Microsoft Teams Getting CarPlay Integration and Device Swapping Support for Calls

[Brien]

Just let me turn the phone feature off entirely, or better yet, opt out of phoneKit. Teams RUINS my phone/contact apps.

 

[Brien]

One my career I've been forced to use WebEx, Zoom, Meet, and Skype. I prefer Slack over all of those, but I could be bias as it was developed for developers and has the tools I need.

Salesforce is gunna ruin it.

 

[ActionableMango]

You realize there are cars out there that get regular software updates, right? My car gets new apps and features every few weeks - I'm supposed to receive full self driving in the next 1-3 weeks.

I don't understand how it is that there are technically literate people (as I assume people in the MR forums to be) who opt to buy vehicles that are best on the day they're bought, when there are other vehicles that are better than anything else on day 1 and just proceed to get better from there.

I'm an electric vehicle fan and I considered a Model Y. Doing my research I found lots of problems and I've decided to hold onto my old car and wait for Tesla and the BEV the industry as a whole to mature a bit. Maybe in a couple of years I will get a newer Tesla MY, or maybe something else. The Kia CV, VW ID.4, and Nissan Ariya also appeal to me. It will also be interesting to see if Tesla's SuperCharging network continues to reign supreme or if CCS locations and reliability can catch up.

One thing I have to say though, there seem to be a lot of Tesla fans like you who are vaguely insulting instead of encouraging and positive. It's a big turnoff and I don't think that's a good way to win hearts and minds.

 

[richpjr]

Some strange reactions to this announcement. You can always ignore a call if you don't want to be distracted or don't want to be online while out of the office. For others, having the option to participate in a meeting while driving is a very convenient feature to have. I rarely travel so won't use it often but some of our IT guys at work will use it all the time.

 

[gaximus]

Salesforce is gunna ruin it.

Agreed

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Completely and totally disagree. Those apps will be left untended to because there aren't a significant enough number of people using it. CarPlay is absolutely superior since the app is running on the actual device with the network connection and mirroring the display for controls only...and when you switch cars, no matter the manufacturer (except Tesla), everything goes with you. One day, Tesla is going to give in to this, sorry to burst your bubble.

Tesla will make sure the app is maintained, same as they do with the Spotify app and the rest of the software. Tesla owners aren't worth much to Spotify, but Spotify is worth it to Tesla, so Tesla pays to maintain an app in their cars. Same deal with Microsoft.

Just like the YouTube app was originally a stock app on the iPhone. After a few years, iOS was big enough that the table flipped. Apple stopped paying developers to maintain a YouTube app for iOS - instead YouTube paid for it. Some day, Tesla will have sufficient marketshare that Microsoft and Spotify will have teams maintaining the apps.

 

[Optheduim]

I am so not excited for this. I am already in constant contact with my circus.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'm an electric vehicle fan and I considered a Model Y. Doing my research I found lots of problems and I've decided to hold onto my old car and wait for Tesla and the BEV the industry as a whole to mature a bit. Maybe in a couple of years I will get a newer Tesla MY, or maybe something else. The Kia CV, VW ID.4, and Nissan Ariya also appeal to me. It will also be interesting to see if Tesla's SuperCharging network continues to reign supreme or if CCS locations and reliability can catch up.

I'm not sure why, but non-Tesla charging networks don't seem to be happening in the North America. From what I've heard/read, it seems like there's options for charging in Europe, but within the US it's Tesla or (essentially) nothing. I think you already know because you mentioned reliability, but from what I've heard, non-Tesla stations are often offline. I've charged at dozens of Tesla's superchargers, and only once found a non-functional stall. It didn't matter because I just moved to the next stall over - Tesla's locations generally have 8+ stalls at them. Other networks often have fewer, and they aren't all identical like Tesla's stalls - it's not uncommon for them to only have a single stall giving 100+ kW and the rest being 50 kW or slower.

 

[stars_fan]

Interesting feature.. only if my Lexus had carplay.. ( sigh )

You do realize that up until 2019 Lexus did not include the ' hardware ' for carplay, or is that too ' technical ' ? If you're referring to Tesla or other EVs, my response as an auto enthusiast is - LOL !

You can’t call yourself an auto enthusiast and drive a toyota 🙄

It's not to use "Teams" in the car but the "phone app" bundled into Teams. It's confusing. Anyone that works in an office has VOIP for their phone system. Microsoft sells that same service but if you don't have a hard phone, within Team's is a "phone" app for voice mail and making telephone calls.

My office phone/work phone number is through Teams. It's only the telephone feature that will work in CarPlay. So when I'm driving if I need to make a work-related call, the call goes through Team's and not my personal cell phone, which is great for caller ID and the like.

In IOS, if someone calls my work number (when you have the Team's IOS app installed), it logs that call into the call history in the IOS phone app and the Team's app. Currently, you called me and I called you back using the recent calls in CarPlay, the call comes from my personal phone and caller ID sends that number. Then, if someone leaves me a voice mail, the voice mail is in the team's app, not my IOS voice mail tab in the phone app so I can't have Siri play it or access it without manually opening the Team's app on my phone which is annoying.

This will be useful for listening to voice mails and making outgoing calls (incoming calls already pop up in CarPlay). Not many people have Microsoft Calling plans, but for those who do this is a nice update!

We’ve had this for years with Jabber and Webex Teams (stupid MS named their app the same as Cisco)

For many, Teams is their phone system.

And they’re paying through the nose for it. They quoted us $4.7 million a year to take over our telephony. I’m a collaboration engineer and always evaluate our options. We have almost 80,000 endpoints.

I'm not sure why, but non-Tesla charging networks don't seem to be happening in the North America. From what I've heard/read, it seems like there's options for charging in Europe, but within the US it's Tesla or (essentially) nothing. I think you already know because you mentioned reliability, but from what I've heard, non-Tesla stations are often offline. I've charged at dozens of Tesla's superchargers, and only once found a non-functional stall. It didn't matter because I just moved to the next stall over - Tesla's locations generally have 8+ stalls at them. Other networks often have fewer, and they aren't all identical like Tesla's stalls - it's not uncommon for them to only have a single stall giving 100+ kW and the rest being 50 kW or slower.

30,000 ChargePoint stations in the US.

 

[insomniac86]

That article does a good job at explaining why talking is still a distraction. You end up having to multitask and juggle your focus on the road, listening to the speaker, forming responses in your head, and speaking them back. Just because your eyes are on the road during a call doesn't mean your headspace is, and accidents can happen so fast that even what we think is just a small distraction can still be pretty major.

Though that's the given argument, driving with a car full of people or even having young kids in the car is far most distracting to me than being on an audio only phone call.

 

[insomniac86]

So much nonsense **** posts in this threat, or just Anti Microsoft for the the hell of it.

This is no difference than having a FaceTime audio call, or a regular mobile call running.
You do realise that teams can work right now in our car over bluetooth?
The difference is CarPlay allows for tighter integration to hang up the call etc.
The Teams app won't be showing a live stream of the meeting on your car dashboard. So calm down.

To the people that made comments about hating teams on with always being connected etc...
You do realise that Teams is very quickly becoming the only/primary telephone system of many businesses. So having better integration is a good thing.

 

[ejfontenot]

It's not to use "Teams" in the car but the "phone app" bundled into Teams. It's confusing. Anyone that works in an office has VOIP for their phone system. Microsoft sells that same service but if you don't have a hard phone, within Team's is a "phone" app for voice mail and making telephone calls.

My office phone/work phone number is through Teams. It's only the telephone feature that will work in CarPlay. So when I'm driving if I need to make a work-related call, the call goes through Team's and not my personal cell phone, which is great for caller ID and the like.

In IOS, if someone calls my work number (when you have the Team's IOS app installed), it logs that call into the call history in the IOS phone app and the Team's app. Currently, you called me and I called you back using the recent calls in CarPlay, the call comes from my personal phone and caller ID sends that number. Then, if someone leaves me a voice mail, the voice mail is in the team's app, not my IOS voice mail tab in the phone app so I can't have Siri play it or access it without manually opening the Team's app on my phone which is annoying.

This will be useful for listening to voice mails and making outgoing calls (incoming calls already pop up in CarPlay). Not many people have Microsoft Calling plans, but for those who do this is a nice update!

Finally. Someone that understands. This will allow you to place a phone call from your car on your TEAMS phone number. This is huge for those of us that don’t give out our mobile numbers.

 

[ActionableMango]

I'm not sure why, but non-Tesla charging networks don't seem to be happening in the North America. From what I've heard/read, it seems like there's options for charging in Europe, but within the US it's Tesla or (essentially) nothing. I think you already know because you mentioned reliability, but from what I've heard, non-Tesla stations are often offline. I've charged at dozens of Tesla's superchargers, and only once found a non-functional stall. It didn't matter because I just moved to the next stall over - Tesla's locations generally have 8+ stalls at them. Other networks often have fewer, and they aren't all identical like Tesla's stalls - it's not uncommon for them to only have a single stall giving 100+ kW and the rest being 50 kW or slower.

Yes that's exactly why I mentioned reliability. CCS has surpassed SuperCharger in number of locations, but it doesn't really count if they aren't even working. Nothing touches Tesla's SuperCharger network right now, and that remains Tesla's major advantage for now.

 

[Airforcekid]

Right - Lexus is at least 7 years behind the competition. I realize their marketshare has had a steep decline, but how has it not gone to zero?

As a shareholder of the elephant in the room, I LOL at you considering yourself to be even remotely knowledgable about modern cars. You may as well be telling me about mustangs (the horse, although both are equally relevant to modern cars.)

You really can’t get better than a Mustang in my opinion I’m pushing 1400HP for under $50k getting 40mpg if I stay off the pedal and nothing beats the classic V8 sound. Plus the OS is extremely easy to mod and tune and easy to reset and start over if I screw something up.

 

[Airforcekid]

And you expect to keep your job? just asking....we live on it and management can see when you're not on

If your management is evaluating you based on how often you are on Skype or Teams they have no clue how to manage. You should be judged on the quality of the work you do and if you make scheduled meetings. I’ve caught some of my people using the USB mouse movers accidentally leaving it on all weekend while ignoring my messages. My best are rarely available but I can count on them when I need to.

 

[insomniac86]

Just what we need - more distracted drivers. For those who use a vehicle as an office, this should only work if the car is parked!

If that was the case, I wouldn't be able to make or take any of my work calls.
I think people forget or don't know that Teams is ALSO a phone system on top of the "Online Meetings" that most people would be familiar with.

So with your logic, all regular calls should also be blocked when driving.

 

[M5RahuL]

You can’t call yourself an auto enthusiast and drive a toyota 🙄



We’ve had this for years with Jabber and Webex Teams (stupid MS named their app the same as Cisco)



And they’re paying through the nose for it. They quoted us $4.7 million a year to take over our telephony. I’m a collaboration engineer and always evaluate our options. We have almost 80,000 endpoints.




30,000 ChargePoint stations in the US.

What makes you think I own/drive ‘just’ that rebadged Toyota

Btw, the ‘90s Supra would disagree with you

 

[joelhinch]

Memory optimisation needs to be their focus of this bloated app.

AS version would also be nice.

 

[WhiteDogPoop]

We’ve had this for years with Jabber and Webex Teams (stupid MS named their app the same as Cisco)

Wrong. Cisco Spark was dumped and folded in to product branded as WebEx Teams in 2018 - after MS released in 2017.

Guess Cisco couldn’t come up w a better name. And Jabber is a total POS.

 

[LillDrutten]

Am really amazed by this company. They totally ****ed up the email system with the exchange system. And the same company get this crap in as a replacement to the same customers. But I dont understand the idiots that buy this ****.

 

[MrCrowbar]

I had problems with Teams hooked up to Carplay thus far.
Calling into a conference call always worked fine but when picking up on a call, the other side would never hear me, but I could hear them.

Real life passengers are typically less distracting because they see the traffic too and they'll pause mid sentence if they see you negotiating traffic. I have my phone in a holder at almost eye-level so the camera peeks out over the dash. Streaming the view of the road ahead actually did make the people on the call intuitively pause in the difficult moments where I'm 100% attention on the road. On multi-lane roads, I recommend the front camera so they can see the traffic to the left and right of you and whether you look attentive or not. I always say I'm only 20% present when joining in from the car.

You can still enable "do not disturb while driving" if you prefer no distractions.

 

[Wanted797]

Everyone saying this is a bad idea and going to mean more distracted drivers.

You do realise you can answer a normal phone call via CarPlay currently?

All this does is allow people who work on the road be able to answer the calls that previous probabaly came via the phone app via CarPlay or worse, via teams and they had to fumble their phone to answer.

 

[Karllake]

Some strange reactions to this announcement. You can always ignore a call if you don't want to be distracted or don't want to be online while out of the office. For others, having the option to participate in a meeting while driving is a very convenient feature to have. I rarely travel so won't use it often but some of our IT guys at work will use it all the time.

I agree with the strange reactions, I use zoom as a phone all the the time so see why team users would see this as a useful feature.

if anyone is against calls whilst driving (which have some merit), then they should be against it everywhere not just teams.

I really want an “out of office” toggle in control centre similar to “do not disturb” but can be selected to specific apps / email accounts / contacts so during chosen times or manually these can quickly be turned off. I hate that when I’m on holiday I either have to delete my work email or leave it running, there should be a temporary block method.

 

[Schnegg]

Salesforce is gunna ruin it.

Oh, lawd. They ruined so many tools already.

 

[klunernet]

It'll be phone features only... no more distracting than the phone calling function you already have in CarPlay.

And probably ties directly into the phone features of CarPlay, so it looks exactly the same.

I am in favor of this, I can easily participate in a teams meeting while in the car this way. Something that was not possible prior. ( actually operating your phone is illegal here, and they have nifty new toys to enforce it )