Why does Siri bluetooth connection in 2008 Toyota Prius with iOS 8 terminate outgoing call with message "call terminated by network" on Prius screen

I was just reporting results of an official bug I filed. Those of you who think this is not helpful or that I "just don't get it"- well, I have to disagree. This gives real information about the cause of the failure and when they intend to fix it.

@Dbouton - I really don't care if you buy it, or switch to Android. They intend to fix it, and soon.

Folks, I am just the messenger. None of you filed an official bug, did you? And I am not an Apple fanboy, as someone charged. Go look at Macintouch and what I have posted there. Sheesh.

Nathan,

FWIW, I truly appreciated your contribution to this thread and wanted to thank you for the time taken to file the bug report as well as reporting back to the thread: it's the first time that I heard a logical explanation as to the root cause of this issue. You've never come off as a fanboy, just the messenger.

To Those Venting in this Thread and Blaming Apple,

Apple has already identified the issue and they're working on it for the upcoming iOS 8.2...not sure what else you want. As far as blame-placing, there's no doubt that Toyota had a bugged Bluetooth implementation a few years back (a bug that they since fixed, so yes it was their issue) that sent one or two spurious hangup commands, commands that previous versions of iOS and all versions of Android ignored (likely just as an oversight due to the timing or whatever). Apple devs thought they were doing the right thing in implementing a version of iOS that respected all hangup commands coming from a vehicle, but this fix had an unfortunate and unexpected side effect when it encountered this particular series of bugged Toyota vehicles.

To their credit, Apple identified the problem (thanks in large part to Nathan's bug report, I suspect), realized that there was no way that Toyota was going to fix it, and has now implemented a fix that's already in late beta, one that takes this old Toyota bug into account, essentially re-implementing the iOS bug that existed in previous versions (and in current versions of Android). Again, not sure what else you want from Apple.....it's a weird scenario that only affects a relatively small and aging subset of the car market, and I think they tracked it down pretty quickly. It's only been three months since iOS 8 debuted, which is not a long time when you're dealing with something as complex as a mobile OS.

And for those that think Android quickly fixes their bugs, I personally identified a serious IMAP bug in Android back in 2009, and guess when they solved it? NEVER. So let's please stop casting aspersions and just have a little patience while the devs do their thing. And if you're dying to use Siri in your car in the meantime, a cheap Bluetooth headset is an instant workaround for this issue.

Thank you JohnDCCIU. Finally someone who isn't just flaming and understands the situation. You put it correctly - Apple has to work around a Toyota bug and not break Siri in other cars.

So is there any way of knowing when 8.2 will be out?

And BTW - it may indeed have been because of the bug I filed that it will be fixed. Tech support had me generate logs when the Siri non-call happened and send them in with my bug report.

iOS 8.2 has been in its third beta release to devs since mid/late December, so my guess would be sometime this month.

Any dev that has access to 8.2 is under an NDA. Even if such a dev happens to have access to an affected-year Toyota and tests it with the 8.2 beta, they're apparently respecting their NDA and not telling, at least not that I've heard.

My guess is that we won't have to wait too long to find out either way with the production release of 8.2. And in the meantime, in addition to the BT headset workaround, this is pretty much the very definition of "First World Problem". 😉

This is a very good response. Combined with Nathan's postings it makes the picture more clear. My problem with this is I didn't and still don't know how to best direct my communication with Apple to get the most effective results.

I have been in other support communities where representatives of the company occassionally read the postings and make comments. It didn't seem like Apple was listening.

I thank Nathan for his posting because it did put some credibility that there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Hope but not proof, though.

However, as an Apple customer it is confusing to learn about the bug report through the back channel on this discussion board. Would like to hear things from someone who is authorized by Apple to do so. Again I appreciate Nathan drawing this to our attention but how do we know Apple wasn't already aware of the problem but simply leaving us in the dark?

JohnDCCIU's your comments sound promising but how do we know you have the authority to make them? Are you an Apple employee? What is your source of information? As far as I know, that Apple is fixing the problem in 8.2 is just hearsay.

How do you know we represent a small population of car owners? Do you have statistics to prove that? Apparently all 2007, 2008 and 2009 Toyota Vehicles with the factory bluetooth system are affected. Toyotas last a LONG time. That has to be a LOT of vehicles.

Sent from my iPad

Whoa, whoa, whoa, John, nice, but jumping in to this discussion Dec 29 clearly you have little of our history and none of our frustration. Nathan first posted in this forum on Dec. 18th, a mere 3 weeks ago, so his is not much greater. I and others have been dealing with this for over 3 months. We have spent HOURS individually on the phone with apple, filing bug reports , elevated to engineering, texting logs, from our cars, on our devices, endless resets, backups, installations, call backs received, solutions promised, version after version since Sept 24th in my case, as long or nearly so for others.

I appreciated Nathan's post that v8.2 is coming but what I didn't appreciate was taking the onus off apple to repair this ongoing problem. In this I feel the same about your post John. I sincerely appreciate the detailed update you provided in reference to the latest developments and builds, it is great to know apple is still actively working on the problem. But as for the rest of your post it only invites more discord, is disrespectful of the earlier contributions of myself and others, and potentially counterproductive in that it gives apple a free pass for the previous 3 months (which despite what you said is way too long).

And what could possibly be your motivation for attempting to minimize the problem further by saying, it "only affects a relatively small and aging subset of the car market?" It is hardly a small subset, these are some of the most popular cars on the planet, within the US alone millions of units. Aging yes, but they'll be on the road with apple customers in them far beyond this generation of iPhones. I'm only calling you out on this one statement but there were others as well that give me pause, you like Nathan spent much of your post making excuses for apple.

I have 6 iphones, 2 vehicles, a wife and two daughters directly affected by this bug, so I have one motivation, to get this fixed as soon as possible with no excuses. Particularly frustrating are the 6 and 6+ I purchased. John, what vehicle and phone do own because oddly you failed to mention them?

I can only hope AGAIN the solution really is forthcoming but if it doesn't happen, please don't make any more excuses for apple it's counterproductive if you like us want to get the problem fixed ASAP.

Don't worry apple has not been in the dark and the "official bug report" is no big deal, just most customers are not aware of it and shouldn't need to be. It was good Nathan took the initiative to do it recently but months earlier, when we called in, they asked all the pertinent questions in the report. In my case as I'm sure others, they were able to go beyond the report as I was sitting in the car connecting and disconnecting the phone and giving them realtime feedback

Bad news.

Apple closed the bug today, saying this:

*********************

Engineering has determined that this is an issue for a third party to resolve based on the following:

This issue is very specific: Dialing a call via Siri in a Toyota Prius fails. It also fails in many other Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

The car head unit sends a "hang up call" command erroneously when the iPhone starts dialing the intended number that Siri has processed from the voice request. Naturally, iOS responds by hanging up the call, because it cannot discern an intentional "hang up call" command from an unintentional command. It worked correctly in iOS 7 and potentially earlier releases purely out of luck and timing.

The decision has been made that Apple will not implement a workaround for car head units that violate the Handsfree Profile specification when that workaround is quite likely to create other problems for car head units that do NOT behave improperly.

This problem is for Toyota and the head unit manufacturer to resolve. Apple has informed them of this issue already.

We are now closing this bug report.

***********************

I suspect that Apple intended to fix this in 8.2, but could not come up with a solution that did not break other cars' bluetooth stuff. Whether this is good or bad engineering, I cannot say.

Does Toyota *ever* update software like this in the Prius? I suspect not.

Thanks Nathan for letting us know.

But to all you gripers, now I hate Apple for this too. ;-) IMO that's a very bad decision by engineering; I understand the need to stick to specs, but this is not the time or place to cite the spec, but rather time to shaddup and code a workaround. Obviously things were fine with the previous (unintended) workaround, so it's already proven that it's not going to cause any widespread disruption.

Looks like there's going to be a lot of Android owners among 2007-2009 Toyota owners soon. Silly Apple.

It's too bad that they closed the bug report. It's hard to believe that the Bluetooth problem is so black and white and they can't have it continue to work with older systems and new ones on the same operating system.

It still works on iOS 7!!! Very disappointing that iOS 8 brought the end of hands free dialing on my 2007 Prius

JohnDCCIU,

I suspect, and can't prove, that there was more going on behind the scenes. They couldn't figure out how to make Toyota work and also everyone else. Now maybe they didn't have the ace team on it or maybe these timing problems are just really nasty. Who really knows? They intended to fix it for 8.2 and something made it not work. I certainly won't be switching to Android just because of this.

Now are any of you going to pressure Toyota to fix it now that the source of the problem is known?

Well, I'm probably not buy a Toyota/Lexus product again. I have a Lexus RX 400h (2008). Besides crappy voice recognition, door molding falling off, rattling in the steering column Ina 6 year old vehicle with 70000 miles (and my complaints to the dealership not being addressed) then this problem! Why would I buy a Toyota product again?

Sent from my iPad

Nathan,

Unfortunately, this is a showstopper. Please understand the last thing I want to do is change to a different kind of phone. I have my iPhone, my iPad and my 3 Macs nicely integrated together.

However, hands free calling trumps. The value to me of hands free calling is greater than the value of all my iPhone apps combined. Not having it for a month has taught me just how important this feature is to me.

While I appreciate the heads up I'm not going to dump my iPhone until I see an official document from Apple confirming the situation.

I don't know if the firmware in the 2007 Prius can be updated. Whether it's Apple's fault or Toyota's fault doesn't really matter to me. What matters is I can't place hands free calls. While Apple's arguments are persuasive we haven't heard Toyota's side of the story yet. There may be more to this than meets the eye.

It is extremely frustrating that all of this could also be solved by Apple bending the rules and allowing us to go back to iOS 7. I find it hard to believe that this is not technically feasible. Just lack of flexibility on Apple's part. The problem was known to Apple long before I upgraded to iOS 8. If they had alerted iPhone owners of this problem I wouldn't have upgraded.

For the record I've been on software development teams before and seen closed bugs reopened...