[ZippySLC]

Just picked up a 2015 435i with iDrive 4.2 and the HK stereo. I came from a car that had Ford Sync 2 and I'm a little surprised at how much better it is with playing music off my iPhone. Maybe I'm doing this wrong.

I generally listen to albums, so previously I would say "Play album <album name>" and it would play. In the BMW, if the voice commands even register correctly I still have to use the iDrive knob to actually start playback. The car matches the album (usually not) and then just sits there. Like, you found what I was looking for, why not play it?

I find myself using Siri more and more to pick media which seems counter-intuitive for a car that has supposedly indexed the media on my device and knows how to access it.

Is there any quick way to pull up a list of album artists, scroll through until I find the one I want, see their albums, and select the one I want to play? Does iDrive 4.2 even have the ability to set shortcuts, or do I just dig through layers of menus?

I love the car but wow, this just seems overcomplicated. I'm 99.9% sure I'm going to get Bimmer-Tech's Carplay MMI when it comes off backorder.