Can't use dial pad on car play???

[agoldman]

This is getting to be too much. So I have to pick up the phone to dial a number using carplay (a setting imposed on Apple by Ford by the way), but I can use the in car phone app to dial using that keypad? But, then on the in car app, I can't scroll the contacts list to see who I'm calling? This is just too much control and forces more dangerous if not illegal distracted driving behavior. I have never seen any manufacturer with this many safe guards on what you can do. Even older Lincoln is more liberal. So it becomes easier to just pick up your phone an pretest there is no car interface. I won't even get started in the radio and other limitations forced on us.

Of note BMW (2017+), Ford (2017+), Jeep (2018+), Kia (2018+), Lincoln (2017+), and Subaru (2018+) do this as well, and most of them also limit the keyboard

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[ChasingCoral]

I'm trying to understand what issue you are really describing. Are you trying to scroll through your contacts to make a call? If so, have you tried using voice commands? You have access to both the Ford commands and Siri/Alexa to help you with this.

 

[kdryden99]

Most cars don't allow for scrolling through contacts while driving or even dialing, you have to use voice command.
As for Apple CarPlay I can't help you there

 

[wareagle1440]

This is getting to be too much. So I have to pick up the phone to dial a number using carplay (a setting imposed on Apple by Ford by the way), but I can use the in car phone app to dial using that keypad? But, then on the in car app, I can't scroll the contacts list to see who I'm calling? This is just too much control and forces more dangerous if not illegal distracted driving behavior. I have never seen any manufacturer with this many safe guards on what you can do. Even older Lincoln is more liberal. So it becomes easier to just pick up your phone an pretest there is no car interface. I won't even get started in the radio and other limitations forced on us.

Of note BMW (2017+), Ford (2017+), Jeep (2018+), Kia (2018+), Lincoln (2017+), and Subaru (2018+) do this as well, and most of them also limit the keyboard

This is how carplay worked in my Mini. When driving, it tries to minimize distractions. You can either hit the make a call with siri button or jsut say hey siri or whatever your wake up command is.

 

[Jimrpa]

You have one of two simple choices:
“Hey siri, call John smith” / “hey Siri, dial 5551212” or,
Press the talk button on the steering wheel and say “call John Smith” / “dial 5551212”
Very simple and your eyes stay where they belong - on the road.

 

[agoldman]

I'm trying to understand what issue you are really describing. Are you trying to scroll through your contacts to make a call? If so, have you tried using voice commands? You have access to both the Ford commands and Siri/Alexa to help you with this.

My voice commands go something like this. call Mark. "so you want to go to Iowa?" pretty bad. But I do have to use it for navigating audio files on a flash drive. No other workaround.

Any list that Sync has will not scroll during driving. Ones I have tried so far (not incl setup menus etc):

traffic issue list up ahead:
contacts in connected phone
Chargers up ahead
Music song list on drive
Sirius scroll sideways works, sort of. sideways?
there are a few others I forget.

 

[Mirak]

I agree that, as nice as CarPlay is, some of the functionality seems weirdly hobbled when driving. And the voice stuff doesn’t work for me very well, either, but I haven’t spent enough time trying to learn it yet. It would be nice to have tutorials just on CarPlay and voice commands because this is the ecosystem I spend the vast majority of time in while driving.

 

[Jimrpa]

My voice commands go something like this. call Mark. "so you want to go to Iowa?" pretty bad. But I do have to use it for navigating audio files on a flash drive. No other workaround.

Any list that Sync has will not scroll during driving. Ones I have tried so far (not incl setup menus etc):

traffic issue list up ahead:
contacts in connected phone
Chargers up ahead
Music song list on drive
Sirius scroll sideways works, sort of. sideways?
there are a few others I forget.

Are you saying that neither Siri nor Sync can understand you when you give voice commands?
I agree that a lot of apps work poorly in Apple CarPlay. SiriusXM is a real s---show. It doesn't support Siri or Siri Shortcuts, and the CarPlay UI is a nightmare. Instead of the reasonably user-friendly tiles that they have for favorites in the iPhone UI, they have these stupid elongated text-filled layered menu bubble-buttons that require you to take your eyes off the road to navigate, along with small icons at the top, which you have to hit precisely (bad, bad, bad UI design).
I've never seen any of the items you list (traffic issue list up ahead, contact in connected phone, Chargers up ahead, etc), so I can't comment on them. If this is text information, I'm not sure why you'd be reading it while driving though? I can understand looking at a relevant piece of information, but not looking up, or looking for a piece of information. Like seeing that the next charger is in 5 miles. But while I'm driving along, I don't think I'm going to be scrolling through the list of chargers trying to figure out which one coming up is near a Starbucks and whether its one that I can reach before running out of battery. Perhaps I'm not getting the point you're trying to make?

 

[ChasingCoral]

My voice commands go something like this. call Mark. "so you want to go to Iowa?" pretty bad. But I do have to use it for navigating audio files on a flash drive. No other workaround.

Any list that Sync has will not scroll during driving. Ones I have tried so far (not incl setup menus etc):

traffic issue list up ahead:
contacts in connected phone
Chargers up ahead
Music song list on drive
Sirius scroll sideways works, sort of. sideways?
there are a few others I forget.

For phone dials, try just using Siri for voice commands.

 

[jhalkias]

The only issue I have run into (and maybe Siri can do this?) is when you call somewhere that has a voicemail calling "tree" (dial 1 for Ford Service, Dial 2 for sales, etc.). This happened to me yesterday and I had to pick up the phone to hit the number I needed on the dial pad.

Anyone know if Siri can select those options if you say "Dial a 1"? I didn't try that. And unfortunately, my dealer's call options just kept looping instead of sending me to an operator.

 

[agoldman]

The only issue I have run into (and maybe Siri can do this?) is when you call somewhere that has a voicemail calling "tree" (dial 1 for Ford Service, Dial 2 for sales, etc.). This happened to me yesterday and I had to pick up the phone to hit the number I needed on the dial pad.

Anyone know if Siri can select those options if you say "Dial a 1"? I didn't try that. And unfortunately, my dealer's call options just kept looping instead of sending me to an operator.

Good example. This limitation is idiotic. 99.9 percent of us will at that point, pick up our phones, fiddle with them entering the required numbers while being totally distracted. But of course we know that no one uses there actual phone while driving right? That horse has left the barn long ago, and is never coming back. They might as well teach texting while driving in driving school now. Locking us out of the car's screen functions just makes that situation worse. For me at least, Siri and hey Ford are not the answer.

All that said, this is one area where even Tesla can't do better. They don't have Carplay at all.

 

[Jimrpa]

I'm pretty sure you can't navigate phone trees via voice, either through Siri or Sync 4. Most modern phone trees either understand voice ("Press or say 1") or will dump you to an agent if they don't recognize a response. Otherwise, you may as well wait until you can stop someplace safe to make that call.

 

[jhalkias]

I'm pretty sure you can't navigate phone trees via voice, either through Siri or Sync 4. Most modern phone trees either understand voice ("Press or say 1") or will dump you to an agent if they don't recognize a response. Otherwise, you may as well wait until you can stop someplace safe to make that call.

No surprise that my dealer's phone tree is not modern. No ability to speak the number, and keeps on looping. But I agree, most allow you to do that.

 

[ChasingCoral]

No surprise that my dealer's phone tree is not modern. No ability to speak the number, and keeps on looping. But I agree, most allow you to do that.

The ability to make on-screen entries in a phone tree has been a failing of every car-integrated phone system I’ve used. Most lock you out of typing in the screen to avoid distracted driving.

 

[agoldman]

At this point I'm all for just using your phone itself while driving. I give up..

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