kenmataya

OK, i stand corrected, there is a global call command - chalk it up to the poor voice recognition that I had not been able to get it to work before. In regards to the phone book issue, as the previous comment indicated, the icons are useless - they're all "cell phones". All the other issues still stand.

superswiss

If everything shows up as a cell phone in the MMI, then your respective phones are not properly categorizing the phone numbers when syncing the contacts over Bluetooth and it wouldn't help if the MMI used a text description instead of an icon. It would all just say cell. I get different icons for home, work, cell and fax and it's dialing the right one. The contact addresses are also properly categorized as home or business, so that I can say "Navigate to John Smith private/business" and the navi is plotting a route to the correct address.

Sounds like both of you are using Android phones. Android has numerous Bluetooth issues and a big issue is Google Contacts itself. Android has pretty much the worst Bluetooth stack of any mobile platform and it doesn't look like Google has any interest in fixing it.

As for Google Contacts being part of the problem, I migrated off of it a long time ago, because I had issues with non-Android devices not being able to properly parse out the contact data. For example, I had issues with the entire address being put all into address line 1 instead of being broken out into address, city, state and zip and every phone number showing up as mobile also sounds very familiar. I haven't had any of these issues since I migrated my contacts, calendar and email to Outlook.com and now I'm also using a Windows Phone.

Honestly, all I can say is that the MMI works very well in my car. It is not as cutting edge as many of my other devices, but it gets the job done when I'm behind the wheel. I have had this feeling for a while. I suspect that many of the issues people report can actually be traced back to poor Bluetooth stacks in particular in Android. The Bluetooth device is actually very central to the MMI functionality, so if your phone is not playing ball, then you will have a poor experience with the system.

EDIT: Thought I amend my post with a picture of a proper functioning setup. This is what comes up if I tell the MMI to call myself w/o being specific about which line to call. For contacts that have more than one line of the same type, for example I have friends with a personal and a work cell, I store the personal cell as mobile 1 in my phone and the work cell as mobile 2. That is preserved all the way through the MMI, the first cell number on the list will always be mobile 1, followed by mobile 2, so I know the first one is their personal cell. If this is not what you are getting then I would suggest you throw your phone out the window and get one that properly syncs your contact information over Bluetooth.

superswiss

FWIW, this just happened to me today after my Lumia 920 got updated to Windows Phone 8.1 last night. I was about to curse at Microsoft for breaking my beloved Bluetooth integration, but I first decided to reboot the MMI. Lo and behold the problem was fixed after the reboot. Might wanna give that a try. To reboot the MMI, simultaneously press Menu, the rotary **** and the upper right function button. The screen should go dark and the entire system should reboot and come back in a few seconds. If that doesn't work, delete your phone and pair it again.

dscline

I do too if the contact doesn't have multiple email addresses.

superswiss

What? Are you saying your MMI is trying to call somebody's email address? Well, that would be a major fail of your phone if it syncs the email addresses to the MMI as phone #s. Email addresses I have associated with my contacts don't show anywhere in my directory. I don't know why I would want them to show. You can't send an email from the MMI after all.

dscline

Yes, just as stated in my previous post. How can you be so sure the fail is completely on the phone's part? I never had this issue when using a separate speakerphone in my previous car.

superswiss

For several reasons. First of all I'm a software engineer and deal with integration issues on a regular basis. 9 out of 10 times, the problem is the source and not the destination. The protocols (Bluetooth Profiles) involved to make this hands free integration work are standardized and documented, but it is 100% the phone's responsibility to send the data in the correct format, so that it is understood by the destination. If the phone sends an email address where a phone # should go then there is nothing the MMI can do to fix that and it will completely ruin the experience.

I've used iOS and Windows Phone with the old generation Audi RNS-E system as well as several generations of today's MMI. I've never had these kinds of issues. That's not to say it was all problem free. Both iOS and Windows Phone had Bluetooth bugs along the way, but they got fixed by Apple and Microsoft respectively. For example when I first got my Lumia 920, it wouldn't sync contacts at all with my B7 S4, but Microsoft fixed the issue in an update and it has worked ever since. I know that both Apple and Microsoft test their devices with the MMI and make sure it works, because Audi is a leader in car infotainment and Audis are popular among those who can afford high-end smartphones. Android's Bluetooth issues are well documented and are not getting fixed. At least not for phones that are stuck with an older version of Android. That's the biggest problem with Android. Most phones never get updated to the latest version of Android and it's a big reason I've so far stayed away from the platform for my own personal use. The good thing about Android is that pretty much any part of the system can be replaced, so there are several Bluetooth apps in the Play Store and in other stores that replace the built-in broken Bluetooth implementation and attempt to fix these issues. But the gist of it is, that 2 out of the 3 current major mobile platforms don't seem to have issues with the MMI.

I don't know what you mean by separate speakerphone you were using. There are two different ways for phones to connect with these kinds of systems. Either via the Headset Profile (HSP) or the Hands-Free Profile (HFP). The latter is what the MMI uses and is a lot more involved. HFP works in conjunction with a slew of other Bluetooth Profiles to make it all work, therefore it's much more involved. HSP is used by Bluetooth headsets and car systems that don't provide the deep integration with the phone's data as the MMI does. HSP is less complicated and generally is less buggy. There are occasionally issues with certain brands of headsets.

Lastly, I don't claim the MMI is a 100% bug free, but the key take away is that both Apple and Microsoft, if there are bugs seem to be able to work around them and make it all work. Google and their phone vendors don't show this level of interest. The bright star in the sky is the new Android Auto functionality, so the future of Android integration with your car looks promising, but it will require you to buy a new car that supports Android Auto and a new phone, because Android Auto will not be back ported to older versions of Android.

superswiss

Just a quick helpful link. Following is the official compatible devices database from Audi that lists all compatible devices and what part of the functionality is supposed to work with each device at least as of the firmware that they tested. Some of them were tested a long time ago, which means if the phone has received an update it either now supports additional features or possibly broke a feature that used to work. For my phone for example it still says I can't use my contact addresses for navigation, but that's no longer true. Addresses from my contacts sync just fine and I can navigate to them.

AUDI - Bluetooth compatible devices