BMW temporarily ships cars without Apple CarPlay

Buyers of new BMW vehicles may not be able to enjoy using CarPlay at first, with the global chip crisis forcing the car producer to change its electronics, but an update will re-enable support by June.

The global chip shortage is causing problems in many different areas, with the automotive industry one of the biggest victims of a limited supply of chips. In one of the effects of the shortage, a change in supplier for BMW has led to the company temporarily giving up on support for Apple's in-car platform.

The chips used by BMW for its infotainment system aren't fully compatible with Apple's CarPlay and Android Auto at the moment, reports Automotive News Europe, but an update can enable support at a later time.

"The chips built into these cars in the first four months of this year need updated software in order to be fully functional and offer Apple CarPlay/Android Auto and Wi-Fi capability," said BMW in a statement. An over-the-air update will be offered "by the end of June at the latest" to reenable support.

Not all BMW cars will be sold without CarPlay, with the company stating cars with "6P1" as part of their production code will be affected. Though BMW didn't say what markets would be impacted, the report adds customers in the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, and Spain have reported a lack of CarPlay in their purchases.

BMW first offered CarPlay as an upgrade to its vehicle systems in 2016, though in 2018 BMW intended to provide it as a subscription feature, a choice that the company backed down from the following year. BMW has also been an early adopter of Apple's newest technology, with it among the first to support Apple's CarKey.

23 Comments

rob53 13 Years · 3312 comments

About 2 years ago

What? It’s software related so why does the hardware have anything to do with it? If they can update the software later to make AirPlay work they can do it now.

Dead_Pool 8 Years · 129 comments

I’ll be so glad when the Apple car comes out. Cars are a commodity, a dime a dozen. The important thing – the jewel inside — is the software. It will be so nice when Apple controls the whole product, and we no longer have to put up with the garbage software these auto makers force on us.

sandor 17 Years · 670 comments

rob53 said:

What? It’s software related so why does the hardware have anything to do with it? If they can update the software later to make AirPlay work they can do it now.

100%

Why is the article mentioning a chip shortage when the solution BMW is proffering is an over-the-air software update "at some point in the future"?!?

BMW has an awful track record with 3rd party support & i am sure the only reason these vehicles are not shipping with it enabled is because BMW chose not to do it.

waveparticle 3 Years · 1497 comments

sandor said:

rob53 said:

What? It’s software related so why does the hardware have anything to do with it? If they can update the software later to make AirPlay work they can do it now.

100%

Why is the article mentioning a chip shortage when the solution BMW is proffering is an over-the-air software update "at some point in the future"?!?

BMW has an awful track record with 3rd party support & i am sure the only reason these vehicles are not shipping with it enabled is because BMW chose not to do it.

What it said is "The chips used by BMW for its infotainment system aren't fully compatible with Apple's CarPlay and Android Auto at the moment". So BMW used chip from a different company like Apple switching from Intel CPUs to Apple Silicon. And BMW software developer is not able to rewrite OS on time.