As if the overheating issues on the iPhone 15 weren’t concerning enough, the recently released phones, especially the Pro and the Pro Max, may have another problem that has surfaced in the past couple of days. Some consumers have reported that using the wireless charging pad in BMW cars can cause the NFC chip on their phone to break, reportedly causing the phone to stop working altogether.
Multiple BMW owners have reported seeing a “Could Not Set Up Apple Pay” error message when attempting to charge their iPhone 15 in their car. A faulty NFC chip also means that users will not be able to utilise any ticket saved in Apple Wallet or use their phone as a digital car key. Apparently, the handset temporarily goes into recovery mode, and rebooting or resetting it doesn’t help at all.
These issues were first reported in the forums of MacRumors.com and also on Twitter/X.
While the overheating issue with the iPhone 15 appears tied into an iOS 17 bug, note that wireless charging tends to make your device hotter than when it is being charged via a cable. On top of that, if you’re in a car and the weather’s warm, that’s going to add a bunch of extra degrees to your phone, too.
From what the complaints suggest, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are the only two models that are being affected by this bug. However, we’d also recommend all iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus users steer clear of charging via their BMWs. Several BMW models are said to be causing this, including the X5.
We have reached out to Apple and BMW for comment on the situation and will update this article when they get back to us.