Need help with iPhone phonebook transfer

Nothing to do with phones, but I have to ask. Squid's Mom? Any relation to the infamous Mystery Squid who once haunted these parts?

 

I know the 3.0 operating system will fix this with a 2010. I guess I don't know or don't remember if it will fix the problem with Gen II cars.

 

Both the phone and the car unit have to support a particular protocol. My vague recollection is it is still not going to work with Gen II, but there are people on this forum that know the bluetooth particulars pretty well. I suspect they'll show up to enlighten us!

 

Indeed, bluetooth has many (more than 25) different protocols (i.e., ways to communicate with paired devices) with still more on the way. Apple chose (for some good and some bad reasons) to support only a very limited number (4) of these on the iPhone at least until the 3.0 software due in June. The required protocol for phone book transfers to work in the current Prius is called Object Push Protocol (OPP). This is not one of the 4 Apple included. They did put in Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP). You can see this in action as the Prius reports the phone number of an incoming call that it reads live from the iPhone and of course Hands-Free Profile (HFP) so the phone does work in the car. Apple also thoughtfully included Synchronization Profile (SYNCH) which is a bluetooth implementation of the old infrared specification for contact transfer. So, if you get a bluetooth adapter for your old Palm Zire 72 you could sync away...

One likely reason OPP was not supported originally was Apple’s contact management system allows multiple phones numbers per entry and as you can see reading through the forum, that causes lots of problems as most phones and their standard vCard contact layout does not. OPP is also dumb in that it is entirely push – no syncing. The client just takes whatever is sent to it. That works great for photos and simple documents, but provides no real synchronization of contact information like is done over IMAP or other more sophisticated protocols. Such a crass way of communicating was likely considered “beneath” the capabilities of the iPhone.

As a side note, however the Prius's version of OPP is not completely standard and that is why its functionality with many phones is not perfect.

As for it working when the 3.0 software comes out in June? I’ve not seen anywhere in print where Apple has confirms support for OPP in that software. They are touting new support for the Advanced Audio Distribution profile (A2DP) so one can listen to the built in iPod over bluetooth headphones and car stereos that support it, but I’ve not seen a statement showing full OPP support. As I mentioned above, you would have to solve the multiple phone number issue to start with for it to work at all.

Several people here at PriusChat have said this will work with iPhone 3G on the 2010 Prius. No one has provided any specifics of what bluetooth protocol both devices will share to make it work, so I'm not as confident.

I guess we’ll see what actual protocols Apple suppports when version 3.0 of the software is released.

 

Someone at Toyota confirmed iphone transfer of contacts works with the Venza, which has the same new Nav/stereo.

 

1. Yes on venza
2. Based on post above, I think we still don't know if the 2009 will work with 3.0.

 

There are aftermarket stereos that have bluetooth capability, so that might be an option for some.

 

3.0 was released yesterday from Apple, I will try to see if works now. I've had my 2009 prius for a few months and have been waiting to connect my iphone. Will let you know how it goes.

 

Connect your iPhone to your computer via USB, launch iTunes and select the Check for Updates button. It should detect that 3.0 is available and walk you through the process of downloading.

I will say I am not confident that OS 3.0 is the key to getting this going, and may be a limitation of the Bluetooth in the older model stereos. The reason why I say this, I was able to pair my iPhone 3G with the Navigation system in my 2010 Prius IV NV and transfer contacts successfully before I upgraded to OS 3.0 (was running 2.2.1 I believe it was). Its worth a shot though, definitely post your results.