Robr

Saw a deal from freedompop for a sim card for about $3 plus free limited monthly service which included something like 200MB of data. it's on the AT&T network so I installed the sim in the S3 this morning, looks like it's working but then I started trying to figure out what that got me. Far as I can tell the only feature this offers is to turn the car into a hotspot which with only 200MB of data is pointless (i use my work phone for that for the kids anyway). does it provide anything else?

s3burgh

Facelift models got screwed. You can no longer use the sim slot for audi connect, which pre-facelift people usually use for google earth maps. The new mib has an internal att sim card and you need an active audi connect subscription to get google earth. Total BS audi.

Robr

oh! it's even worse than i realized! what's the sim slot for then? just setting up a wifi hotspot? one would figure google earth would be free since.... google earth is free. i've sort of accepted audi is ripping people off on this one and moved on, just thought if i put in my own sim i could get some functionality. maybe i can find some other use for it..... lojack type device or something.

gamegenie

you don't need Google Earth to utilize the MMI Nav map, just go to settings and switch the Map view from Google to Normal and it will function as normal regardless if you have a Audi Connect subscription.

I pay $10 a month to Audi for the 1GB plan, which is sufficient for what I need as far as the full MMI Nav with Audi Connect goes, the Google Earth view is nice to have, but what's most important feature that the service provides is the Google map search, this gives the driver the most current map lookup compared to the stored map of the MMI Nav which might have an outdated map. The other stuff is on the Audi Connect menu of the MMI and I hardly go there because I seldom need to check it to find out what the weather, airline flight info, gas station discount, news, etc.

s3burgh

It actually defaults to the regular map if you don't have an active subscription for google earth, no matter which map is selected.

That $10/month plan is because you have ATT right?

gamegenie

That was what I meant by "normal" = regular style map. No Google Earth.

No this has been an option available for 2015 MY A3s on the myAudiconnect site for those without existing AT&T plans like myself.

s3burgh

And I simply said you don't need to select the normal map, even if you have google earth map selected and no audi connect subscription, it still shows the normal map.

gamegenie

That's not been my experience which is why I mentioned changing it from Google Earth if you aren't on an Audi subscription..

Typically what happens if I go over on my allotted data and leave the Nav settings set to the Google Earth map, I'm going to receive a poorly detailed map compared to the Normal map which is the Audi Nav map.

d.lee

Don't mean to hijack but I am curious to know how one would get a new SIM. I purchased a used '16 S3 and removed the SIM and misplaced it shortly after. I would like to start up a subscription to acquire the Google search/earth features.