MMI takes a long time to "boot up?"
 

I'm coming out of a B8 with the previous gen of MMI. It seems like the C7 takes a long time before the phone directory or voice recognition are available after unlocking the car and starting up. I've timed it to 20 to seconds. There's also about a 10 second delay after starting before the radio presets touch pad works. Noticed that the phone directory is being downloaded everytime car is unlocked and started which the B8 doesn't do. Anyone else seeing long delays?

Those times are pretty normal for the MMI to fully boot if the car has been sitting awhile and has gone into "deep sleep". I can't remember the time interval but if the car has been off for a short time, the MMI start up is almost instantaneous.

I cannot really say my MMI takes a long time to boot – I guess it is a matter of expectations or requirements. After reading the Street's post I went to my garage to test things out, as the car had been there for two days without being started. I hit the start button and watched the various icons/lights go on and off on the driver display as the engine turned over and started. At the same time I hooked up my seat belt and before I even thought of putting the car in gear the MMI was all set and the presets worked on the radio.
For me that is all I would expect or require. When I put the car in reverse (I have to back out of my spot the way I park), the delay in the rear view camera showing the view toward the rear seemed to take a bit longer than the MMI had to boot up, but neither delay seemed “long” to me.

It does seem to take quite a while for it to boot. And the Google Maps take even longer. I've noticed the same thing with BMWs. I think they both use old tech spinning hard drives instead of Solid State, which would be loads faster.

It's all a matter on how you unlock the car. If you use the key to unlock the car while you walk towards it, the MMI has a few more seconds to boot up compared to touching the door handle to unlock or even worse, getting into an unlocked car parked in the garage.

I have my car unlocked in the garage most of the time and it takes 5-10 seconds before Sirius starts playing fater tunrign the ignition on and several more before Google Earth or 3G is ready. Somewhere in between I would here my iPhone over Bluetooth if had that selected before I left the car. Usually I would wait outside for the garage door to fully close after I left and by that time Google Earth would be almost up. Now, if I would be listening to iTunes Radio (or any other internet radio app), it would stop soon after driving off because the phone disconnected from the home wifi and went into LTE mode.

I feel that the car's systems take longer than necessary to boot up. I'm coming from a different brand of vehicle that took just a few seconds to boot up. The backup camera takes so long, that I usually back up without using it, just so that I'm not sitting in the middle of the road waiting to back into the driveway/garage. I did find a work around, I just push the parking button right before I put the car in reverse, that makes the back up camera show more quickly.

I really hope that Audi also enable the parking sensor while in low speed like Porsche.

I am always afraid to hit my front bumper into the curb.

You can do that with VCDS. Mine stays on until 20kph.

Or you can turn it on when pulling into a spot by hitting the button on the dash.

I know I can turn it by hitting the button.
I wanted it to turn on automatically like Porsche does.
Say you are in a parking lot, it's good to know how close you are to the pillars...etc