This morning, whilst driving to work. A miracle happened.

My full telephone list was available on the car – for the first time since I switched to the iPhone.

The car was at the garage because when the key was inserted, the car intermittently locked everything down. I was presented with an orange steering wheel with a padlock on it. Taking the key in and out a few times eventually allowed me to start the car.

I do not know what specifically this entails, but the radio did loose all its pairings.

So, 2005 330d M Sport with Bus Prof Radio is working, i do have the 2000 dummy entries as suggested by scoopz. Further reading http://blog.scoopz.com/2008/10/11/fix-for-iphone-and-bmw-idrive-address-book-not-synchronising

Fingers crossed it will stay this way. I’ll let you know how it goes after the weekend.

Interestingly, I received a 2008 325d M Sport as a temporary car, it had SatNav+iDrive so I paired my phone.

The address book worked first time.

When picking up my car and enquiring I was told that cars after 2007 should work fine but prior to that there was no guarantee. The iPhone is not on the BMW Bluetooth supported phones list.

I enquired about a Bluetooth upgrade, it was going to cost over £200 and there was no guarantee that it would work. There was also the possibility of other components of the car not working correctly and needing resolving on top of this, which would then potentially increase the costs almost exponentially.

So looks like I’m stuck until I replace my car.

Interesting that 2.2 is out later this week, although given the above, and past reading on the web – I suspect it will not make much difference. Fingers crossed.

Further reading http://blog.scoopz.com/2008/10/11/fix-for-iphone-and-bmw-idrive-address-book-not-synchronising

In summary, when the AppStore indicates that their are updates for applications, they are downloaded, and then the iPhone is synchronised. This is where the problem starts, Error 0xE800002E is then given for one or more applications, and the relevant update not applied.

iTunes iPhone sync error message 0xE800002E

The recently released 2.1 firmware doesn’t make any difference, BUT, a quick fix of

Delete the Application from the iPhone
reApply the Application to the iPhone

Will get around the problem, * BUT * this is only until the next update.

The main annoyance of this, is that the local data, like user ids, passwords etc is lost when the application is removed, so has to be re-entered each time. High scores etc, are lost with no method of getting them back without playing a game again.

Come on Apple, give this some sort of priority.

I’m not the only one, there are lots of information on the web about it:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=541871
http://forums.macnn.com/103/ipod-iphone-and-apple-tv/376631/cant-update-any-iphone-apps/
http://www.macworld.com.au/forums/index.php?showtopic=1788&mode=linear
and generally on Google…

BUT, until it is fixed, this is just another thorn in the side of what should be a good product.

[although I hear the first Android handset is out next week (at least in some countries)...maybe....]

Some further links:
http://www.macfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/450071/0xE800002E_Error
http://rupertgee.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/error-0xe800002e/
http://www.macfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/450071/0xE800002E_Error
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smenzel/2810760668/
http://www.touchfs.com/node/99
http://tech.kateva.org/2008/09/iphone-21-does-not-fix-unknown.html
http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/unknown-error-occurred-0xe800002e/

Come on Apple, get it sorted