[ppendyck]

Hi
Looking at ordering a M550 but have been informed that the wireless charging pad is not available.
Leads me to 2 questions:
1. Are both the USBs powered?
2. Can you use Airplay with an iPhone plugged in?
3. How does airplay perform? IN my 2017 M3 it is pretty terrible.
Thanks
I tried to find these answers by doing a search but didn't have any luck.
Paul

[mylife98]

Apple CarPlay works very well in my 2021 M550i. Wireless, good data speed - delivers music well and maps and direction data from google maps/waze via the Carplay apps.

I have not tried plugging iphone in via USB yet.... will do and will shoot you a quick video and test out your questions...

[mylife98]

Here you go. Testing video:

[ppendyck]

mylife88. Thank you so much for your informative video. Answered all my questions perfectly. Can order my car and not be concerned that the wireless charging is unavailable.

[SteveinArizona]

This is what the forum is all about: one user helping another.

[mylife98]

Originally Posted by SteveinArizona

This is what the forum is all about: one user helping another.

Happy to be able to help and agree, exactly what our forums are here for!

[Joe-BMW33]

Originally Posted by mylife98

Here you go. Testing video:

Nice video, thanks for sharing. I found this out too through trial and error. I wanted to listen to lossless music from my phone via USB. You have to disconnect Apple Carplay for iDrive to see and play the music as a USB device, but if you want to use Carplay for Apple Map navigation and still listen to music as a USB device, it is not possible. You can use a thumb drive just fine with Apple Carplay, but the iphone can not be used as an external USB device and for Apple Carplay at the same time.

On my wish list for the future for BMW to solve this, but I think it has more to do with Apple. Music on a B&W system sounds great streaming from Apple Carplay, BUT, it sounds phenomenal via USB lossless files. I guess another solution would be to have the option of running Apple Carplay via USB or Wireless, but we don't have that now. Wireless only, which I prefer to be cord free 90% of the time, but every once in a while, I like to crank it up and actual files sound superior.

[ppendyck]

I also have a 2022 Honda Odyssey and CarPlay is only available via wire. In that situation one can listen to music on the phone and also use CarPlay.

[Tommyudo]

My solution is to use my old iPhone 7 256GB full of Apple lossless files as an iPod plugged into the center console usb c port. I switch between that and my 12 pro max to use Carplay.

[Joe-BMW33]

Originally Posted by Tommyudo

My solution is to use my old iPhone 7 256GB full of Apple lossless files as an iPod plugged into the center console usb c port. I switch between that and my 12 pro max to use Carplay.

Sure that's the equivalent of a USB stick. Wouldn't it be easier to just use a USB stick? I mean 256GB sticks are almost free and 2TB are like $30 bucks. Not to mention no wires and the tiny size.

[Sam_M550i]

Where are you guys getting the lossless audio files from?

[Joe-BMW33]

Originally Posted by Sam_M550i

Where are you guys getting the lossless audio files from?

Apple Music offers it. Turn it on under settings. BUT, you have to have your phone plugged in with Apple CarPlay turned off for the car to see your phone as a USB device. Lossless won't make a difference streaming wirelessly. Not enough bandwidth.

I've recently subscribed to Tidal as well for the purposes of high quality music and a clean user interface.

I downloaded the music I own as lossless files from Apple Music and loaded them onto a USB stick. The music is older though as I stopped buying music in 2014/15 when Apple Music launched.

[SonD]

Some of the places I use for real lossless / Hi Res music :-

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/site/index

This site has a huge catalogue, and fairly varied.
All of the files are checked for authenticity as well.

Slightly off the wall, but a superb site as far as artists are concerned (they get a way bigger % of takings, and on 'bandCamp Fridays' they actually get 100% of the takings. This is a huge benefit for said artists :-

https://bandcamp.com

It may not have so many 'well known' artists but I seem to spend a small fortune on there over a year. Mosts of the DL's are actually HiRes, if not, they will probably be 16/44.

Quobuz also sells actual files for DL, not the cheapest of places, but has a fair catalogue.

Finally - going to the artists own site can also give some advantage :- They usually give direct links to the best place to get their music (sensible eh)

https://www.nilsfrahm.com/works/

Personally, if just for car use, 16/44 is fine, but for me it will always be FLAC files not WAV (thats for another thread and a whole can of worms)

[SonD]

A question if I may ask please.
While I work in the audio industry - there are multiple ways of playing your music as everyone knows.

Usually, when loaded music on a USB stick (if in album/folder format - fully tagged) music from that USB can be accessed by many devices, but playback is **usually** album 1, track one to the end of that album, then track one, album 2 etc - unless it is loaded through a 'streaming device'

My question is - if I load say 250 albums onto a USB stick (Type C?) and plug that into the slot in the armrest of a 5 series -
1, will it access and play that music
2, Is it put into some sort of order that can be searched by iDrive/touchscreen?

Apologies if this is a daft question, I genuinely have no idea.
Music in the car is a fairly major thing for me, and would prefer to do it this way than have it stored on iPhone etc, which is waht I currently have to do.
Even better would have been a direct 3.5mm jack, but that seems to have long since gone..

[LogicalApex]

Originally Posted by SonD

A question if I may ask please.
While I work in the audio industry - there are multiple ways of playing your music as everyone knows.

Usually, when loaded music on a USB stick (if in album/folder format - fully tagged) music from that USB can be accessed by many devices, but playback is **usually** album 1, track one to the end of that album, then track one, album 2 etc - unless it is loaded through a 'streaming device'

My question is - if I load say 250 albums onto a USB stick (Type C?) and plug that into the slot in the armrest of a 5 series -
1, will it access and play that music
2, Is it put into some sort of order that can be searched by iDrive/touchscreen?

Apologies if this is a daft question, I genuinely have no idea.
Music in the car is a fairly major thing for me, and would prefer to do it this way than have it stored on iPhone etc, which is waht I currently have to do.
Even better would have been a direct 3.5mm jack, but that seems to have long since gone..

You can browse, search, and play by things such as artist, album, song, genre and etc. You can also load playlists too.

[SonD]

Thank you, that's perfect, and just what I wanted.

[carbo56]

Regarding USB sticks, yes - iDrive will organize your tracks and allow searching by Artist, Genre, Album, Track and also Playlists. I prefer this to using my iPhone for music, since I actually like the iDrive media interface better than using the Music app in CarPlay, and I don't want to have to plug my phone into USB. I just keep the USB drive plugged in the car and its always there.

It takes some time and organization to do it right, though. Here are some tips on organizing your music files on USB drives to work properly with iDrive:

You must have accurate and consistent metadata tags in your files as it will use the tags for organization and search rather than folder structure. You also need to have album art *embedded* in the files for it to be displayed. Also, iDrive doesn't seem to like large artwork. If it's too large, it won't display. I've found that a max size of 800x800, 200ppi jpg files (not png) or smaller will work best. If you are using the Apple Music app on Mac, the site "Doug's Scripts" has great utility scripts you can use to deal with metadata and artwork embedding/resizing.

Playlists need to be in M3U format and properly refer to the correct files in the directory structure on the drive. Doing that can be difficult, and it's best to use some type of export software that will copy from your music library to the USB stick such that it will organize the files on the USB into directory structure that iDrive will read properly. I am a Mac user and have my music organized in the Apple Music (formally iTunes) app, and I use a 3rd party software called "Export for iTunes" which you can get from the Apple App Store for MacOS. I'm sure there is something similar available if you are using Windows or other music organization softwares, e.g. Jriver.

I have also found that iDrive seems to get wonky if you have large numbers of files/tracks on your drive, e.g. it will stop reading and organizing files after a certain amount is reached. I found this to be about 20,000 tracks. Not sure if the issue is the number of tracks, or the size of the files or both. Which is ok, I can use "Export for iTunes" to pick and choose which of my Apple Music playlists to copy and keep it under 20K tracks.

As far as the drive itself, anything will be ok, it just needs to formatted as either FAT32 or exFAT.

Also, iDrive will take a while to read a large library from USB the first time. In my case, it took more that 30 minutes of driving before everything loaded (about 18K tracks). But after the first scan, it will generally populate with about 30 seconds of restarting the car and resume playing from where it left off.

[SonD]

Carbo, Thank you for that information - it all makes perfect sense to me.
I will have a 512Gb stick, that will be fairly full by the time im done with loading albums, no playslists as I tend not to use them. I'm somewhat OCD regarding to metadata & album artwork, it all has to be perfect for the music server I use in any case. They are all flac in minimum 16/44, so should be good to go.
I do not use apple music other than whatever gets put on my phone for now, and that is always done manually, as they managed to make such a mess of it all over the last few yrs.
Quite used to how long it takes to put everything in order for the library, it's a bit of a pain when you add new stuff and it has to do it all again..
I will probably run with a USB C permanently in the glove box slot then by the looks of it.

[SonD]

Quick question - does O/S system 7 have a 'shuffle' facility to mix tracks off a USB stick?
Would help me making endless playlists .