 2011 135i and got the same problem; my Nexus comes up on my display as "Galaxy Nexus" but doesn't really work. I think the MTP implementation in the Nexus is either not complete or the MTP support in iDrive just isn't there. I have no way of testing other methods.

So rather than try to fix the car (difficult and time consuming), I fixed the Nexus. Get thee to XDA Developers and thou shalt find http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1389375 where there's a lovely little app that basically puts USB Mass Storage support back. Works like a champ on my Jelly Bean equipped Nexus.

As a side note, I really hate the fact that BMW is so great on support for iOS, but not Android devices.

[GreggerFL]

It's mainly because of the fact that Android is one of the most unsecure platforms out right now. That's android's biggest flaw. I personally like the platform but I wouldn't risk my banking info or any personal info. There was a developer at Defcon this year that made his android take over the audience's phones by only being in proximity of them without any alerts or prompts from the users device. If you're wondering I work in IT security so I have to know these things. Bottom line is iOS is super secure but plain, whereas Android is unsecure but highly customizable.

[GtiGyver]

Originally Posted by GreggerFL

It's mainly because of the fact that Android is one of the most unsecure platforms out right now. That's android's biggest flaw. I personally like the platform but I wouldn't risk my banking info or any personal info. There was a developer at Defcon this year that made his android take over the audience's phones by only being in proximity of them without any alerts or prompts from the users device. If you're wondering I work in IT security so I have to know these things. Bottom line is iOS is super secure but plain, whereas Android is unsecure but highly customizable.

While that may be true, that doesn't explain why BMW wouldn't support the Android platform.

[GreggerFL]

After writing my previous response I dug a little deeper because I want to help a fellow member out and to be honest everything points back to androids fragmentation, which means where iOS is iOS across the boards, every device has the same current build unless you opt out and never update the device whereas android you can have 5% on jelly bean, 15% on ICS and and the rest of the 80% percent on gingerbread or in some cases even below that. It would be a waste of time/money probably to them cause they'd probably have to make certain versions of their software to work with the different versions of android. Just my 2 cents.

[nato-main-man-5am]

Originally Posted by fontana302

Have a look here & see if there's a software update for your car:

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/owners/nav...ndingpage.html

I updated mine via the USB no problem, mine was an Oct 2011 build & there was a substantial update fornthat, may be similar for older vehicles. Just need your VIN handy to see what's the case.

Cool link. Doesn't work for US cars. Anyone know where the equivalent page for north america is?

[hans007]

just tried this on my F30 august 2012 build , 2013 model.

Have a droid razr M with android 4.1 which only has MTP, it does work

[hans007]

Originally Posted by GreggerFL

After writing my previous response I dug a little deeper because I want to help a fellow member out and to be honest everything points back to androids fragmentation, which means where iOS is iOS across the boards, every device has the same current build unless you opt out and never update the device whereas android you can have 5% on jelly bean, 15% on ICS and and the rest of the 80% percent on gingerbread or in some cases even below that. It would be a waste of time/money probably to them cause they'd probably have to make certain versions of their software to work with the different versions of android. Just my 2 cents.

That is sort of the "common persons" explanation as to everything that doesnt "work" all the time with android. There is easily fragmentation with every phone type (when the iphone 4 came out some cars that had iphone docks wouldnt work with it either until they got a firmware upgrade). MTP is actually an improvement in a lot of ways over the older USB and google has tried to transition android to it, but that has lead to incompatibilities with older USB host ports in cars that did not have a firmware upgrade made for them (such as the E82 1 series and E90)

The reason android switched to MTP is as follows.

When you use USB mass storage you cant have the phone access the drive at the same time as another device. So on previous pre android 4.0 phones say a phone had 8GB storage.

This woudl be partitioned into say 6GB of "sdcard". Or you could have an actual real SD card. So this is inefficient from a file system perspective, as the SDCARD partition would have to be formatted using FAT architecture. This did however allow the phone to be recognized as a USB mass storage device like a flash drive (you have NEVER been able to do that with an iphone).


Anyway, for android 4.0 google changed the OS to support MTP format. MTP allows all storage on the phone to be pooled into one file system that can be accessed by multiple OSes at once. SO for example I can play an mp3 with the phone , while copying files to a computer it is attached to. However MTP is a much newer standard and not supported universally by all USB port cars / computers (older OSes probably can't even read it like say windows XP without adding some drivers etc). THere are probably also some licensing benefits as microsoft owns the FAT file format architecture (previously android phone manufacturers would have to pay microsoft to be able to have USB mass storage since it used FAT). That said windows 7 and the like support it natively.


Anyhow, I think the E series radios do not support MTP at all and i doubt BMW will go back and fit this which is why you cant use your phone. Not sure about the all F30 series cars in 2012 model year as some people here say it doesnt work but im assuming there is an upgrade. Does work in my 2013 model car which should have the same radio hardware.

And yes that was overly technical, but now you know.

Also I really don't think android is that unsecure, the defcon exploit had to do with short passcodes which is more of a user error type deal. There have been exploits on iOS also exploiting safari and the like stop being a fan boy it is not super secure either. I used to write virus / firewall IT software on desktop and mobile and analyze malware for a living stop believing everything you read.