“Early next year, Ford is sending flash drives with a software upgrade to approximately 250,000 U.S. customers with MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch, the equivalent system in Ford’s luxury Lincoln brand. Owners can do the upgrade themselves in about 45 minutes, or dealers will do it for free. Ford is still deciding how it will offer the upgrade to 200,000 buyers outside of the U.S.,” Dee-Ann Durbin reports for The Associated Press.
“Ford knows of no other car company that has given owners the option of upgrading their own software on this scale. The unprecedented step underscores the urgency of the problem for Ford, which last month fell from 10th place to 20th place in Consumer Reports’ annual reliability rankings largely because of MyFord Touch. Ford also plummeted in a J.D. Power quality survey earlier this year,” Durbin reports. “Sync, a four-year-old voice command system that Ford designed with Microsoft Corp., serves as the platform for the more advanced MyFord Touch.”
Durbin reports, “Forrest Brown, a Ford dealer in Dyersville, Iowa, got a barrage of complaints last winter when customers were unable to defrost their windshields or turn up the heat because their screens were going blank.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: When crap collides.
Related articles:
Microsoft’s confusing, buggy Sync sinks Ford’s J.D. Power quality ratings – June 23, 2011
Ford: Apple iPhone compatibility coming to SYNC AppLink-capable vehicles in early 2011 – December 23, 2010
When crap collides: Ford and Microsoft team up for in-vehicle operating system – December 29, 2006
That bozo Leo Laport, the self-appointed tech geek, who is taking money from Ford had never warned potential buyers that the Ford’s system is a turkey from Microsoft. It is such misinformation from a paid shill that will cost lives on the road.
Perfect *DING*.
Much as I appreciate Leo Lapart’s remarkable work, I cringe with disgust when he shills shite like ‘MyFord Touch’. He has touted it as remarkable, wonderful, gag, puke, barf…. Highly disturbing, a marketing abomination.
Then again, treating clients as SUCKERS in the Spirit of the Age. It is also a terrific way to tank your company or political party, as Ford/GM/Chrysler/Republicans already discovered without comprehending. 😯
Maybe if Ford GOT RID of the Stync they’d get back some customers.
If you lie down with Microsoft, you will get up with ebola.
and Gohnnorea, AIDS, and a bunch of other nasty stuff.
A Rickshaw would be more realible than a FORD with MS software poisoning it’s system.
Throw fresh crap on the pile of old crap to make it smell better?
Sounds Legit. This will get us 5* ratings for sure!
/sarcasm.
I don’t want Apple in my car any more than i want Microsoft in my car, or any touch screen crap that automakers develop themselves. A car is not a living room. It should not entertain you while you’re driving your 1800+ kg urban assault vehicle.
The one and only one exception to this might be a proper iPhone dock that recharges and plays audio over the vehicle sound system. A driver should be able to do this while still keeping control of his automobile (though it should be proven in drivers examinations). All the other electronic crap is a distraction — which explains that despite another 500+ pounds of additional safety crap that automakers ladened their cars with over the last 30 years, safety records are mixed — fewer fatalities but more accidents.
Sorry, I chafe against a self-escalating cost of transportation due to needless complexity, lower reliability, increased insurance rates, and unnecessarily increased vehicle mass (which degrades all measures of performance).
If you want to put more electrons in a car, invent an all-electric powertrain that will operate for more than a single winter driving season.