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MINI Connected Available Starting With November Production
Ready to pull the trigger on a MINI Countryman, but waiting on MINI Connected availability? Well wait no longer. We’ve received word that MINI Connected will begin with November production of the Countryman. Likewise, the R56, R55 and R57 cars from Oxford will have MINI Connected available with December production. Are you going to wait for MINI Connected?
And if you’re wondering, our MINI Connected review is coming very soon.
<p>I’m waiting on a test-drive, more than anything else.</p>
<p>Do you know if MINI Connected will be able to be updated if a new feature comes out? Will the update be performed at a MINI dealership, or does it simply need the iPhone plugged into it? Oh, I have been waiting for this and its a very serious option for me.</p>
<p>My lease is up end of November and i have extended it waiting for Mini Connected. Does this mean I will be able to order an R56 car in early to mid November and get it in December or will i have to order it in December for January?</p>
<p>Ronald – according to my brochure updates will be available at no cost, but expansion packs may require payment. For more information visit MINI.com/connectivity</p>
<p>So, I don’t want to get myself hunted down for this comment (cough, body-roll), but I wonder what the ratio of pleased:displeased will be amongst those who bought the Countryman before actually driving it?</p>
<p>WIll there be hoards who roll back into the dealer to have the suspension upgraded? :-)</p>
<p>@ Sal. Order your car in November. Dealers allocation for December Production cars arrives at the end of October. There are people waiting in the wings for this feature. I have two clients myself that are chomping at the bit and do not want to come in until it is available.</p>
<p>Last weekend my wife put a deposit down on an MCS with Mini Connected. She waited for the 2011s; she can wait another couple months to get it just the way she wants.</p>
<p>@MatthewW: what the heck does that have to do with the topic at hand? We’re talking MINI Connected here.</p>
<p>MatthewW,</p>
<p>Two things. First, people put down deposits and order MINIs all the time that they then decide they don’t want to actually purchase. Your local dealer probably has some on the lot right now. And yes, those buyers got their deposits back. Second, dealers will have Countrymen available for test drives shortly, so there would be ample opportunity for anyone who’s ordered a car to demo one before they take delivery. They may like it, they may not, but nobody’s going to end up “stuck” with a Countryman because they ordered one early.</p>
<blockquote><p>Do you know if MINI Connected will be able to be updated if a new feature comes out? Will the update be performed at a MINI dealership, or does it simply need the iPhone plugged into it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This and much more will be answered in our review coming shortly. But to answer this one… Everything is on the device. That means updates are simply done via the app store. That’s one of the revolutionary things about this.</p>
<p>Hope the review includes info on mission control too hehe</p>
<p>@Nathaniel, thanks for the heads-up. Never had the occasion/reason to back out of an order.</p>
<p>What is the deal with ordering mini connected with convenience package? Does Bluetooth come with mini connected? Is the package less?</p>
<p>Just placed the “offical” order on my wife’s ALL4 with connected. Can’t believe we’re getting a $38k MINI, my 2003 Cooper S was just under 20k, my GP just over $30k, I guess the $50k MINI isn’t far behind. Can’t really complain about the price. I had to option it up enough so only HUD and power seats will be missed from her 2008 535xiT, and it is about half the price.</p>
<p>Where’s the promised Android support? Steve Jobs can go rot.</p>
<p>Just got a great deal on a 2011 MCS, and would have really liked a GPS like my car has now (05′ BMW Z4 3.0), but I can just get a 3rd party unit for so much cheaper, and I think the idea of a MINI is to be rather simple. That said, I got every package available.</p>
<p>@grueinthebox – why so much bile for Steve Jobs? Please consider that Android (a good OS that will keep getting better) would not exist if iOS had not been released and set a new path for smart phones and the cell industry in N.America… was on sale very start of 2007! Android did not show up for sale until nearly 2 years later. I like all tech, always have, and have never been able to grasp the outright hatred for Apple products, particularly given they are an American company with nearly 3 decades of “out of left field” innovations. But we digress… :)</p>
<p>@goat – a part of me understands where grueinthebox is coming from. I don’t hate Steve Jobs, and I don’t hate Apple. Heck, I own an iPhone, use it every day and I love it. What I can’t stand (and many people despise) is the entire “Church of Apple” mentality that the most vocal Apple fanboys (and fangirls) have. That Apple can do no wrong, that Steve Jobs is God, etc. It’s that crap that rubs people the wrong way. Most of Apple’s products are very well designed and engineered… they are just (generally) overpriced and not <em>always</em> as “innovative” as the blind sheep always seem to believe. Sometimes, but not always. The Macintosh today is a glorified PC that simply enables someone to run MacOS, which is what people are <em>really</em> paying for. Apple’s switch to the Intel platform proved that the PC had it right all along, hardware-wise. But I digress…</p>
<p>It’s very true though that Android would not exist today if Apple hadn’t broken the USA cellphone carrier’s vice grip on the devices. Heck, until the smartphone explosion (led in the consumer market by the iPhone – BlackBerries in the business market notwithstanding), virtually all Verizon phones ran a proprietary Verizon OS, instead of the OS designed by the phone manufacturer! Yuck!</p>
<p>As far as MINI Connected goes (trying to circle back around to being on-topic), I can understand many non-iPhone folks being ticked off that it doesn’t support the Android (yet), but I believe it has been well documented here that only Apple was truly willing to work with MINI to develop it, so they obviously get first cut. I’m sure that MINI ultimately wants the feature to support as wide a market as possible, so the Android support will come in time – perhaps when Google decides to get more involved (if they haven’t already started).</p>
<p>Update! I actually just ordered my 2011 MCS with MINI Connected and Oxford started building it Nov. 4th, so it looks like they’re producing the non-Countryman models with MINI Connected earlier than we thought.</p>
<p>Connected has been available for a long time! I ordered my 2011 Cooper S (Hatch) back in september with MINI Connected and it has been delivered two weeks a go…</p>