Android Will Power Ford Vehicle Navigation Starting in 2023

[VegStang]

I think the announcement forces their hand (well not really, but I'd like to know) on if the current vehicle will be migrated to the new system, or just gets functional updates and bug fixes beyond this year. Sadly, they may not have a real answer until after my order comes in, if they decide to answer at all. I'm not one to lease/rent vehicles so not looking forward to taking the hit after a couple years (selling the car) if they do plan on migrating this vehicle, but it is what it is. Don't want to assume or decipher what Ford will/won't do at this point.

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[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I think the announcement forces their hand (well not really, but I'd like to know) on if the current vehicle will be migrated to the new system, or just gets functional updates and bug fixes beyond this year. Sadly, they may not have a real answer until after my order comes in, if they decide to answer at all. I'm not one to lease/rent vehicles so not looking forward to taking the hit after a couple years if they do plan on migrating this vehicle, but it is what it is. Don't want to assume or decipher what Ford will/won't do at this point.

warning: another long and completely serious book post here.

"not really" is accurate. It's kind of binary right now:

1. they have already decided this and aren't telling us
2. they haven't decided yet for some reason

both of these have lots of nuance and decision trees under them but ultimately it's one or the other.

that said - and I say this as one of the problem children - a normal car buyer does not give a flying fig about this as some others on this thread have pretty much called out.

the position Ford is in right now is that many of the most vocal BEV buyers in 2019 (going back to initial reservation date here) are not "normal car buyers". We have a strong feeling from many decisions made that Ford was not targeting "tech geeks" but "normal people looking to enter the BEV space" (normal shifter knob, Start button, selling their own charger with an installation service option [has anyone taken them up on that?]), and many of the threads on this very site show they have in fact been successful with that goal. (no "I know all about BEVs" person would ask about charging stations for example because they already know all about them.)

so... they are again in a situation, like the shipping delays, where there is literally no right answer. Something that makes me happy as "a knowledgeable consumer" would make at least some others unhappy, and pretty much anything they do will leave some people permanently annoyed and/or in a state of "see 20 years ago Ford had this problem or did this thing with Sync or... so..."

Do I want "real" communications right now about this? Absolutely!

Do I "deserve" that? Eh, maybe? I think so. Not sure that's anything more than personal entitlement showing though. I feel like if you feel you "deserve" it you're coming at this the same way I am - "look at all this money I'm spending, it's a LOT of money." I have very mixed emotions about how valid this actually is.

Does Ford get hurt either not saying or saying right now? Yup.

How do you know that we in this very thread are special here? Because who right now is looking at buying an Escape (for example) and saying "well I won't buy this now because Sync 3 is in it and they have this Android thing coming in two years and I'm super concerned"? I bet it's very close to 0%. I bet that's true even for F-150 buyers and Sync 4. (no, a link to some F-150 forum somewhere wouldn't count, because by being on such a forum they have already self-selected for the "I am/want to be an educated consumer" category)

BEVs are still in the low market share, early adopter territory. Ford going after "normal" buyers here vs. us "educated buyers" colors how they are going to approach this by necessity.

 

[kdryden99]

warning: another long and completely serious book post here.

"not really" is accurate. It's kind of binary right now:

1. they have already decided this and aren't telling us
2. they haven't decided yet for some reason

both of these have lots of nuance and decision trees under them but ultimately it's one or the other.

that said - and I say this as one of the problem children - a normal car buyer does not give a flying fig about this as some others on this thread have pretty much called out.

the position Ford is in right now is that many of the most vocal BEV buyers in 2019 (going back to initial reservation date here) are not "normal car buyers". We have a strong feeling from many decisions made that Ford was not targeting "tech geeks" but "normal people looking to enter the BEV space" (normal shifter knob, Start button, selling their own charger with an installation service option [has anyone taken them up on that?]), and many of the threads on this very site show they have in fact been successful with that goal. (no "I know all about BEVs" person would ask about charging stations for example because they already know all about them.)

so... they are again in a situation, like the shipping delays, where there is literally no right answer. Something that makes me happy as "a knowledgeable consumer" would make at least some others unhappy, and pretty much anything they do will leave some people permanently annoyed and/or in a state of "see 20 years ago Ford had this problem or did this thing with Sync or... so..."

Do I want "real" communications right now about this? Absolutely!

Do I "deserve" that? Eh, maybe? I think so. Not sure that's anything more than personal entitlement showing though. I feel like if you feel you "deserve" it you're coming at this the same way I am - "look at all this money I'm spending, it's a LOT of money." I have very mixed emotions about how valid this actually is.

Does Ford get hurt either not saying or saying right now? Yup.

How do you know that we in this very thread are special here? Because who right now is looking at buying an Escape (for example) and saying "well I won't buy this now because Sync 3 is in it and they have this Android thing coming in two years and I'm super concerned"? I bet it's very close to 0%. I bet that's true even for F-150 buyers and Sync 4. (no, a link to some F-150 forum somewhere wouldn't count, because by being on such a forum they have already self-selected for the "I am/want to be an educated consumer" category)

BEVs are still in the low market share, early adopter territory. Ford going after "normal" buyers here vs. us "educated buyers" colors how they are going to approach this by necessity.

Agree 100%. The one thing I might add and maybe Ford will or won't acknowledge this, but I think those of us here in this forum are pretty informed about this car, more than almost any dealer out there. I would even go so far to say that this forum helped a lot of people to decide whether or not to buy this car because of all the info on this forum. Social Media and the internet can be better sales people than the sales people themselves (I think we've seen multiple cases of that on this forum already).

Do we deserve to know? maybe not but if they don't give us an answer then there are those on this forum, (maybe not me) but many who might decide to wait to order until closer to 2023 because of the fear of the lack of support. So it would be in their best interest to let us know so that people can decide for themselves. Think about it, if you planned on ordering a GT at the end of this year, you might have to wait until 2023 to get it, and if your car wont get an update, well a couple of months from then, the cars being sold might just have AA and you just bough a brand new car with the "older" Sync 4a.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

Agree 100%. The one thing I might add and maybe Ford will or won't acknowledge this but who knows. I think those of us here in this forum are pretty informed about this car, more than almost any dealer out there. I would even go so far to say that this forum helped a lot of people to decide whether or not to buy this car because of all the info on this forum. Social Media and the internet can be better sales people than the sales people themselves (I think we've seen multiple cases of that on this forum already).

Tesla would tend to agree with you. ?

Do we deserve to know, maybe not but if they don't give us an answer then there are those on this forum, (maybe not me) but many who might decide to wait to order until closer to 2023 because of the fear of the lack of support. So it would be in their best interest to let us know so that people can decide for themselves. Think about it, if you planned on ordering a GT at the end of this year, you might have to wait until 2023 to get it, and if your car wont get an update well a couple of months from then the cars being sold might just have AA and you just bough a brand new car with the "older" Sync 4a.

there's always that risk in any such transaction of course. I think part of what amplifies it is the long time window from "reservation" to "delivery".

if they said something "just on the forum" we already know it would get out to a much larger audience if it has general value very quickly (hello @OutofSpecKyle and @EVBite , I see you! ?) which is 100% fine because duh public forum.

so I think the way to look at the forum is "self-motivated first time and educated buyers" and not "we're a super special audience that deserves special care" because ultimately we aren't a special audience because it's a public forum. My point in talking about the forum as a population is around what our expectations are vs. the "normal" person, not around what we are owed. (I couldn't think of a better word that that - I don't mean it as a negative connotation.)

 

[MJMachForum]

None too happy about the prospect of the Google collaboration. They are not really know for data privacy as their business model is based around mining your data. Also, very worried about prospects of supportability. I had a 2013 Ford Flex with Mytouch that was obsolete in 3 years with barley any support to address the infotainment issues. I now have a 2019 Flex with Sync 3 but because Ford has discontinued the model they no longer provide updates to the newer sync versions. I get the direction Ford took with the Flex's as those were never bread winners for them but the MME OS is only used for 2 years before they do another OS switch? I don't get it.

Side note: I was looking up info on Android Automotive and fond an interesting article about security around that system. More interesting was the underlying CAN bus that the modules use for inter communication. It will be interesting to see how these connected cars influence new CAN standards given the glaring security issues presented by connected cars. Below is a link to the article and Ive attached a PDF.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340632296_Security_Analysis_of_Android_Automotive

 

[Fleuve]

There is no way they will continue to invest in development of the platform. I would assume that performance and other software related powertrain updates will continue. Improvements to the interface will not. That’s a significant negative. Obviously, Tesla buyers don’t face this issue (they face other issues).

This is my primary concern. Any developments that enhance the UX won't likely happen. No Netflix while parked, games...yes these are small but as someone mentioned, that was a huge seller of the new (now old) sync 4A.

 

[Jimrpa]

None too happy about the prospect of the Google collaboration. They are not really know for data privacy as their business model is based around mining your data. Also, very worried about prospects of supportability. I had a 2013 Ford Flex with Mytouch that was obsolete in 3 years with barley any support to address the infotainment issues. I now have a 2019 Flex with Sync 3 but because Ford has discontinued the model they no longer provide updates to the newer sync versions. I get the direction Ford took with the Flex's as those were never bread winners for them but the MME OS is only used for 2 years before they do another OS switch? I don't get it.

Side note: I was looking up info on Android Automotive and fond an interesting article about security around that system. More interesting was the underlying CAN bus that the modules use for inter communication. It will be interesting to see how these connected cars influence new CAN standards given the glaring security issues presented by connected cars. Below is a link to the article and Ive attached a PDF.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340632296_Security_Analysis_of_Android_Automotive

Let’s be honest - security isn’t in Google’s best business interest. It’s to their advantage to have a somewhat leaky, easily attacked platform, as that simply promulgates data further and ends up giving them a larger data lake from which they can draw information and make correlations.

 

[BlueMach]

A vague answer from this gentleman who identifies himself as being with Ford communications, when asked about what this means for future of Sync4a/QNX:



Pointless to try and dissect this tweet? Absolutely. Gotta pass the time somehow though

The problem with this tweet is "more to say later" doesn't help me when I have to decide right now whether I take my car or not.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

Let’s be honest - security isn’t in Google’s best business interest. It’s to their advantage to have a somewhat leaky, easily attacked platform, as that simply promulgates data further and ends up giving them a larger data lake from which they can draw information and make correlations.

to be fair - and I really do try although it's hard to tell sometimes - while Android security is a complete sh*tshow, Chromium security is in general quite solid (which Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Brave, etc. all benefit from), especially for a web browser (*). So I give that specific small team credit.

(*) yeah I know low bar

 

[VegStang]

Exactly, but I'm kinda doubtful they will say more for at least 6 months while they sort things out. I may be looking at selling the car sooner than expected taking the hit or staying with the Options Plan until I hear what their plans are if they go the way I hope and I can then pay it off- keeping the car for at least 7 years with Sync 4a. Still hope to take delivery of the car when it arrives, but further clarification would be nice.

I totally get it, I was at NeXT when they bought Apple they were bought by Apple, so I can see Ford wants to accelerate some change here. This is just one boat I'm not gonna ride.*

* Yea, it's a minority opinion.

The problem with this tweet is "more to say later" doesn't help me when I have to decide right now whether I take my car or not.

 

[kdryden99]

So from what I've been reading 6yr contract in which maybe year 1 will probably be rolled out to Lincolns, maybe year 2, the remainder of Fords. The silver lining is that Ford believes it was a necessary move to push for electrification of vehicles. Whether this means we will get it as an update or not is still to be seen but it seems that they do want all their electric cars to run on AA. They clarified that Apple CarPlay would still be supported by AA. I could see a possibility that even though our cars run Sync 4a and wont run Android auto natively as an OS, we would still get all of the other updates related to efficiency and performance, which is my main concern. We see that we can run AA or CarPlay as an app so its not too far fetched to believe that we can and will upgrade to AA once they make the switch in order to unify their electric cars.
The question now is do I really want AA? At this point if we get the update, the data collection is worrisome but I already have an Android phone and we dont have much of a choice if we want to stay up to date. If we dont get it I think they'll have to support Sync4a for a while in order for us to continue receiving OTA updates. Hopefull we'll get more clarification in the next few days.

 

[EVBite]

This might answer a few questions.

 

[kdryden99]

This might answer a few questions.

Note really it just says that google apps is not compatible with Sync4a, which is not surprising. That Doesnt mean that the hardware wont be compatible with android auto os.

 

[Bari]

So what does this mean for those of us who has iPhones?

 

[Maric]

FYI

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