I may not like this as I am an Android user for many reasons but I was considering to get an iPhone as soon as my F30 would come in, simply because BMW doesn't seem to fully support Android when it comes to the full functionality of the Apps. Or so at least it appeared to me.
So yesterday I was doing some reading on what plans/provider/etc would be the best to go with if I did hop onto the iPhone bandwagon. I also looked up information regarding the snap-in adapters and several other things. When, all of a sudden, I stumbled on an older post on the bimmerfest forums.
One of the posters (thumper_330) mentioned that he had a second hand iPhone 3GS (which are quite cheap nowadays if you get them 2nd hands) in his car in the snap-in adapter and had it set to WIFI only. He did not have any subscription or anything else for this phone.
Now, what he did instead was, he downloaded an app for Android called
Tasker and gave it several rules so that when his Android phone (his regular phone) was hooked up to the Bluetooth of his car and connected to a power source (USB car power under the armrest), it would active the mobile hotspot within his Android phone and his iPhone 3GS would automatically connect over WIFi. When he would take his Android phone off the power source or away from the BT, the tether would automatically disable again.
He stated that this gave him full functionality over the BMW Apps while not having to give up his Android phone. He also stated something about ios5 on his iPhone and that he could actually sync his iPhone with his iTunes computer through the home WIFI whenever it was parked in the garage, which is indeed a nice additional feature. And, and this is also quite nice, since he now has WIFI within his car, any laptop or tablet can also connect over to the internet over that same WIFI tether.
So this morning I have downloaded the tasker app, I played a bit with it and can confirm, as far as automatically enabling the WIFI tether goes, this does indeed work. However, since I am not in the possession of a iPhone 3GS, or the BMW F30 yet, I cannot confirm the last steps needed in this process (meaning if the full functionality of the BMW Apps is indeed activated by doing this).
If this does indeed work, I will not get the latest iPhone (or iPhone 5 when that comes out) but will opt for a new 4G (speed!) Android phone and a second hand iPhone 3GS instead (or iPod Touch, which would actually be even nicer to have IF this would work with full functionality but I have no clue about that (can anyone with the F30, BMW Apps and an iPod Touch confirm this perhaps?), I don't even know if the iPod Touch would fit in the Apps snap-in adapter lol).
Again, I cannot confirm the BMW Apps can indeed be used to it's full potential through this but it would make sense if it did. Also, Tasker can prove to be a bit confusing when you never used it before so, if people are interested in this approach but have no idea how to set this app, I can make a photo tutorial for that in the next post (which I will reserve for this purpose) a bit later, just let me know here if so
