Ford Motor has given up its partnership with Microsoft and turns instead to BlackBerry to develop Sync 3, the next iteration of its infotainment system which customers will see rolling out with new vehicles for the next couple of years.
Ford's previous versions of its Sync in-car electronics system, particularly the slow, bulky and confusing MyFord Touch, were built on top of Microsoft's Windows Embedded platform. The system was so bad that it earned Ford poor ratings in automotive surveys by J.D. Power and other automotive firms. Michelle Krebs, senior analyst at AutoTrader.com, described MyFord Touch as "the modern-day equivalent of Edsel for the automaker," referring to a nearly 60-year-old Ford car that was the company's biggest flop.
With the new partnership with BlackBerry, Ford has developed an entirely new system based on BlackBerry's QNX platform. Drawing on more than 22,000 comments gathered from customers, Ford has developed a new system that has a simpler, more intuitive design with larger fonts, brighter colors and touchscreen controls that mimic that of smartphones and tablets as well as natural Siri-like voice commands.
"Simplicity has value," Parish Hanna, global director of human-machine interface at Ford, says. "Reducing the number of things on-screen also makes control easier and is designed to limit the number of times a driver has to glance at the screen."
Previously, the old Sync systems had a novel but unintuitive interface, with the menus placed on the four corners of the screen so users could choose their options without having to look at the screen. However, not a lot of people could really memorize which options go to which corner.
"We considered all the modern smartphones and mobile operating systems and created something familiar but unique," Hanna says.
The new Sync 3 has six big menus onscreen, which sink down to the bottom when the driver navigates to make way for a map that can be zoomed in and out by pinching the screen. When searching for a location, users can tap a big search box that starts inputting suggestions as they type. For example, hitting W on the keyboard could bring up places such as Wal-Mart or Walgreens.
Voice also received a major overhaul. Customers frequently complained that the old MyFord Touch had difficulty understanding voice commands. The new infotainment system, however, does away with things such as formal addresses and the full name of the destination. For instance, if the user says he is driving to the "Detroit Airport," Sync 3 instantly knows that the destination is the "Detroit Metropolitan Airport." He can also say addresses such as "Eleven Twenty-Five Main Street" as he normally would, instead of "One One Two Five Main Street."
All these improvements, including the sleeker interface, new features and faster response times, are powered by a new SoC provided by Texas Instruments. The 1.GHz OMAP 5 more than doubles the clock speed of the 600MHz Freescale i.MX51 in the old Sync.
This also allows the system to sync with apps in the user's iOS or Android phone so users can access them on the touchscreen without having to take their phones out. At the moment, Ford says more than 70 apps have been made compatible with Sync 3, including streaming radio apps such as Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeartRadio Auto, SiriusXM Radio and NPR One.
All these apps can be accessed via Wi-Fi, which will also be the main channel for over-the-air updates for Sync 3. The updates, however, will only be for the infotainment system and nothing else. Raj Nair, chief technology officer of Ford, there's a "hard and fast" firewall between Sync 3 and "mission critical systems" in the vehicle.
Sync 3 will become available in all Ford vehicles to be released next year, but Ford continues to consider baking Android Auto and Apple CarPlay into its vehicles when they hit the market.
