The Number One Reason Why I Will Not Buy A BMW….. They Now Charge For Apple CarPlay In Canada
You might recall that BMW started to charge for Apple CarPlay in the USA (and before you ask, Android Auto is a no show on BMW vehicles). Then the problems with a subscription setup became clear when an outage with BMW’s Connect Drive systems left people without access to CarPlay. Well, that less than brilliant idea appears to be coming to Canada as the BMW ConnectedDrive website now has these two options if you want CarPlay in your new BMW here in the great white north:
- 12 months (1 year): $100 CAD
- 240 months (20 years): $400 CAD
Cleary the $400 option is the one that you should go for if you plan on keeping your car for more than four years. But why should you have to pay for CarPlay at all seeing as Apple provides any car company who wants CarPlay everything they need for free? And other luxury and non luxury brands serve it up across most if not their entire lineup effectively for free to consumers. Thus this move by BMW Canada really seems beyond stupid, If they want tech savvy people like myself, loyal Apple users, and millennials with the cash to drop on an 3 Series or an X1 or X2 to give their brand a pass, this move will do it as it will send them to Mercedes Benz, Audi, Genesis or even Lexus who held out from providing CarPlay in their cars until they finally figured out that they were on the wrong side of that argument.
Face it, BMW Canada has shot itself in the foot. And one has to wonder how much bad press that it will take before they realize that this is the wrong decision and change course.
July 26, 2019 at 10:27 am
My wife’s BMW had a service light on. She took it into the dealer, they said it needed brakes and a bunch of other stuff. She took it too another place for a second opinion, the brake sensor was out of alignment and she did not need brakes for at least 5K on the front and 10K on the rear. Now, this is a dealer story, but $1400 not spent now.
December 18, 2021 at 9:27 am
[…] this does for me is ensure that I will never purchase a Toyota product. Just like I removed BMW off my list of cars that I would like to own. And I am going to go out on a limb and say that many other consumers will feel the same […]