Spotify with Android phone

[rpb]

I am getting to grips with our new (to us) 2019 i3.

My wife, who has an iPhone, can use Spotify via the media button.

I, who have an Android - Pixel 5 - cannot. Bluetooth streaming is OK but the Spotify icon is missing - so no cover art or swapping between playlists etc.

Any suggestions?

 

[Anonymous]

As far as I know, the 2019 i3 supports Apple Carplay only - no 'native' Android Auto support. Has to be a BMW model with a Live Cockpit Plus or Professional that runs on Operating System 7 (iDrive 7). I think the 2019 i3 is iDrive 6.

 

[rpb]

Thanks. That seems a shame, as it cuts out half of all mobile phone users.

How can I check which version of iDrive my car has?

 

[Anonymous]

One of the free VIN decoders will show what version you have for your vin.

Also:
iDrive 6 looks like this:
View attachment id6.jpeg


iDrive 7 looks like this:
View attachment id7.jpeg

 

[Anonymous]

... also, there are 3rd party solutions to adding Android Auto. One I'm familiar with is

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1674546502711314


Used them to add Carplay to my 2015

 

[eNate]

I can confirm 2021 is still iDrive 6, unfortunately. (I'm also an Android user.)

 

[rpb]

Looks like I have iDrive 6.

Tried all sorts of things to get Spotify working - USB connection, downgrading Spotify etc and nothing seems to work. I do not want to pay extra for functionality which should be there as standard, as with iPhones.

I hope BMW / Spotify will work to correct this.

 

[eNate]

BMW may convert you to an Apple user.

Nope, like you noticed Bluetooth gets you track info, skip / pause / back, but no album art or playlist functionality.

 

[rpb]

For the time being I am using an 8 year old iPhone which has Spotify.

It is crazy that this works but a brand new Android phone doesn't.

Who can we write to in order to complain about this?

 

[Anonymous]

Who can we write to in order to complain about this?

I guess you could write BMW NA - though I don't think they will pay much attention to a request to upgrade/update a four year old car, in a discontinued model line.

One of the reasons BMW didn't add Android Auto until 2020/2021 and then in only some of the model lines. is that although Google launched Android Auto back in 2015, it has been slow to push the wireless version out to car manufacturers.

The other is, when BMW looked at adding phone mirroring, they surveyed their customer base, found the majority were iPhone users, so they started there.