Long road to Apple car play

[drgmt]

Well it's been a long road to activate Apple car play.

I thought I would share my experience.

It was an oversight and really thought this option was ticked from the factory! Wish I had because it's a pain to retrofit.

So here goes the sequence

1. Purchased wifi aerial and install it.

2. Decide on whether to buy from BMW or aftermarket.

3. My first attempt was to try a USB aftermarket coding option from a forum member with a necessary restore prior to each dealer visit. This didn't work.

4. Followed a suggestion to pay the dealer to upgrade my software to NBT evo Q software provisioning version in the hope I could purchase via the connected drive store. Didn't work. And basically blocked further USB activation - doh!

5. Next option - obtain an aftermarket patched FSC code to activate full screen Apple car play. Messy for a novice like me and requires reinstallation after dealer visits

6. Buy a carplay FSC code for your VIN from BMW - have coding done to switch on carplay. This is permanent and independent of connected drive provisioning. It's permanent and legit as it's tied to your vin by BMW. But it's costly.

This actually worked! Carplay active !

7. Final step was to have full screen car play coded in. This has to be reapplied if the head unit is updated.

Full screen car play finally active. I like it a lot.

So price of aftermarket full screen carplay including aerial around $150 US. Price of BMW issued FSC code to your vin plus coding and aerial around $600 US.

Please bear in mind that NBT evo Q no longer has USB activation so ENET cable is required.

You can hit up the well known coding guys on the forum for the aftermarket route. If you want to do it yourself https://fscmap.com

If you want carplay - hopefully the above is helpful.