Automatic Music Playback with iPhone

[GiefHammer]

I'm losing my mind almost every time I turn the car on. The car decides to automatically play the first song in the alphabet on my iPhone 5 when ever I turn the car on and the phone is plugged in. I would love this to be a setting I can turn off such, a "Continue Playback" option. It's so annoying because it automatically selects the phones music catalogue no matter what mode Im previously/currently listening to, ie. Radio, or Spotify. It just changes over automatically and plays the same darn song on the list. I now hate Mumford and Sons' "After the Storm" because of it. I've tried many ways to remedy including being told to play an album all the way through until playback has stopped, so that the phone isn't in the middle of playback. But as soon as I plug in the phone again, it has a mind of its own and playback begins in the all songs section of my phone. Ive also noticed repeat is automatically turned on for some reason as soon as I plug in, so even when a song is completed, repeat mode just starts it over again. Im not sure what's not working correctly, the phone or the car, but Im guessing the car. Anyone else loosing their minds with this? I really don't want to have to result to deleting all the music off my phone. Thanks!

 

[jadnashuanh]

Check the BMW website to see if there is newer software for your car. If there is, download it to a USB drive's root directory and load in the newer software. Other than that, complain to BMW, and it may get fixed in a future s/w update. I don't use it to be able to tell you if there is a setting that would resolve your issue, but try to update the car first.

 

[Vach]

Do you normally run playlists? Or?

 

[stumbledotcom]

I know exactly the behavior you're talking about. The problem isn't with BMW, it's Apple. The iDrive and stereo simply act as external controller/display, and speakers. Playback (decoding) happens in the iPhone/iPod.

I keep iPods in both my cars. When the iPod is plugged in or restarts, playback automatically begins with the first song alphabetically ("Abandonded Masquerade," Diana Krall in my case). I switch to a playlist then the iPod resumes playing from the stopping point when the car starts up as long as the iPod remains connected to USB.

Sounds as if your iPhone is resetting your Music (iPod) app when you take it out of the car so it's losing track of what was playing. Not sure how to change that. Frankly I've given up using the iPhone for audio playback in the car because iOS 8 has so many bugs in Bluetooth and Music.app. Just not worth the frustration.

I suggest using an iPod you can leave Plugged in, copying tracks to the internal HD, or playing from a flash drive.

 

[Boatguy]

Frankly I've given up using the iPhone for audio playback in the car because iOS 8 has so many bugs in Bluetooth and Music.app. Just not worth the frustration.

I suggest using an iPod you can leave Plugged in, copying tracks to the internal HD, or playing from a flash drive.

First, I use an iOS8 iPhone in both an i3 and 2011 Mercedes, and the three year old Mercedes bluetooth implementation is much better than BMW's. However, the most recent firmware update for the i3 entertainment package (customer installable via flash drive) did improve things quite a bit.

I see the same behavior with the iPhone defaulting to the first song when listed alphabetically, but in the absence of any active playlist, where should it start? If there is an active audio app or playlist, it will start with that. For example I frequently listen to the audio version of the Economist and it will smoothly start/stop that app as I get in/out of the car all day, picking up wherever I left off, so long as I don't activate another audio app (Podcasts, music, etc.) in the interim.

 

[Vach]

The issue you are describing, now that I have a better grasp of what is going on, is due to your iPhone having a different stream of sound input into the audio output some point in between when you leave and get back into your car.

Since iOS 7, the iPhone (and any other iOS device) will output the audio stream of any app that runs as an audio source through the main output stream. This means the audio from that app becomes your "music" at the moment, and it "forgets" where you were on whatever music you were listening to before. It's a good feature for the streaming system they [Apple] are striving for but becomes incredibly annoying when dealing with external audio systems.

Due to this, when you plug in via USB, if it is an audio source that doesn't communicate a way the phone likes, it just defaults to "all songs, non-shuffle." You can test this by running a YouTube video and then plugging your phone into your car — you'll see the video name in your "entertainment" list as the "current track."

I combat this by defaulting my phone to "shuffle all" songs, and putting shake to shuffle so I can just shake the phone so it shuffles if I'm stuck with the A song. And I made the first song in my list alphabetically a 2 minute stream of silence with a name all in caps, so I can see it.

Sounds like something I shouldn't have to do, but it's the price of having a smartphone that's also your music player. A price I am OK with paying, but some don't like to do it.

 

[roofless]

FWIW, when either my wife or I connect our iPhone in the i3, it starts playing all songs randomly, which is what we want. I was actually surprised to see this behavior, because when we play music on the iPhones outside of the car, it's always from a playlist, so I would have expected the i3 so play from the playlist.

We would have used a permanently-connected iPod as we did in my wife's previous car, but the iPod (an old one) doesn't work at all with our i3. Interestingly, the same iPod did work with the i3 that we test drove, but that i3 had the Technology Package, which we don't have.

Another data point: My wife's i3 went into to service yesterday, and they gave us a Toyota Corolla as a loaner. The Corolla has a USB connection, so I hooked up my iPhone, and like the i3, it started playing all songs randomly. This morning, when I drove the Corolla for the first time, is started playing all songs in alphabetical order (I had disconnected the iPhone in the meantime), but I switched it to random on the car audio system. After that, I was listening to a playlist outside of the car, and the next time I drove it and connected the iPhone, it started playing the playlist (from the beginning). The next time I drove the car today it resumed playing the same playlist from where it left off. I then switched over to all songs (on the car audio system) and it started playing all songs randomly again. Each time I left the car I took my phone with me. The moral of the story: The iPhone apparently has a mind of its own