New 2015 Audi S8 owner question about AMI/MMI
 

My 4+ month search for a S8 finally paid off and I found a 2015 Audi S8, well maintained, 1-owner, Phantom Black on black.

So now I need some help with something I thought would be simple to sort out since there’s a TON of info on this subject, AMI/MMI.

The car came a 4F0 051 510-AL yellow grommet cable which supports album art and video. The problem with this cable is it doesn’t work with my iPhone 6S while it is in its Outer Box. This cable was clearly designed to be used with a case-less iPhone, with a lightening connector.

My understanding is the USB cable won’t recognize a iPhone, only USB sticks and drivers, so connecting a longer lightening cable to it is apparently not an option.

So far, Bluetooth streaming works fine but it doesn’t support Album art. While using Bluetooth, you are also not able to browse through songs/artist and playlists like you can when connected to the 4F0 051 510-AL cable. But the factory Bluetooth does also have the advantage of working with streamings services like SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, etc.

So for now, I'm using Bluetooth, with a USB adapter plugged into the 12-volt connection in the cupholder area to power my iPhone. However, my preference is a magnet iPhone mount on the air vent to the left of the display, but I’m at a loss of how I would get an AMI compatible cable connection to this location. My goal is to both power/charge the iPhone as well as provide connectivity to the MMI at this location.

Is it possible?

Also related question, am I missing out on anything with this software version shown?


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Easy...and perhaps not what you want to hear.

I gave up on the idea of tethered actual phones years ago. The approach is really still just a variant of the obsolete phone booth ginormous hard wire "car phones" of 20 years ago. But, the cord does make sense for best music fidelity. But I think the one phone does all in the real world is sort of like the one kitchen device does it all. Microwaves make lousy pizza warmers and toast, and toasters make lousy...

Net: get an iPod or an old phone. That's your slave player. They are dime a dozen, whether eBay, or someones' cracked screen crap phone thrown in a drawer, or the sea of old ones literally given to their kids, or whatever. Then you write the music to it, connect the cable, throw it in the cubby and never look at it even month to month. By contrast the other has the cable hassle like you identify, then 1 in 10 times you leave it in the car and swear when at your desk, restaurant or whatever and waste time retrieving. Or, gets left in plain sight and theft target, etc. Cable eventually wears and gets finicky. can't use case as you mention, etc. etc. etc.

My 2015 S8 hook up is currently a high capacity iPod to the cable. Previously it was a retired iPhone 5S. That one migrated to the Golf R. It just mirrors the same music written to my iPhone in my pocket. But since it is corded to the car, fidelity is better than A2DP bluetooth, it does album art, etc. Since it doesn't need to also store my pics and videos and all that, 90% plus of the storage can go to music, which then means 320 kbps bit rate quality, hundreds of albums and thousands of songs. And, while I haven't had to do it, if I lost or broke my real phone, or left it at home, at least I would have a WiFi capable device to get by with. And my phone in my pocket still handles the phone calls, generally does not use its battery much since isn't having to play the music, and can still tie to car for streaming or something if I really want to, without bothering WiFi connect via Audi Connect as another variant.

Meantime, if you still want that in reach and view "phone," you can nonetheless have your real iphone ride along on a more modern quasi dedicated mount where you can see it, which then is for Waze and/or maybe streaming. That is basically my Golf R set up, where the slave player is in the cubby for the best music quality, but the active phone is on a nice Rennline mount right next the Nav head unit.at center console. And yeah, if I need to charge it I break down and go second world with my lighter plug charger. Oh well.

Dealer revved my MMI version BTW and I don't think that is related to your questions. Bluetooth to MMI has always been dumbed down on Audi's. My basic description of it is bluetooth mostly just gives you in album control, while corded makes it way easier cross album, switching playlists, etc. Causes me to have to go back to phone screen at times, which defeats the whole idea of integration with MMI controls.

Great post. Imma having the same issue with my 2014 A8L. I bought a cheapo mmi cord of ebay....just gets power, no data transfer. I love the idea of an older iphone - plug it and forget it - method. I will try this.

I'm actually fairly impressed with the stock Bose set up from a purely stock vantage point. My previous car had all aftermarket stuff, nothing too outrageous.

Cheers,
Randy

I bought a AMI to usb cord off amazon and plugged in a USB thumb drive into it for my stored music. Works great so far and no concerns about supplying power to it, as would be required with an iPod I am sure...

Edit: a couple of pics...

Clever

SD card?

Yep, Bose even in D3 was pretty darn good. Especially knowing since there was no B&O for first 4 years of D4--including W12--so they had to give it pretty good specs, speakers and output. I was happy with it even in D3. D4 is yet improved. Bose probably has somewhat stronger apparent bass for those who want some thump. B&0 shows in subtle ways in very finely defined notes in various tracks that draw that out. It doesn't don't blur/distort those--both high and especially low. On D4 B&O, I had to modify settings buried deeper in hidden menus to get better output from it; Audi seems to have put training wheels on the D4 B&O, maybe to reduce repair stuff or something. Without that mod, apparent output of either may seem similar to the ear, even if specs say differently.

Net, in mid mind D4 (or D3) Bose is nothing to feel slighted on if you find the right car at right price and condition.

Thanks for the guidance.

I did have an old iPhone lying around. So it, my wife’s old 16GB iPhone 5, is the iPhone music player in the car’s cubby. I also decided to move away from the vent clip mount and installed a ProClip Angled Dash Mount. IMHO it blends in very nicely.

Something that you mentioned in your reply that didn’t register with me until I started playing with this setup is that there really isn’t a reason to ever touch the iPhone 5 in the cubby after it is plugged in and setup.

I have had good amount of success using the cubby iPhone 5 with Apple Music, allowing it to use my iPhone 6s as a hotspot. This achieves what I was after, the ability to navigate thru my sync'd playlists and see the rather small album art.

My data usage is up obviously but I'm encouraged by how much data I have used so far. Since there are no more overage fees, all that's going to happen is AT&T will slow me down to 128 kbps.

I know something similar could be done using the car as a hotspot but right now I’m not sure that’s necessary. Plus this is a no cost solution.


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The setup looks great. Curious to know what you're doing for wire management for the phone on the mount. Also, which holder did you go with?

The mount is the ProClip Angled Dash Mount, item 854606, which clips into the seams of the dash, and is compatible with 2011-2017 A8/S8’s. The holder is the MagicMount Pro XL, item 100362.

To provide power, I temporarily ran a 6-foot lightening cable forward from one of the rear 12-volt outlets, tucked under the passenger side trim, to the mount. I’ll eventually tap into the fuses on the passenger side, to clean it up. That's how I wired up my dashcam, although I didn't identify a fuse on that side that powered on/off with the car.

If your using an iPhone 7 or above with wireless charging, using a magnet holder which is Qi compatible is worth looking into.