Apple

If you drive a newer BMW, you can now unlock your car with your iPhone

Alright, now do this for every car instead of expensive BMWs.

by
Kevin Raposo
July 16, 2020

Image: MacRumors

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If you are driving a newer BMW and hate unlocking and locking your car with a keyfob like some sort of caveperson, Apple has some good news for you. You can now use your iPhone to do all that heavy lifting for you.

With the rollout of iOS 13.6 and watchOS 6.2.8 that was pushed out earlier this week, BMW owners can now unlock their vehicles using nothing but their iPhone. So instead of reaching for your car keys, just hold your phone near the vehicle’s NFC contact outside the door, and you’re good to go.

The feature is called CarKey, and it syncs up to your iPhone Wallet app along with BMW’s app. Once paired, you can tap your phone on the vehicle’s door and bang, you’re in like Flynn. It’s as simple as that. You can even share your digital key with up to five people on iMessage, which is great if you’re sharing the car with friends and family.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t work on older BMWs. You’ll have to have any BMW Series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, X5, X6, X7, X5M, X6M or Z4, manufactured after July 1, 2020, for CarKey to work. You’ll also need your iPhone to be running iOS 13.6 and or your Apple Watch on watchOS 5, or later.

As to when other car manufactures will get CarKey support is a bit unclear, but if I were to guess, I’m sure more manufactures will be jumping on this sooner than later. If BMW can do it, I’m sure there’s a ton of other car makers who are capable of making this happen.

If you own a newer BMW, do you plan on using this? Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.