iPhone 7 Google maps delay on bluetooth

Congratulations and good job! Interesting that the rep thought (erroneously) that fixes had been implemented. He only had to read this thread (or talk to a colleague who had read it) to know that the problem remains. Also interesting that the censoring of one of my previous posts by Apple (because my suggestion that Apple might have some liability was deemed not constructive) means that someone at Apple must read all of our comments, but apparently the censors don’t communicate with the product specialists. When you do talk to Apple you might suggest that they undo the “fix” in iOS 14 that in the interest of saving battery life introduced a delay in connecting Bluetooth phone calls. Good luck.

It's a good thing you posted and mentioned that. It explains what's happening but what is concerning is that, in my situation and vehicle, the problem gets worse and worse as a trip goes on to the point after a half hour all I hear is "street" or "turn" and then literally nothing. It seems it's not just a consistent 2 or 3 second lag it's worse as time goes on. I'm planning to see this through.

The fact that I can play John Gage

Didn't finish my last sentence. The fact that I can play John Cage's blank 4 min 33 sec "Blank" audio file and while that's playing and bluetooth is selected as the audio source the directions play just fine, to me anyway, proves your point.

You have it exactly right. If a phone is playing music through a car’s speakers via Bluetooth then when a map app offers driving directions there is no delay because the iPhone is already connected to the speakers. But some older cars such as my 2014 BMW cannot play music or any other sound from an iPhone via Bluetooth but can play a phone call to allow for hands free calling. For these cars iPhone came up with a slick workaround by treating driving directions as an incoming phone call. When Apple introduced a few second delay for incoming calls to trigger a Bluetooth connection it had no effect on actual phone calls except to add a couple of seconds before you could say hello. But for driving directions masquerading as phone calls the result was to eliminate the first few seconds of each driving direction. Apple must know this;; the challenge is to get them to do something about it. Again, good luck.

Thank you very much Beatrice!!

Good luck! Don't let them talk you into re-formatting your phone back to factory defaults, resetting this or resetting that. The best thing they can do is read this thread, people have explained in depth the problems. Again good luck I hope this goes well keep us posted.

Hi expertperson: What proves the "delay" beyond a shadow of a doubt, to me anyway, are my hearing aids. My hearings aids are paired to my smartphone via bluetooth (that's how I control them e.g., volume, what hearing aid "program" I want, e.g., in a noisy room, outside, etc.) When I'm NOT in the car, and I start Apple or Google Maps guess what - NO PROBLEM, I hear every word of the direction. Why? Because, as you stated, the bluetooth connection is already established and ongoing.

The challenge is to get an Apple tech rep who is sitting in a car and not in a call centre or Genious bar.

Seriously, there needs to be an attempt by Apple to replicate the problem, rather than just offering scripted troubleshooting paths. Unless the tech support have an environment where they can test/replicate an issue, the issue will never be resolved.

Beatrice57

that is so true, a lot of the Apple reps I talk to , don't even have an Apple phone. And when I get transferred to second level and They speak with the engineers it's all about reformatting your phone.

I hope they can hear us in this thread and see the DANGER that were in with having to take our eyes off the road because of their glitch.

Colin, I believe you assume too much good faith on the part of the Apple reps, as if they truly do not understand what is causing the problem when they make useless suggestions. Apple MUST know the reason for this issue -- they introduced the Bluetooth connection delay in the iOS 14 update ostensibly to save battery life and they had to know that it would result in a delay in driving directions that come in as Bluetooth phone calls. The problem is that knowing of this problem Apple has refused to correct it, presumably because they believe the trade-off between marginally better battery life and serious problems for some iPhone users is worth it. The challenge is to make Apple change its mind.

Hello all - I agree that this problem is very important and the Apple sheets of it; it seems every time they “improved“ the operating system things get worse (such as, for example, the native mail app which they have really messed up).

But there might be an alternative way to tackle this, if anyone has contacts at Google engineering, which would be to add a setting into Google maps that would place a two second delay before the speaking part of the directions. In other words, when Google-Maps wants to tell you to turn right in 1/4 mile, the “broadcast“ of that via Bluetooth would start, but introduce a two second delay before the actual words begun to be spoken. I wonder if we could somehow try to get Google to fix this on their end by a maps update, which would overcome the delay caused by the Apple Bluetooth connection problem.

Just wanted to add data point to another affected user. I actually switched from android to iPhone because the ability to play voice navigation through the phone call channel of car audios.

I started experiencing delays as mentioned in this thread, and from the past month or so, voice navigation over call channel completely stopped working. What’s worse, as long as my iPhone is connected to my car through Bluetooth, there is no way to get voice navigation through phone’s speaker even if I unselect “play voice over Bluetooth “ from the google maps app.

I started using the google pixel phone I retired for my iPhone 12 Pro as a gps again lately.

Well, that was a disappointment. They were supposed to call at 2 PM ET - called at 11 AM ET. Told him to call back at 2 but he asked if I could give him a specific time the Maps application didn't work (sounds like the same thing they asked amayson to do). I did that and they have it. He said he's call back at 2 but never did. Sooo, I e-mailed my contact as a result of my letter to Tim Cook to let them know about the no contact and within 15 minutes I had a call back. Went over the history. She said she thought 14.5 would fix it. I told her I'd try but I was told 14.1, 2, 3 and 4 would fix it and that never happened. I just downloaded 14.5, tried it in the car and nope, didn't fix the issue. In the meantime I've had numerous e-mails from the contact as a result of my letter to Tim Cook and have at least 1 more call tomorrow.

This is going to take a while. I plan on seeing this through and I'll keep posting.