I have been very pleased with the bluetooth integration on my 5 and used it for 4 years without incident pairing multiple phones. All functions work well and the ability to spell a last name (go to A to Z list, click on it, select the letter you want, and then scroll through all the names in the address book) is very safe and worked wonderfully. I recently replaced the car with a 7 and the address book is much weaker. Instead of being able to select the first letter of the last name you want to find and then scrolling through all names from there, you can only scroll through all names starting with A. Since I have 500 names in my address book this is a non starter. My dealer tells me all 7s do this and there is no software upgrade. HELP anyone know a way around this?? I appreciate all thoughts.
Although most of my seat time in a 7er was a week in a Hydrogen 7, my recollection is that the system functions as you describe. Keep in mind that the 7er is based on much older technology than the 5er (while the 7er was the first car with iDrive, it carried over the older nav and came with a different TCU). I guess you didn't try it before you got the car - given the major differences in technology, these are areas one might look into.