superswiss

I've had a loaner A3 quattro for almost a week and have been enjoying the updated MMI. BTW, neat little car. Didn't realize Cortana wasn't working if using the standard Bluetooth mode. I'm not using Cortana a lot when driving. As far as I know, Windows Phone is the only mobile OS that offers an alternate mode for Speech over Bluetooth if the standard mode isn't working. BTW, with the upcoming update for Windows Phone 8.1, Cortana will add herself to the address book and then you can simply press the button on the steering wheel and say "Call Cortana" to activate her while driving. You can install the preview if you want this feature now.

Here is how to use Cortana in your car with Bluetooth | Windows Central

cgoldwein

I am all but set in my mind that I'm going to buy a new A3. (I currently have a 2000 A4 1.8T.) However, this Siri challenge has me a bit surprised. Can you make calls through Siri? Can you answer calls that you receive easily (through the Bluetooth interface in the car?) If I can place and answer calls easily, then I'm comfortable. I don't need to be able to ask Siri about my calendar or the weather...

superswiss

You don't need Siri for any of this. You can receive and place calls through the MMI w/o invoking Siri. To make a call you simply press the voice button on the steering wheel and say "Call <name of contact>" or you can dial a contact from the directory using the MMI controls. To pick up a call you simply press the right scrolling wheel or use the MMI controls. Using Siri for any of this is more cumbersome, because you have to activate Siri by pressing the home button on the phone. Much more convenient to just use the voice recognition and phone functionality built into the MMI that works with any Bluetooth enabled phone. Siri, Google Now and Cortana in the car are convenient to have them read incoming text messages and let you respond to them with your voice or check your calendar and what not. You don't need Siri to check the weather either. The MMI through Audi Connect can tell you the weather w/o messing with your phone.

arU4ic

Um, except when you tell MMI to 'Call Wife' and it lists every contact and tells me to pick a number or calls my ex-girl friend from high school.

Oh, or this one, 'Play Mumford and Sons' and it gives me directions to Guam.

Yeah, who needs Siri.

superswiss

My response was in regards to telephony functions and I stand by my answer. I didn't say Siri was useless. It's very useful to control non-telephony functions on your phone, but to operate the telephony functions you don't need Siri. Your 'Call Wife' example would be a case of somebody not reading the user manual. All you have to do is assign the proper voice tag to your wife's contact information in the MMI and then you can say 'Call Wife' w/o the MMI calling your ex-girl friend from high school. This is no different from having to tell Siri who your wife is before you can say 'Call Wife' and Siri knows who to call.

EDIT: Well to my surprise it appears that Audi eliminated the voice tag feature from the 4th gen MMI in the A3. Now that sucks. In my RS5 I can pull up a contact from the directory, press the voice button and say "Store Name", then assign a spoken name to that contact such as "Wife", so that I can then say "Call Wife". That's disappointing. I'm starting to dislike a number of changes they made in the 4th gen system. They reorganized some stuff into a less intuitive structure and seemed to have eliminated some global voice commands.

arU4ic

Don't sweat it Swiss, I wasn't being snarky at you, just the MMI. I apologize for it, just can't believe how slow Audi has gone on the MMI voice command tech, then to take Siri away seriously pissed me off.

Yes, I was going to point out the voice tag bye bye, you beat me to it.

Cheers.

rwaldum

I partially fixed this issue by performing a settings reset on my iPhone: in settings app, under general / reset: reset all settings.

This will reset most system settings and auths for apps (allow access to camera) but fixed quite a few things for me.

Also forget the applicable Bluetooth device (on iPhone and MMI) And re-pair

I can now stream music to the Audi MMI via Bluetooth and press and hold iPhone home button to activate Siri. I assume it uses the iPhone microphone but voice feedback is streamed to MMI.

Voice dictation for SMS also works.

I have not tested it using Audi MMI connect cables.

Ps I drive an Audi A3 2015.

TorinTPG

This is why we need Android Auto and Apple Car (or whatever they call it)

love2ski

Thanks for info. I'm curious, what version of iOS are you running?

arU4ic

Do you have Navigation? I am pretty sure you're using the iPhone mic.