Q: How can I receive text messages through car bluetooth?

What do you do if the show notificaton button is not there?  I have tried everything...it's just not there

What I think most of us are looking for is the same ability as Cortana has:

When a text message comes in, with any bluetooth device hooked up that does handsfree as it's profile (no MAP or uConnect required!) it tells you about it, asks if you want to reply and if you say reply, it will accept dictation and then ask to send all completely hands free without ever having to look at your phone.

Contrast this to Siri and at best you have to press and hold the button when you see a text message flip over the screen (so you're constantly looking to see if a new notification came in) and ask her to read your messages, then she reads all of them that you haven't looked at instead of just the current one, and then you can option to reply.

Obviously Siri's version is FAR more dangerous than Cortana's. Cortana's is exactly like talking to someone in the passenger seat (a little more ackward, but no big deal and not distracting, Siri's is almost as bad as if you did text and drive yourself.

This needs to be ripped off from Cortana ASAP. It's both safer and way more functional. (really Windows Phone has supported this since WP 7 4 years ago!).

Good suggestion, but Apple is unlikely to see it in this user-to-user  technical support forum. Try http://apple.com/feedback

One point on your post; responding by voice is not exactly like talking to a passenger. A passenger can see the road and can pause when it would distract the driver; an automated system cannot. And studies have shown that talking on a phone, even hands free, or texting, even using speech to text, is distracting and significantly increases the probability of an accident. So the best advice is don't do either.

I have an iPhone 4S, the wife has an older Windows Phone 7 (or whatever the name is).

From the very beginning, her phone automatically does voice dictation and prompting of text messages.   A text comes in, her car audio notifies her, and asks if she wants to read it, then it reads it over the audio.  Finally it asks if she wants to reply, then she can dictate a message and send it...no requirement to activate anything...all seamless.

My iPhone 4S in the same car, will not do anything...(nothing to select in bluetooth settings.)

So it is not necessarily the car, it is the iOS.

I want to know, what implementation is in the Windows Phone that is missing from iOS.

I want to upgrade her to an iPhone, but we will lose that functionality.

If you can't ignore someone talking to you while you're driving then you shouldn't be driving.

Seriously the DOT's own data shows no correlation to increased accidents as a result of texting while driving for those over 25. It's only 16 to 25 year olds that show an increased risk.

The point is, people will do it whether you make it easy and as little problem and risk to do as possible or if you make it as difficult as possible as evidenced by all of the top of the heads I see driving down the highway.

This is a no-brainer.

The only way for this to work is your car must be able to pick up text messages from your phone or a text message feature  

Thank you! I've seen other references around the intertubes about "show notifications" but have until now been unable to find to what they were referring.  Now, to see if it works!

Thank you so much, that has saved me so much more time researching. I didn't realise it was that easy. My old phone had supported it however I couldnt get my 6plus to access this function. Well done on a straight forward answer to a straightforward question, should be more of it! Thank you

Hmm... I'm trying to do the same thing with my iPhone 6, but don't see this as an option when I go into the settings for the bluetooth connection. All I see in the Bluetooth options on my iPhone are these options:

• Forget This Device
• Sync Contact
  • Phone Favorites
  • Phone Recents
  • All Contacts

What settings do you have on your iPhone 6 Plus that I don't have that allowed you to get text messages read over your car's bluetooth system? I've checked settings in Notifications and Messages as well, but couldn't find anything in there that might enable hearing text messages via my car's Bluetooth system. The closest thing I can find would be to use the "Raise to Listen" feature, which would mean that when I hear a text message alert, I would have to pick up the phone and put it to my ear. Then maybe it would work (I haven't tried this yet).

When you go into your Bluetooth settings there should be an option directly under " Forget this Device" that says "Show Notifications". Enable this feature and that should be it. If this is not showing all I can think of is your vehicle's Bluetooth system does not support this feature.

I do not have an option to enable notifications under the Bluetooth settings even when my iPhone 5S is connected to the car's Bluetooth. My husband has a Windows Phone and it works fine for him - so its not the car.

It seems to only be a feature on Windows Phone and it is a good one.

I was looking at Apple or Android now that I want to replace my Windows Phone with another but this is a useful feature.

My bet is it isn't only Apple that can shut others out using patents. Points to Microsoft on this one.

wattgn wrote:

 

It seems to only be a feature on Windows Phone and it is a good one.

 

I was looking at Apple or Android now that I want to replace my Windows Phone with another but this is a useful feature.

 

My bet is it isn't only Apple that can shut others out using patents. Points to Microsoft on this one.

Strange. I receive text messages from my iPhone via Bluetooth on my car's display screen. Maybe you haven't turned the feature on?

I will test it on my wife's iPhone. We both have Ford Fiestas.

I know some car systems are designed for Apple products but this one is just bluetooth. Her one has never worked for texts but I will investigate.

We are talking reading of texts too so the Windows Phone reads the text to you over the car audio system via bluetooth and you can then send a reply via voice.

My wife and I both have CarPlay in our cars (VW and Honda), so in theory, they should be built with iOS in mind. However, neither of our iPhone 6s's has the option to enable notifications over bluetooth, and we can't get our texts to display or even be read to us over bluetooth. CarPlay helps, but you still have to look at the screen to see a text notification, and then you have to interact with the screen to get Siri to read the message to you.

We both used to have Windows Phone, and just like some of the other commenters have mentioned, the implementation with Cortana was totally seamless and hands-free.