Wow.. new owner here, loaded 2006 with 53k miles. Was working on hooking up an iPhone 4 to the car, yes it made the connection, but other than that, why did toyota make it utterly PAINFUL to use? Cannot transfer contacts at all, making a call off the speedial with voice recognition is horrible and takes waaay to long (often does not work at all), cannot use the voice recognition of the iPhone it self (i.e. call Wife....simple simple) Been doing some searching here, seems most agree with me, is it possible that Toyota has done any firmware updates to the system that I might need? Guess it will be reserved to receiving calls, or picking up the phone and using the built in dialing. My bluetooth headset (circa 2005 or 6) and Blueant bluetooth speaker phone are dead simple to operate, and work extremely well, the Prius... what a joke! Someone tell me I am doing something wrong?
My brother-in-law has an 06 and an iPhone and has had absolutely to problems. Try deleting the phone and starting over. Sometimes that works.
I don't know of any firmware updates. Not sure why the iPhone's voice recognition wouldn't work. I don't have an iPhone, but when my phone is paired, there is no change in functionality. I manually programmed 3 frequently used contacts into the speed dial, and I use the touchscreen to call them. I use the phone to dial any other calls.
Do a hard reset on the iPhone (sleep & home buttons held down together until you see an Apple logo on the screen) then try the pairing again. I've found that Bluetooth pairing can be smooth, or can be a big pain depending upon circumstances. FWIW, I've been talking to the installer who put the iPod adaptor in my 2010 Prius, and he says that iOS 4.1 has been a major challenge for the after-market car stereo/nav system industry. He's hoping that 4.2 will make the customer's and the installer's lives easier.
I have zero BT issues on my 2010. I have 3 phones paired - iPhone4, HTC Hero and a Nokia E70 and all call either from the touchsceen, voice rec or the phone with very reliable results. The fact the voice rec understands me is amazing sometimes.