Hello there.

Firstly, my apologies for using this thread (It was the only one I can find that's even remotely like the problem I have)
I love the N900, and find it easy to use, and lightning fast, as an internet tablet.
However, the absence of voice dialing, contacts transfer, or any kind of remote dialing feature, is driving me absolutely nuts.
some would state that you shouldn't use a mobile whilst driving, but stearing with your knees, while holding a phone to your ear with one hand, and taking notes with the other, down a busy road, filled with school children, is a far cry from having your phone stowed away in your briefcase, and connected to your "In car audio system" via Bluetooth?
Not being able to carry out the simple task of pressing the relevant button on the steering wheel, and saying "Office" out load to call and find out where your next appointment is!
Having exhausted any useful help from Nokia (we value your custom, and one of our customer service team will contact you within 48 hours, to answer your question)....... then nothing!
Two software updates later, and still no voice dial / contacts transfer, etc, etc......
So I decided to give Vodafone a go, as the missing voice dial feature was not documented, before taking out the two year contract, that got me the phone!
some on line reviews at the time even stated that voice dialing was available on the N900 (My 7210 had it for crying out loud, surely this rocket ship smartphone would be able to "Guess" who I wanted to call?)
Two emails later, and all VF can come up with, "it is a handset feature and service provider won't be able to add this feature on the phone" (I already figured this out myself!!!!)

Bottom line is, that the phone wont do what I intended it to.... where do I stand?

Failing that, does anyone have any idea if an "Open Source" solution exists please?
I have found a poll on here titled "Does Anyone Want Voice Dial for the N900?" but other than people whinning about other people's spelling, and "how can it be a poll, if the only answer is yes??" there is no help there either!

Sorry...... rant over........ no one to let off steam at!!!

Can anyone help please?....... or at least point me at someone who might be able to?

"Vodafone are great at patting themselves on the back, and stating how great they are.... until you have a problem!"

A few things.

What do you mean by contacts transfer?

It is unfortunate that the N900 doesnt allow voice dialing, as it seems to be important to some users. It would also be natural to assume (though perhaps caution was needed?) that an N series device in 2009 would have this functionality, though MMS was also missing.

Anyway solutions. I am not aware of a 3rd party app, or a developer making one. Just look at how you can make the device work for you.

Dedicate a desktop screen to contacts you need to reach most often whilst driving, you can resize them and add many more if you need to. There is also portrait functionality available for the address back, so if your device is in a handsfree attached to the dashboard etc you can browse the address book easily.

Good luck.

I feel your pain... I've used Motorolas, Blackberries, and most recently a Nokia 5230, and voice dialing is definitely a feature that I miss on my N900.

However, I temper that loss by the acknowledgement that the N900 is more computer than phone. I bought it because I got a killer deal on it, and it does so much more than the 5230 does, and it leaves my old BlackBerry Curve in the dust. But its the secondary phone functions that sorely lack - conference calling is a bit different to use, call waiting requires a menu selection. Don't even get me started on the difference in Ovi Maps!

Back to the question of voice dialing... I've seen other threads here on TMO lamenting the missing voice dialing. Without having a home-brewed voice recognition and/or voice synthesis library, an open source voice dialing program is going to be near impossible - the voice recognition tech would need to be licensed, and that would be major money that probably couldn't be reclaimed with a free or low-cost program.

My solution? Low tech in the extreme: whenever I go on long driving trips, I bring the 5230 along for voice dialing and sat-nav. When I get to my destination, the SIM goes right back in the N900.

Greetings.... Again!

My Bluetooth system in my car has a feature where (If Available) the entire contacts list can be transfered from phone to car audio system. even the N95 prior to my N900 had this feature. it simply meant that in the UNLIKELY event that voice dialing was not possible, that you could simply scroll through your contacts list (Phone still in Briefcase) and call directly from the head unit on the car stereo. even this would have been something, but unless I have been misslead, I think this is only possible if you are familliar with the N900 OS and are prepared to carry out some programming (please correct me if I'm wrong though!!)

As I said previously, I love the N900, but it does seem that Nokia has forgotten it, and is leaving all of the future developement to the more gifted amongst you, to write the programmes in order to get the most from a device they can't be bothered with any more?

Vodafone won't admit that this shortcomming was not documented, and all I was asking them, was if they are able to offer a solution (even if it meant me purchasing a second device (with voice dial) and swapping the sim over (far from ideal I'll grant you!)
but re directing calls / swapping sims over / and prodding the keypad of the phone while driving was not what I bought the N900 for!!

If I didn't love it so much, I'd ditch for the Apple Cash Cow!!!

You don't have to carry out any programming, but you do need to follow some instructions which require you to have root access on your phone. The instructions are fairly simple and worked for me (I did this just yesterday to get it to work with my new car). See http://wiki.maemo.org/Bluetooth_PBAP.

It would be nice if we worked out how to package this into an ordinary installable app.

A voice dialing app would be even better

EDIT - disregard the below - the FT report is wrong. I've now tracked down the Voda press release http://mediacentre.vodafone.co.uk/ne...ess&doc_id=136 and it is NOT £2 per day to use your home allowance. It is £2/day to get 25MB of mobile data per day. Sorry (on FT's behalf) for the bum steer.

some news that may interest Voda customers who roam a lot in Europe http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28b8dbdc-f...#axzz16fa0h542 - they are changing roaming data pricing for smartphones so that you get to use your home data allowance whilst roaming in Europe for a £2/day charge.

I won't use it much myself (still much cheaper to use local prepay SIMs in the countries I travel to regularly) but it would definitely make things a lot easier/cheaper for short one-off trips abroad.

With any luck, this will help kick off a roaming data price war amongst operators :-)