Android Will Power Ford Vehicle Navigation Starting in 2023

[sockmeister]

Having been in the Valley for 20 years now I know people at Google, Apple, FB and understand the concerns go beyond simple demographic/advertising data. I worked with the EFF and the local school district to opt-out students from Google AFE accounts. I know the efforts and work that Apple's privacy team puts into decisions regarding on-device data manipulation vs. cloud. I've always found it astonishing that the it's often the same people that are concerned about government tracking, have little concerns for Google/Facebook/Amazon data mining.

In this case, we are talking specifically about data that the car would collect with Android, not my phone or my online activity while logged in to Google.

Anyway, Google provides a place where you can actually see exactly what sort of data they've collected on you, and you have the option to delete all of it. I review it once every few months. I'm not concerned. myaccount.google.com.

I'm not worried about "government tracking" either We all carry a cell phone everywhere we go, anyway. Which, these days, is really just at home 24/7. I don't think the government would have any trouble tracking any one of us down if they wanted to.

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[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I'd really hate to see the automotive market ceded to Google as what's happened with Education. The business model just doesn't have the room for essentially giving the sw away when you don't profit off the data later. Sadly I don't see a realization of this at Apple Park, even with all the effort on Titan.

The IT industry is going through a pretty seismic shift right now to "the endpoint is dumb and the cloud is smart." We're kind of back to mainframe except instead of a big machine in a datacenter overseen by guys with long beards, it's all "magic" in the cloud. I know some mainframe folks continue to laugh at the idea that we're back to centralizing although of course they miss the point about "no on-premises" and "truly cross-platform" but anyway...

My point is that if you look at the big players, everyone gets this except Apple. Apple is so focused on "the experience" and, nowadays, making TV shows (*), that they have really in some ways missed the boat. Yes I know it's strange to say that, but they are very dependent on a lot of people for their devices to actually be of value. They just won't admit it. But as long as they continue to print money and have a perceived experience benefit and "privacy" benefit (**), it won't matter.

Meanwhile, Google has always focused on the advertising services side and having endpoints provide as much data to anyone that will buy anything they can as possible, and Microsoft has an official position of "we don't care what you run on as long as we're using our services," (***) both of which are different ways of acknowledging where IT is today.

And as I'm sure a lot of folks reading this recognize, since we have a lot of IT folks (devs, admins, etc.) on here, there's a lot of people still pushing against this move, but they are losing. On-premises, for a vast majority of use cases, is dead.

(*) kidding
(**) as long as Apple accepts money from Google to be the preferred search provider, all of their other privacy efforts are, in my opinion, window dressing. Money talks.
(***) it would be fair to say this is somewhat of a "making lemonade out of lemons" situation

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

Sure, haha, Android is relatively new in that sense. But it's probably got an advantage here in being more modern - both in terms of security and the user experience.

I agree, it's not as simple as flashing an OS. Ford will definitely need to do some sort of integration with their hardware. But that can all be flashed through an update. I am putting my money on us getting it too.

I should say by the way that despite my "real-time experience" comment, I think that this announcement is important in the industry for a particular reason, something I don't think I said on this thread yet : this is very, very bad news for QNX in the automotive market. This announcement hurts them in a big way. This announcement came out at the same time BlackBerry (owners of QNX) is being played with by Redditors, so it's unclear if the stock market has registered this yet for their stock, but it seems Ford stock did:

(I don't think the roughly-same-times "CEO of Canada changed" announcement is the reason for this bump!)

I think this announcement is the start of the end for QNX in cars. (This statement is a long-term statement not a short-term statement.)

 

[VegStang]

I'm sure for many Android users this is a wonderful development. Frankly it makes me sick to my stomach, but as a business decision from Ford's standpoint really not surprising all things considered.

I would have liked to see QNX (and others) continue as a choice, but as @GoGoGadgetMachE has mentioned it doesn't bode well.

In this case, we are talking specifically about data that the car would collect with Android, not my phone or my online activity while logged in to Google.

Anyway, Google provides a place where you can actually see exactly what sort of data they've collected on you, and you have the option to delete all of it. I review it once every few months. I'm not concerned. myaccount.google.com.

I'm not worried about "government tracking" either We all carry a cell phone everywhere we go, anyway. Which, these days, is really just at home 24/7. I don't think the government would have any trouble tracking any one of us down if they wanted to.

 

[Lucky luke]

The IT industry is going through a pretty seismic shift right now to "the endpoint is dumb and the cloud is smart." We're kind of back to mainframe except instead of a big machine in a datacenter overseen by guys with long beards, it's all "magic" in the cloud. I know some mainframe folks continue to laugh at the idea that we're back to centralizing although of course they miss the point about "no on-premises" and "truly cross-platform" but anyway...

My point is that if you look at the big players, everyone gets this except Apple. Apple is so focused on "the experience" and, nowadays, making TV shows (*), that they have really in some ways missed the boat. Yes I know it's strange to say that, but they are very dependent on a lot of people for their devices to actually be of value. They just won't admit it. But as long as they continue to print money and have a perceived experience benefit and "privacy" benefit (**), it won't matter.

Meanwhile, Google has always focused on the advertising services side and having endpoints provide as much data to anyone that will buy anything they can as possible, and Microsoft has an official position of "we don't care what you run on as long as we're using our services," (***) both of which are different ways of acknowledging where IT is today.

And as I'm sure a lot of folks reading this recognize, since we have a lot of IT folks (devs, admins, etc.) on here, there's a lot of people still pushing against this move, but they are losing. On-premises, for a vast majority of use cases, is dead.

(*) kidding
(**) as long as Apple accepts money from Google to be the preferred search provider, all of their other privacy efforts are, in my opinion, window dressing. Money talks.
(***) it would be fair to say this is somewhat of a "making lemonade out of lemons" situation

Perhaps I am not 100% objective as I am a google user. I prefer driving on google maps or Waze with my small smartphone above the build in gps on my bmw screen. But I hear a lot of positive reactions of the android UX from Polestar 2 drivers.
Dawn, now I have to wait for release 2023 to order my Mach-E ??

 

[Maric]

Honestly if I don't have a definitive answer in the next few weeks about what this means for the MachE I may bow out.

Even if they support Sync4A, if they are only 'maintaining' it, there goes any upgrades, new features, etc.

I need to know the OS in my vehicle is going to be supported long term. I don't have the same privacy issues as others as I'm ingrained in Google products and they probably know more about me than I do! So if I had the assurance my MachE would be upgraded to Ford's next platform I'd be happy. If the MachE is going to be stuck on a dead OS? I don't think I'll go forward.

Not being negative just makes me very nervous to spend $60K only to be stuck in Fortran running my vehicle.

 

[BlueMach]

Honestly if I don't have a definitive answer in the next few weeks about what this means for the MachE I may bow out.

Even if they support Sync4A, if they are only 'maintaining' it, there goes any upgrades, new features, etc.

I need to know the OS in my vehicle is going to be supported long term. I don't have the same privacy issues as others as I'm ingrained in Google products and they probably know more about me than I do! So if I had the assurance my MachE would be upgraded to Ford's next platform I'd be happy. If the MachE is going to be stuck on a dead OS? I don't think I'll go forward.

Not being negative just makes me very nervous to spend $60K only to be stuck in Fortran running my vehicle.

I'm getting to the point where I will have to make that decision very soon myself, today's announcement really throws a wrench into my plans. My car is days away, and it'll be the most expensive thing I've ever bought, and now they seem to actually be advertising that it will be instantly obsolete.

I want a guarantee of long term support and feature updates for my Mach-E, and an upgrade path to Android OS for my existing car. I do not want the answer to just be "buy a new one" in 2 years.

There's also the fact that a Google-powered car is a HUGE selling point for me.

 

[Accord07]

Our Honda runs Android, memory serving it was the first year Honda started using that platform when we purchased that vehicle. At the time, they used a *very* old version (something like 2 versions behind the "current" Android release at the time). It was also _significantly_ nerfed. Truth be told, it's been rock solid, in fact the most solid platform of all the "screened" vehicles I've owned.

My only complaint is that, Honda decided not to actually take any advantage of Android. No Android Auto, no installable apps, no upgrades, nothing. Clearly they did it just to outsource the platform, not to enhance user experience.

My question would be, would Android actually benefit the user in any way over the QNX with Sync 4 skin on it? Difficult for me to see any benefit there for the customer.

That was prior to 2017, newer vehicles released since then do support Android Auto. How stable it is depends on whom you ask, it has been rock solid for me in my minivan because >95% of the time I am using Android Auto, while others have managed to get it to hang or crash when using some of the other features. My vehicle's infotainment system in 2017 came with Lollipop (released in 2014), and it is still on Lollipop.

It seems to me that Honda just wants to get it done as cheaply as possible. But one difference between phones and cars is that the latter are expected to have a much longer service life, that makes continuously updating their software more difficult. My van uses the rather outdated concept of having a ceiling-mounted LCD screen for video - but I actually prefer it over letting my kids bring their own tablets or laptops on road trips as I do not want to leave a bunch of electronics in the van, and if they can't agree on what to watch they might as well enjoy the scenery outside - the built-in apps are quite bad and will never be updated, but I can simply plug a streaming stick into its HDMI input and be done with it.

 

[GrumblesTheDog]

I'm getting to the point where I will have to make that decision very soon myself, today's announcement really throws a wrench into my plans. My car is days away, and it'll be the most expensive thing I've ever bought, and now they seem to actually be advertising that it will be instantly obsolete.

I want a guarantee of long term support and feature updates for my Mach-E, and an upgrade path to Android OS for my existing car. I do not want the answer to just be "buy a new one" in 2 years.

There's also the fact that a Google-powered car is a HUGE selling point for me.

I was initially worried about the same thing, but upon really reading the press release, doesn't it just read like the navigation specifically will utilize Android-based technology somehow? And not that Sync 4a will be totally replaced by Android OS? There are some recent tweets from Mike Levine where he assures people they will still be able to use Carplay, etc.

If this is truly a brand&new OS, I can't imagine Google would somehow let an Apple system play nice with them, right? I also hope that Ford wouldn't shoot themselves in both feet by *completely* obsoleting their flagship car before it's even really started going out to consumers...

 

[BlueMach]

I was initially worried about the same thing, but upon really reading the press release, doesn't it just read like the navigation specifically will utilize Android-based technology somehow? And not that Sync 4a will be totally replaced by Android OS? There are some recent tweets from Mike Levine where he assures people they will still be able to use Carplay, etc.

If this is truly a brand&new OS, I can't imagine Google would somehow let an Apple system play nice with them, right? I also hope that Ford wouldn't shoot themselves in both feet by *completely* obsoleting their flagship car before it's even really started going out to consumers...

It sounds like an all-new OS. The current SYNC is based on QNX, not Android. You could, in theory, have Google Maps run inside an emulated Android OS inside of QNX, but that'd be kinda silly, IMO. I have to assume this means a new SYNC that is Android-based, or to put it another way, a total rewrite from the QNX SYNC in the 2021 Mach-E.

• As part of this new, six-year partnership—and beginning in 2023—millions of future Ford and Lincoln vehicles at all price points will be powered by Android, with Google apps and services built-in

That has to be Android Automotive.

Android Automotive supports CarPlay, so that aligns with the tweets.

 

[Maric]

Definitely need a lot more information and specifics from Ford on this. This tweet from Ford Communications is not confidence inspiring.

I don't know what it is with this car. Have been on a see-saw a couple of times. Every time I get comfortable with the purchase and excited again Ford throws a wrench in my resolve. /sigh

 

[VegStang]

Yea, I think regardless of how you feel about the move they need to be specific about what it means for the current vehicle most of us are waiting on.

Definitely need a lot more information and specifics from Ford on this. This tweet from Ford Communications is not confidence inspiring.

I don't know what it is with this car. Have been on a see-saw a couple of times. Every time I get comfortable with the purchase and excited again Ford throws a wrench in my resolve. /sigh

 

[Maric]

Yea, I think regardless of how you feel about the move they need to be specific about what it means for the current vehicle most of us are waiting on.

That's my biggest question. I definitely do not want to be stuck on an aging OS.

 

[SashaLondon]

Definitely need a lot more information and specifics from Ford on this. This tweet from Ford Communications is not confidence inspiring.

I don't know what it is with this car. Have been on a see-saw a couple of times. Every time I get comfortable with the purchase and excited again Ford throws a wrench in my resolve. /sigh

Think this points to cars pre 2023 won't change software but say a 2023 MME refresh will have new software and old ones will run the old system. They would have to run them side by side for a while until the old system is just supported with fixes only.

 

[sockmeister]

Definitely need a lot more information and specifics from Ford on this. This tweet from Ford Communications is not confidence inspiring.

I don't know what it is with this car. Have been on a see-saw a couple of times. Every time I get comfortable with the purchase and excited again Ford throws a wrench in my resolve. /sigh

I hear you. I know what it is though -- it's the price point of this car. We are all in that boat!
Here's the ways I look at it:

1. This is 2 years from now, at least.
2. It's very possible for our cars to get an update to use the new OS, and it would be in their interest to do so. They invested a lot of time and money into Sync 4a. They're not going to suddenly throw it away. This will become some sort of integration with it. My guess is that Sync will become a specialized skin written on top of Android, much like phone and tablet (and car audio and other embedded devices) currently do.
3. The Mach-E will be far from obsolete, even if it doesn't get this change. For at least the next 2 years, plan for OTA to focus on the Mach-E where it matters: Performance, range, Sync 4A updates.

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