Apple takes away Google Maps, but gives you MAP on the other hand!

Ok.

I haven’t yet enabled iOS 6.0 on my wife’s iPhone (have a few more challenges before I take that on.)  But one thing that I did read about (aside from people complaining about Apple’s Maps versus Google Maps) is the launch of MAP (Message Access Profile) support on iOS 6.0…

I am upgrading my iPod Touch to see if I can get the ActiveE to read my mail on the iPod Touch, but won’t know until later.

[Update: 4:00 pm, tried to get my iPod Touch to read on the ActiveE, no joy.  It may just be the fact that it is an iPod Touch and not a phone.  The car sees it as a phone over bluetooth as I was able to pair it, but could not get music to play over the connection.  I tried to see if Show Notifications on the device setting under Bluetooth (default off, I turned it on) would do anything, and still no joy.  I had the iPod Touch connected to the Internet via a MiFi that I carry, so it had Internet access.]

I found the following articles to be helpful

I will report further once I have tested it out.

[Update: 9/27/2012 Noon PDT.  I borrowed my colleagues’ iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s that were both running iOs 6.0.  No joy on either.  I was able to pair both phones to the ActiveE.  I went into each one’s bluetooth configuration for the car and told each phone to allow Sending messages over that specific bluetooth link.  I then sent text messages to both phones.  Waited a couple of minutes and no messages were notified or viewable on the car.  Messages were received by the respective iPhone.  I wonder whether or not this is an iPhone 5 only feature or if it is user error or my impatience.]

Even though Apple may be removing the built in Google Maps and supplementing their own maps in iOS 6.0, they are at least giving you MAP access.

BMW ActiveE features – MAP access and Text to Voice Email

A quick how-to video on accessing the Text to Speech functions on the BMW ActiveE.  This uses the Bluetooth MAP (Message Access Profile (had to look this one up, I thought it was Protocol) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile#Message_Access_Profile_.28MAP.29

My wife’s BlackBerry Pearl 8100 does not support MAP, so no access to text to speech functions.

Via Flickr:This is a How-to video on how to access the text-to-speech functions of the 2011 BMW ActiveE.  It was run between my BlackBerry Bold 9900 and my BMW ActiveE

[Update September 9, 2012 – for Apple iPhone users, iOS 6.0 supports MAP integration now, check to see if you can use it by upgrading and enabling it.  I will post this once I upgrade my wife’s iPhone 4 to iOS 6.0.  Here is my update on this.]