Android Will Power Ford Vehicle Navigation Starting in 2023

[sockmeister]

Also, this will be the game for a while. Say you buy a 2023 Mustang Mach-E, and then 2 months later, Ford announces all new 600mi solid state battery tech coming to the 2024 MME. It's going to be like this for a while now as the technology rapidly turns over.

Go with the Ford Options plan - turn the car in when your time is up, and get the next one!

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[Maric]

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.

One thing I love about Tesla is the software upgrades which add QoL upgrades, new apps, UI refinement, etc. So what I'm hoping Ford will do is upgrade 2021/22 MachEs to whatever their new EV OS will be in 2023. I'm hoping we get some details on this in the short term.

Otherwise if i stick with the purchase, I'll go Ford Options and I won't need to worry about it. I'll just upgrade in three years. Just hoping for some clarification from Ford at this point.

 

[Chiefsfan]

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.

It does sunset the Sync updates.

 

[VegStang]

I had every intention on keeping the car for 10 years, now Options became a more important... option, that I may now not pay off after 6 months or so. I would be perfectly happy with fixes and important OTA updates for the charging, driving etc without ever migrating to whatever new Google "enhanced" UI/system is created for 23+ Fords. My expectation is that they will migrate current vehicles to the new platform (if it is a new platform, and not just cloud/nav)- either way they need to be clear for those that care. I know people's expectations were different for this car system, but I'm fine (and actually prefer in this case) if this ends up being more akin to every other car I have owned. Perfectly understandable of those that disagree.

 

[sockmeister]

It does sunset the Sync updates.

How are you sure?

 

[sockmeister]

Is this one of you guys?
Keep it up! Maybe I'll chime in...

 

[Mach Daddy]

I hope Ford isn't paying Google a cent if they are giving them access (which shouldn't be their decision anyways) to our data. But privacy is dead so may as well hope our Fords gets early access to Waymo's self-driving tech in return.

Or I don't know, maybe Ford dangled a future carrot to get free or cheap cloud use...rofl.

 

[buffasnow]

Amazon's own worst enemy sometimes is itself.



I think you're confusing "making a killing" with "being killed". ??? Although it still lives on, successfully, in LG TVs.

Yes! webOS was awesome...I miss my Pre2. Always found it hilarious when my daughter showed me her new iphone features that I already had on my Palm. I hate HP for what happened to webOS.

 

[ab13]

I hope Ford isn't paying Google a cent if they are giving them access (which shouldn't be their decision anyways) to our data. But privacy is dead so may as well hope our Fords gets early access to Waymo's self-driving tech in return.

Or I don't know, maybe Ford dangled a future carrot to get free or cheap cloud use...rofl.

Google announced today get will shut down their internal game development division for Stadia games. It means they are definitely looking for more customers elsewhere.

 

[Mach Daddy]

Google announced today get will shut down their internal game development division for Stadia games. It means they are definitely looking for more customers elsewhere.

Wow, hadn’t hear that. I thought they just launched it last year. Their revenue is like 98% advertising so I guess they need a new value proposition...us!

But if Waymo impresses I think a lot of us would reconsider our stance.

 

[jhalkias]

People are hitting up Ford officers on Twitter for what this means for the MachE. Will be interesting to see if they respond.

 

[jhalkias]

It's complicated, I think. Ford's gone through multiple CEOs at this point - a previous Google hookup failing is widely believed to be the reason for the CEO change actually in the past - and that's the C-suite is where this kind of decision is being made.

I suspect that this came down to pure cost numbers and end-to-end packaged offering. Google is the only company that can in theory check all the boxes here. Apple has no automotive OS (*) partially, I think, because they like too much control over the whole experience, and Microsoft is out of that space and focusing on the cloud services. So if you want one company - "one throat to choke" - then you really have zero other choices.

Which, when you look at it that way, is a bit problematic in the industry and suggests that in theory Microsoft (re-entering the market) or Amazon (with their Fire fork of Android) have an opening.

(*) that we know of officially at this time

Agree. And even as an Apple user, even if Apple had the product, they would probably want to tell Ford how to build the car.

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

What worries me about Google is that they get excited about something, throw lots of resources at it, get bored, and then drop it. Google Plus anyone?

My other worry is that the Mach E will be left behind in QNX world like @Maric mentioned.

 

[solarmoo900]

I'm very surprised how worried everyone is here, especially with how many software developers I see. I'm not sure how many people have ever seen a project A) launch on time and B) immediately deprecate the old version. Lets say this project goes off perfectly and in 2 years the 2023 MachE launches with this new system, I have high doubts that they would ever consider stopping support for the QNX anytime soon. Just look at this LTS chart on wikipedia, huge software has year or longer support. I imagine a car's software ends up in a similar bucket.

Also, I'm confused what software updates could be so critical to you enjoying your car that you would feel outdated in a few years?

I was planning on doing options before, still planning on it, but the software my car runs is the thing I am least concerned about becoming outdated in 3 years

 

[jhalkias]

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I'm very surprised how worried everyone is here, especially with how many software developers I see. I'm not sure how many people have ever seen a project A) launch on time and B) immediately deprecate the old version. Lets say this project goes off perfectly and in 2 years the 2023 MachE launches with this new system, I have high doubts that they would ever consider stopping support for the QNX anytime soon. Just look at this LTS chart on wikipedia, huge software has year or longer support. I imagine a car's software ends up in a similar bucket.

Also, I'm confused what software updates could be so critical to you enjoying your car that you would feel outdated in a few years?

I was planning on doing options before, still planning on it, but the software my car runs is the thing I am least concerned about becoming outdated in 3 years

There's a difference between "support" and "improvement."

Technically Ford still "supports" MyFord Touch in my 2013 since I can replace failed hardware and still download the last software release, and I can still get new annual map updates for the Navigation, and MyFord Mobile fully works, but I am not holding my breath on them fixing the spelling bug I know of, the Bluetooth bug I know of, or the Surround Sound setting bug I know of. There is a set of features like "Vehicle Health Reports" that don't work any longer and never will work again, and they didn't even bother releasing a build removing those features.

Windows 10 has an 18 or 24 month support policy for standard consumer releases (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/Windows-10-home-and-pro). Apple doesn't publish an iOS life cycle last I checked, but everyone sort of assumes "you must be current." Android is kind of all over the place depending on the device and Android release.

Given that literally nobody but Tesla has been successful in real OTA at this point, it's perfectly reasonable to be at least somewhat concerned about Sync 4(a) hitting a wall here. We just don't know right now.

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