Voice dialing: there has to be a better way...

[eisenb11]

Voice dialing in the current iDrive iteration seems to be pretty clunky. I'm hoping that I'm doing it wrong and someone here can show me a better way to go about it.

In my prior car, a 2008 E93 328i, here's how I would do it:

Me: Call Parents, Home.
Car: Dialing...

In my 2012 E92 M3, here's what I have to do:

Me: Phonebook
Car: Say the name of the person that you want to call.
Me: Parents.
Car: Do you want to call Parents?
Me: Yes.
Car: This entry has multiple numbers, say the one that you want to call.
Me: One.
Car: Entry one?
Me: Yes.
Car: Dialing...

There has got to be a better way to do this... Can anyone help me out?

[///M Ryder]

Nope......the only other way is to program your parents number to one of the quick keys.....Phil

[eisenb11]

Originally Posted by ///M Ryder

Nope......the only other way is to program your parents number to one of the quick keys.....Phil

Can't do that with everyone in my phone book though.

The instruction manual implies a shortcut, but I can't get it to work.

I find it hard to believe they took such a big step back in usability, when everything else appears to have been improved.

[Mike Benvo]

There is a setting in there where you can change the speech from long mode to short mode. It significantly reduces the time to accomplish whatever function you're trying to use.

Before I found that she spoke way too much!

Plus I really miss the old iDrive where you could say "Call Sally work" and it would work every time. Now it's "phonebook", "call Sally" "entry two"..

A step in the wrong direction if you ask me.

[eisenb11]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

There is a setting in there where you can change the speech from long mode to short mode. It significantly reduces the time to accomplish whatever function you're trying to use.

Before I found that she spoke way too much!

Plus I really miss the old iDrive where you could say "Call Sally work" and it would work every time. Now it's "phonebook", "call Sally" "entry two"..

A step in the wrong direction if you ask me.

Yeah, you're referring to setting the speech mode to "Short". I should try that sometime.

I'm surprised that no one caught that during testing... or tried it and realized how annoying it was.

[Ruke]

Does anyone know if the "Eyes Free" iDrive+Siri integration will be available on our cars (hopefully just an update) once it's released in mid-2013? Or is it going to be only available on the next-gen M3s?

Or, alternatively, is there any way for a driver to activate Siri over Bluetooth (i.e. reprogram the voice control button on the steering wheel to activate Siri over Bluetooth)? I'd prefer using Siri to dial a number over the CIC iDrive.

[///M Ryder]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

There is a setting in there where you can change the speech from long mode to short mode. It significantly reduces the time to accomplish whatever function you're trying to use.

Before I found that she spoke way too much!

Plus I really miss the old iDrive where you could say "Call Sally work" and it would work every time. Now it's "phonebook", "call Sally" "entry two"..

A step in the wrong direction if you ask me.

The only problem with short mode is when you need to speak an address. It's like talking in code. I find that long mode works best for address input. But I do agree that the old one worked much better.........Phil