ICS on Xperia ion disappointing! voice dialer no longer functions....

[richard_lorrain]

I had it all with GB on the Xperia Ion! It even looked like ICS with SONY's customizations.

Now after upgrading to ICS the Voice Dialer is now a gutted applications.  Voice Dialer now will not activate from a bluetooth headset to dialout. This has been confirmed across HTC phones running ICS.  They are blaming this on Google since they made the change to ICS. Apparently you have to install a 3rd party app now which cannot unlock your phone so is usless.

This is something I use everyday, I am really starting to hate Google!

[richard_lorrain]

My Sony wm600 bluetooth headset and Sony xperia ion are usless in my vehicle.When will Sony have a fix or SONY app for this?

Also with ICS upgrade Google Talk has also been gutted and no longer supports video calling. Death to Google!!!!!!

[Johan]

As you probably already figured out the voice actions and Google talk are default app's developed mostly by Google. Could you please explain more about the problem you're having with the MW600?

[richard_lorrain]

The Sony MW600 wireless headset connected to an Xperia phone running ginger bread OS provided hands-free dialing by pressing the "call key" on the MW600.  When the "call key" was pressed the Xperia phone would respond with the Voice dialer app "speak now". You could then hands-free voice dial from your contacts or with the number directly or launch applications. This functioned even if the phone was locked.

The Sony MW600 wireless headset connected to an Xperia phone running ice cream sandwich OS no longer provides hands-free dialing since by pressing the "call key" on the MW600 you hear a beep but nothing happens (ie. the phone Voice dialer app is not activated).  The "call key" still functions to answer an incoming call.

So in short Sony no longer offers a bluetooth hands-free dialing option on their flagship Xperia phones even when using their own wireless headsets which clearly documented the way the hardware was intended to function (see MW600 documentation). This defect will lead to dangeous/illegal behaviour while driving.

Is Sony going to make a patch or release an app to overcome the bug with the Xperia phone voice dialer so the hardware functions the way it was intended?

[Johan]

As I understand this is something that is being being looked at by our developers already. Unfortunately I have no information when/if a update will be released to bring back the functionallties you had in Gingerbread.

[richard_lorrain]

Thanks for the update.

Hands-free bluetooth headset voice dialing is a function I absolutely need. The few user friendly features added in Ice Cream Sandwich OS do not make the absolutely necessary. I will attempt to root my phone and roll it back to Ginger Bread OS.

YouTube has a great video on how to root your Sony Xperia Ion. I hope I don't brick my phone!

They are already compairing the Ice Cream Sandwich OS upgrade to Windows Vista. I guess that is why Samsung is rolling out Jelly Beam OS so quickly. Hopefully Sony will fix the ICS problems and follow suit with a Jelly Bean OS update as well. I hear Jelly Bean OS will ship on the new Sony Xperia T later this year.

It is too bad Sony got caught up in the ICS marketing hyp and released ICS on their phones without fixing the known bugs. These bugs were well documented on HTC and Samsung phones running ICS earlier this year, so Sony had no excuse not to fix them since they waited so long to roll out the ICS update.  I guess Sony figured they were not selling enough phones running Ginger Bread....

[richard_lorrain]

Samsung has released a "Samsung Bluetooth Voice Dialer" app for ice cream sandwich OS available on their "Samsung app " mobile web site, but it will only install it on samsung devices.

I tried it and it is a complete working copy of the ginger bread voice dialer and phone application, not a patch for the current ice cream sandwich voice dialer to function when activated with bluetooth headset "call key".

How do I know? I downloaded it to my daughters android Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 which does not even have a phone, phone app or voice dialer and it functioned perfectly searching her google contacts, calling up the phone app and trying to dial after being activated by the bluetooth headset "call key".

Why do I mention this. Maybe this will give the SONY guys working on this problem a direction to follow or perhaps something to copy when developing their fix.

Still waiting....any update?

[volchief]

I have had this problem too.  I downloaded Vlingo from the Play Store (free) which gives a workaround until the Voice Dialer problem is fixed.

[Lipton1]

I've installed the Dragon mobile app, and selected enable driver mode/bluetooth on. Hands free voice activated dialing is now working on my Xperia ion.