[RedStripe]

Does anyone know for e90's with the iDrive screen and a Bluetooth phone paired up, can you get a screen with a telephone keypad (the single digits 0 thru 9, *, and #) so that you can dial using the iDrive controller? I've not heard of this, but I think it would be great to have. Thanks.

I believe on the non-iDrive cars, the radio buttons turn into the single digits 0 - 9 from left to right. Does anyone know if there is also the * and # button? Thanks.

[drfluid]

With iDrive, it's nothing but just a list of numbers from 0 to 9 and *,#.
It's NOT very convenient to use iDrive to select numbers to call, because you have to scroll through the numbers only with the iDrive.

If you get to use the buttons for non-iDrive, I guess that would be better.

[silverado]

Originally Posted by drfluid

With iDrive, it's nothing but just a list of numbers from 0 to 9 and *,#.
It's NOT very convenient to use iDrive to select numbers to call, because you have to scroll through the numbers only with the iDrive.

If you get to use the buttons for non-iDrive, I guess that would be better.

Maybe, but the iDrive wins hands down IMO unless you want to be dialing raw numbers all day

[matrix]

With Idrive you can either call up your phone book and scroll trhough/select a name and press the controller to dial it, or you can dial the number by selecting the digits one at a time. I find it easy to use. After a call is established, you can even use the Idrive to select "keypad" and enter additional digits, for example , calling your voice mail and logging in with password, etc.

[silverado]

RedStripe,

As promised, here is a (bad) picture of the manual dialing using iDrive. I took it using my camera phone, which didn't excel at doing a close-up, but it should give you the idea.

The Treo 650 at the bottom is an edit. In reality, it shows my full name, which is the device's name.

[jiggax23]

i find dialing a number w/ the i-drive a bit hassling... i prefer using the voice command for dialing numbers, but still use the i-drive for calling people in my phone book. the recognition of the numbers in the voice command is pretty accurate, very seldomly do i have to repeat a number, it gets it right the first time 99% of the time.

[Gary]

I agree the voice recognition for numbers is great - gets it right first time. Unfortunately, the voice recognition for the names in my address book is pretty sketchy. It seems to search alphabetically and stop at the first match it thinks is close. Rarely gets it right unless the name is simple like "home".

[bavarian19]

I guess thats one reason its good I do not have idrive...

Most of my numbers are programmed in voice dialing though, so I just go through the voice menu...

[Keith]

Originally Posted by matrix

With Idrive you can either call up your phone book and scroll trhough/select a name and press the controller to dial it, or you can dial the number by selecting the digits one at a time. I find it easy to use. After a call is established, you can even use the Idrive to select "keypad" and enter additional digits, for example , calling your voice mail and logging in with password, etc.

With non-IDrive you can also scroll through your phonebook. Next to the 0...9 option is an A...Z option that when selected, shows you the phonebook. You select the first letter of the name you want to dial and BTW it only shows you the letters of the alphabet that contains entries in you phonebook. You then scroll through the list of names begining with that letter and select the name to dial.

[London320d]

Originally Posted by Gary

I agree the voice recognition for numbers is great - gets it right first time. Unfortunately, the voice recognition for the names in my address book is pretty sketchy. It seems to search alphabetically and stop at the first match it thinks is close. Rarely gets it right unless the name is simple like "home".

(You don't mention it explicitly, but I assume that you have iDrive)
The trick there is to reprogram your phonebook (on the phone) so that the display names are very phonetically different and are also "Pronounceable". It works very well then. Before I got my E90 a lot of my phonebook entries has abbreviations (ie Joe Bloggs' Mobile was probably JoeB Mb - all that changed once I received the car - no more abbreviations)

If you find that a particular name is being misrecognised, change the display name text to something else. I've not really has recognition problems like this unless these has been background noise in the car whilst I've been speaking the commands. (One exception is the Nav system, which keeps recognising "United Kingdom" as "the Vatican" - this is the first car I've had that has tried to make me find religion!)

I was expecting, either to need to record voice tags for the bluetooth system, or for the car to refer the voice input to the phone for recognition. I'm impressed by the way it figures out how your voice matches the text in the display name.

[Gary]

Originally Posted by London320d

(You don't mention it explicitly, but I assume that you have iDrive)
The trick there is to reprogram your phonebook (on the phone) so that the display names are very phonetically different and are also "Pronounceable". It works very well then. Before I got my E90 a lot of my phonebook entries has abbreviations (ie Joe Bloggs' Mobile was probably JoeB Mb - all that changed once I received the car - no more abbreviations)

You're right - I have i drive. As you suggest, I have reprogramed my 10 most often used numbers to easy phonetic names. For the rest, I am OK with just using the A-Z list.