Contacts & Apple Car Play

When plugged in via USB, my iPhone works as expected. The voice assistant is Siri, I can dial people by name, and so on. Great!

When connected by Bluetooth only, Toyota's default voice assistant cannot access my phone's contacts, and there seems to be no ability to add or sync contacts from iOS. (I think I read a post elsewhere this was by design?)

The contacts listing page has no add button to at least manually enter the few people I call somewhat regularly, I really don't care about syncing my entire list of contacts.

Am I forevermore stuck staring at those 4 blank "Select & Hold to Add a Contact" buttons on the infotainment's landing screen?

I guess it's time to spend some quality time with my owner's manual... Thanks in advance.

 

You have to touch and hold “select & hold to add a contact” for 2-3 seconds. Did you do that?

 

CarPlay mode will access your iPhone's contact list while its connected (your first example of connecting via USB)

As the poster above states you have to add them into the head unit's contact list to access them in Bluetooth mode.

 

Pressing that opens a dialog, "Contacts must be transferred or added to use this widget".

If you go to Settings > Phone > Contacts (or press the Phone button to the right) that opens the phone settings page, where there is a contacts listing, but there is no add or transfer option.

 

What year?

https://youtu.be/i9rmOwCCA1g

 

I’ll try this one more time. You have to press and hold it, not press it.

 

It's a 2021. Here is the Contacts listing page, which seems like where you'd go to manually add a contact.

 

I give up.

 

Hah! To be clear, connecting my phone is not the issue (indeed that is my iPhone's name in the upper left corner above). I just can't figure out how to place a call without plugging it in for Apple Car Play (which is a bit of a hassle when running errands around town) or dialing the person on the phone itself, which is illegal when driving.

 

Did you try to erase your phone from your headunit and re-sync it using Bluetooth?

 

I think this may be the issue; upon the initial pairing you get an option to sync contacts (the video I posted explains the process for '18s and older). I'm not sure how to resync when already paired.

 

He would have to unpair or delete his phone from the stereo. There is an option to do it....i think in the phone menu of the stereo.

 

Uh, I should have un-paired and re-paired before posting this thread because, indeed, upon pairing iOS pops up asking for access to contacts and so they are there now. I must've declined that by accident when doing the initial pairing. Huzzah! Thanks for humoring me with my boneheaded question.

 

Glad you got it figured out!