[German]Is there a problem with the wireless charging cradle in BMW cars destroying Apple's iPhone 15? User reports of iPhone 15 devices that were defective after wireless charging using the BMW charging cradle (the NFC chip on the iPhone 15 is defective) indicate this. According to media reports, BMW has now at least initiated a technical analysis of the matter. iPhone owners among BMW vehicle owners since currently advised to rather not use the wireless charging cradles on the vehicle.
First reports from the USA
I didn't recognized it, because I don't own an iPhone 15 or a BMW. But as of October 1, 2023, MacRumor has addressed the issue in the post Warning: BMW Wireless Charging May Break iPhone 15's Apple Pay Chip.
The MacRumors editorial team writes that "in the past few weeks" some BMW owners have complained in their own forum that the NFC chip of their iPhone 15 no longer works after they have charged the device with the wireless Qi charging pad of their vehicle. There are also such reports on X, as the following tweet shows.
Affected people have also reported on reddit.com. Those affected observe that the iPhone goes into a data recovery mode with a white screen in case of an error and that the NFC chip no longer works after restarting the device. At heise, I had read the issue on October 2, 2023 in this report, but related the whole thing to the US market.
The only thing left to do is to replace the defective iPhone 15, because functions like Apple Pay and the digital car key are handled via the NFC chip in the iPhone. For those affected, the Wallet app reports that Apple Pay could not be set up.
BMW investigates the reports
Now German site heise, among others, reports in this article that German users are probably also affected, and complains about a lack of reaction on the part of Apple. The editors of Mac & i then asked BMW and received feedback from the manufacturer that they are working together with Apple on a technical analysis. BMW's customer service is said to advise car owners to do without wireless charging in the BMW for iPhone 15 models. The device can be charged directly via a charging cable at a USB port.
Apple is working on a fix
According to MacRumors has Apple confirmed this bug in an internal memorandum. The company is working on a iOS software update to fix the issues caused be an deactivated NFC chip in iPhone 15 devices.
