Does it still take forever to do anything because you can't turn off the endless pedantic prompts and instructions at each and every step of the way??

For example, when entering an address, even if it accepts the state/province or the city or the street or the house number after every step you have to wait for the female voice to tell you that if you have made a mistake you can hit the back button, blah, blah, blah... It takes so long to do anything I rarely use it in my '09. When it's the 450th time you have entered an address or dialed a phone number, you don't need to be told about every escape and backtracking option at every step of the way.

And no, it cannot be turned off by adjusting the option in the OPTIONS that suggests you want shorter voice prompts!

 

At least for iPhone users, how cool would it be if the 2013s allowed you to just use Siri and actually display your actual iPhone screen.

 

Do you have a 2012? Is it still as I describe?

 

I have a 11' sedan and honestly the voice dialing and recognition software is garbage, half the time it doesn't pick up what your saying accurately. It is something i can live with though, as i don't use it often at all. Im wondering why it can't be on par with siri =/.

 

When using voice commands, I hit the 'speak' button and it stops the Nav and lets me speak. Basically you don't HAVE to listen to the entire voice prompt.

 

What do you mean...at each of the endless and needless prompts you have to hit the speak button, or just doing it once will shut her up?

 

You have to learn how it works. Once I trained the system it works fine for what I need it to do. Car needs to be quiet though, windows can't be open whilst tooling down the expressway at 80 mph.

 

I have an 09 and think the voice commands are "fine". My only complaint is having to wait for the prompts to complete. Other than that, the system picks up my choices easily, navigates through the menus correctly, and allows me to choose my destination without any problems.

My wife has Siri and it has been no end of frustration. Just getting it to dial a phone number is a challenge. Sometime it goes through one menu tree, another it will act totally differently. Most of the time we skip Siri and go straight to the functions. Easier than repeating myself over and over.

 

It's waiting for the prompts to complete that drives me bonkers. Only a moron would even need them even on a first run through, so to repeat them, forever, is very bad user interface design.

 

Hit the speak button and it skips so you don't have to wait for it to finish. You have to do it at each step though. Part of the dealer 101 getting to know your car training.

 

The dealer 101 training shuld be aimed back at Infiniti to redesign a poorly designed system instead of telling owners to push a steering wheel button repeatedly for a "VOICE" activated sytem whose purpose is solely to allow hands-free operation.

 

Go to settings, then to voice recognition, then hit alternate command mode then turn on minimize voice feedback

 

Not for 2009 models. Hitting the speak button will only pause it. Hitting it a second time has the voice command prompt start from the beginning.

 

2012 skips when you hit the voice prompt button twice. There is also an 'advanced' mode in settings once you get used to it that greatly shortens the prompts -- almost to where they are non-existent. I haven't had any issues with it understanding me. It must have improved!

 

I have a 2011 which I assume hasn't changed for 2012.
Does the 2009 have an 'Alternate Command Mode' feature in the Navigation Settings? If not then that would be the difference you may be looking for which reduces the length and number of spoken prompts by the system.

I copy/pasted this from the manual...
ALTERNATE COMMAND MODE
This mode enables the operation of the display and audio through Voice Recognition. When this mode is active, an expanded list of commands can be spoken after pushing <TALK >, and the voice command menu prompts are turned off. Note that in this mode the recognition success rate may be affected because the number of available commands and ways of speaking each command are increased.

I have never had a consistent problem with voice recognition either. 9/10 times it understands what I say. The only issue is if there is an unusual level of ambient noise...like the kids chirping in the back seat.

This Nav system could definitely use some improvement for sure though. I don't like that I can't simply press Talk, say Navigation and then say the name of a specific place like Home Depot or Tim Hortons. I think that's a huge overlooked functionality of this system.