New SYNC and MFT announced by Ford

[copernicium112]

Originally Posted by JessicaTi

First quarter 2013.

•Simplified Bluetooth® phone pairing: When pairing, the driver simply has to hit “OK” if the PIN on the phone and touch screen match each other

•More natural voice recognition: Drivers can now simply say “Play <name>” when requesting a specific artist, song, album or genre of music (i.e. “Play jazz” versus “Play genre jazz”)

•Improved voice recognition accuracy: The latest version of Nuance’s speech software, VoCon® 3200 v4.2, improves overall voice recognition performance

•Flattened audio command structure: At any time, drivers can say the station frequency, “AM 760,” or the official name of the Sirius station, like “Hits 1,” to tune in; drivers no longer need to say “Radio” or “Sirius” to indicate their desire to listen to those audio sources

•Simplified navigation controls: The destination entry screen has been improved to help make it easier to enter an address

A lot of this (I haven't tested all of it yet) is in the 3.5.1 update. Auto-pairing, the ability to play Sirius stations by just saying the station name or play a radio station by just saying radio station frequency even when you are already on another audio source are part of 3.5.1. I wasn't able to test out my USB source and the ability to say just say "Play <name>" without saying "album" or "song" or whatever yet because I had to do a reboot last night (to get my Sirius traffic back) and my player was still indexing this morning so no voice commands. I'll test when indexing/BVC are complete.

Since 3.5.1 is still on TSB and no "official" announcement has been made by Ford over at SMR, or anywhere else I can see, I can't help wonder if this is really what they are talking about, or at least forms the base for what they are talking about.

[pozi240]

Originally Posted by copernicium112

A lot of this (I haven't tested all of it yet) is in the 3.5.1 update. Auto-pairing, the ability to play Sirius stations by just saying the station name or play a radio station by just saying radio station frequency even when you are already on another audio source are part of 3.5.1. I wasn't able to test out my USB source and the ability to say just say "Play <name>" without saying "album" or "song" or whatever yet because I had to do a reboot last night (to get my Sirius traffic back) and my player was still indexing this morning so no voice commands. I'll test when indexing/BVC are complete.

Since 3.5.1 is still on TSB and no "official" announcement has been made by Ford over at SMR, or anywhere else I can see, I can't help wonder if this is really what they are talking about, or at least forms the base for what they are talking about.

^ This! Exactly my thinking as well, I have tested most of the new aspects of 3.5.1 and it does everything mentioned in the article (for the most part anyway... it does have a tendancy to "hang" once and a while). I agree though, this is most likely just the "official" announcement of 3.5.1 (or maybe a "refined" version of it anyway).

[raptor1956]

I wonder, has Ford made any commitment to provide Sync and MFT updates to all customers and for how long? Seems to me Ford would be inclined, as many companies would be, to stop providing updates at some point. Obviously the huge problems they've had made it wise to continue to support older cars but is there anything official that says how long this lasts?


Brian

[symbology]

It would be in their best interests to support MFT/SYNC for the time being especially since the new hardware is reported to have similar specs to the 2012/13 models.

Plus that, who wants to invest in a long term committment like a car if they will only provide support for a limited time? Cell phones are one thing, but cars are another.

[blackraven456]

I'm done getting excited over new releases. The more Ford changes cosmetically the more underlying stability and reliability problems go unchecked. I for one would be excited if they filled memory leaks, included a reboot option in the menus and wrote in the ability to format and reinstall the entire operating system.

[JessicaTi]

Originally Posted by copernicium112

A lot of this (I haven't tested all of it yet) is in the 3.5.1 update. Auto-pairing, the ability to play Sirius stations by just saying the station name or play a radio station by just saying radio station frequency even when you are already on another audio source are part of 3.5.1. I wasn't able to test out my USB source and the ability to say just say "Play <name>" without saying "album" or "song" or whatever yet because I had to do a reboot last night (to get my Sirius traffic back) and my player was still indexing this morning so no voice commands. I'll test when indexing/BVC are complete.

Since 3.5.1 is still on TSB and no "official" announcement has been made by Ford over at SMR, or anywhere else I can see, I can't help wonder if this is really what they are talking about, or at least forms the base for what they are talking about.

3.5 will have wide release for systems without navigation in December, as early as Dec 10.

Vehicles with nav will receive updates in January.

[PratoN]

Originally Posted by JessicaTi

3.5 will have wide release for systems without navigation in December, as early as Dec 10.

Vehicles with nav will receive updates in January.

YAY! I can wait until January rather than play Convince the Dealer.

[FordIVTteam]

Hi, everyone!

The software discussed in the article is version 3.5 and is exclusive to vehicles equipped with MyFord Touch. Most of you already have this installed, but for those that don't, the update will soon be available on SyncMyRide as a self-install.

Please note, if your vehicle's equipped with navigation, it will require the new SD card (A4) to function. You can see your dealership for this now, otherwise, starting in early January, you'll be able to order the card via www.SyncMyRide.com.

As a way of reinforcing our commitment to you, we're extending the warranty for MyFord Touch software and the SYNC module to a total of five years/unlimited mileage for 2011, 2012 and 2013 models of MyFord Touch-equipped vehicles.

Jaclyn

[JonathanGennick]

Originally Posted by FordIVTteam

The software discussed in the article is version 3.5 and is exclusive to vehicles equipped with MyFord Touch.

So those of us with just Sync are sunk? We don't get the improved voice-recognition and the simpler commands?

[oritpro]

Well crap, thanks to an article on Slashdot today I ran into this:
http://www.mirrorlink.com/technology.html

MirrorLink is basically a remote terminal for your phone mounted on the dash or console in the vehicle. The contents of the phone are displayed on and controlled via a remote LCD screen and buttons on the steering wheel, dashboard, and/or console. VNC is used to mirror the display on the phone and handle inputs.

This is exactly what I've been working on in my spare time, I had no knowledge of MirrorLink until today. It stands to reason that somebody, or in this case a consortium of somebodies (including Ford) had already thought of it. A bummer for sure.

The good news is that this is exactly what the consumer and the industry needs, check out the link and I think you'll agree. Know that the list of Mirrorlink enabled smartphones is quite short right now, but I know how to build such a device and make it work with just about any Android phone as long as it's rooted.

I already have a proof of concept built, it even uses VNC just like MirrorLink does and it uses another program for hands free calling called NoHands/HFP which is available on SourceForge.

Now that the cats out of the bag and I don't have a patentable idea anymore maybe I'll start an OpenSource project once I have things working better. There still a few glitches here and there.