I just got my 530 today! So far the car has been great. But I do have one question. How do I transfer my phonebook to the car's iDrive? I can make and recieve calls, but the phonebook does not transfer. By the way I am using a Sony Ericsson T637 so I am aware that the phone works with this car. Thank you in advance.

 

Hey, congrats on getting the new car and welcome!

It depends on whether your phone is fully Bluetooth campatible with the car. The fully compatible ones will download all your phonebook data, etc. Hormazd and others have analyzed this stuff extensively.

My apologies if you are know that your phone is fully compatible, I just know that many Motorolas are very compliant with full BT, and other company's phone are not always.

You might search other threads here too.

 

After pairing the phone with the car, the phone book will transfer automatically as you are driving your car. It will not transfer when the ignition is off as the BT connection is lost. Do not expect the transfer to be instantaneous, it will take some time however depending on the size of the phone book. It will be available after you start your car again after the transfer is complete (requires a reboot of the system to have it visible in the idrive).

The other thing that you must do is copy the phonebook on your phone to your phone's SIM card. Mine would not copy to my car until it was copied onto the SIM Card. Now updates and changes take a few minutes.

Good luck and let us know how you are enjoying the car.

 

The other thing that you must do is copy the phonebook on your phone to your phone's SIM card. Mine would not copy to my car until it was copied onto the SIM Card. Now updates and changes take a few minutes.

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I have a Motorola Razr V3 and did not have to copy the phonebook to SIM card to get the phonebook to transfer.

 

The other thing that you must do is copy the phonebook on your phone to your phone's SIM card. Mine would not copy to my car until it was copied onto the SIM Card. Now updates and changes take a few minutes.

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I have a Motorola Razr V3 and did not have to copy the phonebook to SIM card to get the phonebook to transfer.
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I think it depends on the phone

 

I have a motorola v551 and just picked up my 2005 530i yesterday 2/19/05. Able to transfer phonebook to iDrive. Takes several minutes, so listen to some sat radio

 

I have the T637 as well. Copy the phone book to the SIM and then drive around for 30 minutes. It will transfer and it's awesome.

Have fun!

 

Okay I got it working. I did not have to transfer the contacts to the SIM. All I had to do was drive for a while and it transfered. When I was testing it before, the key was only is position 1 or 2, but the engine was not on.

 

Good news. Now here's a couple of questions for you: since you didn't copy your address book to your SIM, does the phone book in iDrive sort by last name first or first name first? Does it differentiate home vs. mobile vs work numbers?

 

The iDrive arranges the name exactly how I see it in my cellphone. But then, I don't use last names on my contacts, just their first names And to answer your other question, it does not differentiate between home numbers and works numbers. It just lists all of them, but on the side it shows their phone number. That is the only way to tell the difference.