Apple is aware there’s a significant issue with iPhone 15s breaking when attached to the charging pad on some modern cars, according to a report from MacRumors Wednesday. While the company has yet to make any public statement regarding iPhone 15 becoming bricked when plugged into some in-car chargers, Apple is reportedly working on some sort of fix.
BMW drivers have been complaining for months that their wireless charging pad inexplicably disables the NFC capabilities on iPhones. Car owners on Reddit, Twitter, and on MacRumors forums say while charging their iPhone 15s with the in-car charging pad, they would find they couldn’t access any features from their Apple Wallet or use the phone to open their car.
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So far, Apple has been completely mum on this issue. Yet the company is apparently aware there’s a problem and is working on a fix. An internal Apple memo shared with authorized service providers says that “a small number” of newer BMW and Toyota Supra models would “temporarily” disable the iPhone 15’s NFC capabilities, though the issue apparently lingers even if users reboot their phone, as reported by MacRumors.
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BMW’s customer service is reportedly telling customers to avoid charging their iPhone 15 in new vehicles, according to German news site Heise.
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Gizmodo reached out to Apple for comment, but we did not immediately hear back. We also gave BMW a ring in case the carmaker had anything to add, and we’ll update this post if we hear more.
Users claimed the issue would give them an “Could Not Set Up Apple Pay” message when opening their Apple Wallet. In the meantime, it’s best for any iPhone 15 user to avoid putting their device in a BMW charging pad until Apple comes out with a patch.
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The reported update was not found in the latest iOS 17.1 update released Thursday, so any OTA aid will need to come sometime down the road.
In the meantime, MacRumors says Apple-certified technicians are being told they can use Apple Service Toolkit 2 software to try and restart the NFC chip. If that doesn’t work, they’ll need to open it up for a full hardware repair.
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Apple has a pretty poor track record of communicating with users when there are issues with their devices. The company took several weeks to finally own up to an iOS issue that was causing iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max devices to overheat. The company initially tried to claim the issue was with overtaxing the phone on startup, but the company still had to release an October patch to fix issues with some apps and in iOS itself.
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