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      06-18-2021, 08:23 AM   #1
Jeffro75
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Email readout in iDrive 7??

Hi, we've just brought our new X3 30d M Sport home, we previously had a 2016 F15 X5 30d M Sport with NBT. I also have a 2014 640i Gran Coupe with the same NBT system. In our older cars, we could have the car read out emails while driving, I use this feature a lot but can't seem to find any similar feature in our new X3 which is massively disappointing. Am I missing something?? It seems there was an Office 365 service for emails at some stage but this seems to be no longer available. I can get the system to read out text messages via the phone function, but does not provide the option for reading emails as it did/does in our older BMW's. Any help would be appreciated!!
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      06-18-2021, 02:34 PM   #2
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Yea, in the US they took away the office feature, so I am assuming you’re in the same boat there. It’s ridiculous in todays remote workforce that you can’t at least have emails and calendar events read to you.
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      06-18-2021, 08:06 PM   #3
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You could definitely set up your phone to read your emails to you (like with Siri or Google Assistant). It probably has better text-to-speech than the car anyway.
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      06-19-2021, 06:13 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 3284me View Post
Yea, in the US they took away the office feature, so I am assuming you’re in the same boat there. It’s ridiculous in todays remote workforce that you can’t at least have emails and calendar events read to you.
Agreed, terrible idea. It is so convenient in my F06, email headers are visible and can be selected to be read out. Seems like 2014-2015 was the sweet spot for BMW tech, auto start-stop stays off when turned off(!) Reversing camera defaults to 360 degree view instead of defaulting to rear view (as it did in our F15) and I could see and read my emails(!!)

Maybe I'll be driving my car for much longer than I anticipated!
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      06-19-2021, 06:18 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Coi View Post
You could definitely set up your phone to read your emails to you (like with Siri or Google Assistant). It probably has better text-to-speech than the car anyway.
You can, but nowhere near as convenient as the older functionality that was there. You could select which emails you wanted read out. Android Auto and Carplay don't allow emails to be read out either. For me, I do a lot of long distance driving and it is so helpful to be able to keep on top of work emails. Luckily this will be my wife's car, so will be hanging onto my F06 till BMW or someone else (even Toyota Corolla's read out your emails) offers some reasonable functionality.
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      06-19-2021, 06:33 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffro75 View Post
Agreed, terrible idea. It is so convenient in my F06, email headers are visible and can be selected to be read out. Seems like 2014-2015 was the sweet spot for BMW tech, auto start-stop stays off when turned off(!) Reversing camera defaults to 360 degree view instead of defaulting to rear view (as it did in our F15) and I could see and read my emails(!!)

Maybe I'll be driving my car for much longer than I anticipated!
LOL, When I first bought my 2011 e90 I could receive emails as well and have them read to me, sometimes truncated, but at least I could keep up with what was going on, since one of my offices was 2.5 hours away. It’s probably a driver distraction concern, but then again I believe this works in Germany driving on the autobahn! It’s still advertised, so some country out there is using Office 365?

Congrats on your beautiful new ride!
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      06-19-2021, 10:30 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffro75 View Post
You can, but nowhere near as convenient as the older functionality that was there. You could select which emails you wanted read out. Android Auto and Carplay don't allow emails to be read out either. For me, I do a lot of long distance driving and it is so helpful to be able to keep on top of work emails. Luckily this will be my wife's car, so will be hanging onto my F06 till BMW or someone else (even Toyota Corolla's read out your emails) offers some reasonable functionality.
I believe there's somewhat of a learning curve to it but on the iphone at least there accessibility features that allow it to be controlled entirely by voice for visually impaired people. If you can get used to it, that feature might actually be even better that what's built into your car for reading or even responding to emails when you're driving long distances. Could be used for the calendar too I'm sure.
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      06-20-2021, 06:46 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by 3284me View Post
LOL, When I first bought my 2011 e90 I could receive emails as well and have them read to me, sometimes truncated, but at least I could keep up with what was going on, since one of my offices was 2.5 hours away. It’s probably a driver distraction concern, but then again I believe this works in Germany driving on the autobahn! It’s still advertised, so some country out there is using Office 365?

Congrats on your beautiful new ride!
Thanks mate!
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