AudiTK

I made a trip out to the local dealer to investigate what the new MMI system might be like on the Etron. Using the Q8 as the basis, I have been told that its what I should expect to find in the etron with the exception the etron will have the battery management stuff added.
I was hoping for opinions from others in an effort to confirm is this is a reasonable expectation to have.

The reason why I ask is that the MMI of the Q8 was horrible. It was locking up and having issues with responsiveness. It was also giving warning messages with legal disclaimers when you long pressed the speech button on the wheel and wanted to use Siri for example. The Audi Voice system would not let you send text messages or read text messages, so you had to use the logn press to activate Siri. A warning message appeared on the screen and would not go away until you pressed the touch screen. I found one place that allowed you to "accept" the legal agreements, but this didn't cause the warning disclaimer screens to stop appearing.

When using Carplay, you lost other features of the Audi MMI, like switching back and forth between features within Carplay, and for example the NAV in the audi.

There was tons of unclear prompts.

The sales guy was with me the whole time, and he was surpised with all the issues and prompts. He didn't understand them either.

Basically, I found the whole interface with the MMI very challenging to use.

Especially the legal disclaimers that would appear every time you went to do something with carplay.

I asked them to see if they can update the car in the showroom, and call HQ in Germany and ask for guidance in the specific things.

I was totally bummed after a hour of playing with the MMI - it didn't live up to expectations and was very hard to navigate around and use it.

Do you think the etron will me closely modeled after this Q8, like the sales guys told me, or can I expected a better system in the etron?

I know its maybe 9-10 months away and there is plenty of time to fix this, but I'm concerned... I found the system not usable and took way too munch intervention to be safe.

tk

LavaGrau_A3

I used the system extensively in an actual e-tron last month (the 12th). Car was powered on in the accessory position (so everything functioned). I didn't try Apple Car Play, but the operation was seamless and smooth. I literally spent a full :45 diving in and out of menus without a single glitch or problem. The menu structure is different, but not a hard thing to get used to. I would suggest this video to get a perspective on the menu structure .

To be honest, I have zero concerns about it (except that I wish they had pushed the boundaries a bit, big tablet style)

Tom-ETRON

I had the same experience. MMI seems to work well for me!

AudiTK

LavaGrau
Thanks for the link and sharing your thoughts on this. I had seen that Video. I should have been a bit more clear, the locking up and stuff was only while connected and using Carplay features. It was the Wireless Carplay connection. This is when the menu systems were locking and stuttering. Switching between carplays main screen and the siri screen and maps etc were all unpleasant.

I'm using the iPhone X BTW. The guy at the dealer tried his phone, and had same issues...

I asked them to see if they can confirm they have the latest version of MMI, or update it and I will try it again.

I was also running IOS 12.1.3 and so was the sales guy but he had I think an iPhone 8 or maybe 7.

It could just be an 'apple' issue. I'm not sure.

My biggest issue was the legal warning banners they insist on showing. These are the same banners as the Q7 shows, but those banners on the q8 had greyed out options and the menu language was not clear what you should do.

My whole experience could have been tainted with the frustration of the locking and stuff in car play menus. I will give it another chance before I get too worried, especial if others have not seen this type of issues with this version of MMI.

BTW, the video for the etron MMI is exactly like the q8 was for the parts he showed anyways.

AudiTK

It is starting to sound like I need to give that another try after they confirm they had the latest software. I don't think they updated the showroom Q8 at all since they got it. after reflecting on the day, I relized it may have been the iphone's new ios 12.1.3 which both the sales guy and I had installed our phones too....

I'm waiting on the dealer to call me back after they check the Q8 out, or find another one to test. I think the sales guy was going to try a few of them. I'm also going to head over the Q8 forum and see what people are saying in there.

My experience described might be nothing more then old software on the Q8 and new software on iPhone X.

Thanks for your input.

AudiTK

I found some threads that talk about similar issues and stuff
https://www.audiworld.com/forums/aud...2963333/page4/

But it also had some advice to switch over to a different 5GHz freq and apparently that has worked better for everyone using wireless careplay. I'm going to try that next time, and try a wired carplay connection and see what happens.

Either way there seems to be a significant number of people reporting the same type of issues I was seeing.

I did also learn, that there is a GPS setting that you can use to automatically bring up the garage door open button on the touch screen... apparently they don't have the buttons in the mirror anymore.... This is kinda good news actually...