Rant on Teasing

[Chuck]

Well this is what happens when you have nobody under the age of 60 in charge of the software development/deployment. They are manually releasing updates 1 at a time to owners. It's one of the strangest things I've ever seen a company do with their software.

Imagine if your iPhone update was manually pushed by an employee at Apple, individually. imagine everyone that has a phone has a completely different software. You could have a software that was 2 years old and someone could have one that was released yesterday and the only reason you don't have yours is because Apple hadn't gotten to you on the list of people to push it to.

Truly mindboggling how they handle these OTA updates.

A cell phone is a poor comparison. Phones are updated regularly until BAM, they stop getting updates altogether. And then we have lots and lots of phones that are in stasis never to be updated again. The reason? They want you to buy a new phone. If the Mustang were that way the Job 1 cars would be at end of life and would stop getting updates just about now.

Other devices that have software that could be updated often are seldom updated. For example my 70" Visio TV has the same software as when I bought it 5 years ago. My 3D printer software has never been updated in 5 years.

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[EasyPass]

Meh. I don't live or die by upgrades. The state of upgrades is not that important to me. However, having said that I did get Sync 4A (was it 4.1.2?) and do like its UI improvements. Did it change my life? No. I can understand their slow rollout of upgrades. It makes sense from a software development standpoint. If there's a bug in the deployment it's better to find out during the first 1,000 cars than after 50,000 cars have received the deployment. These are cars, peoples lives are at stake, care must be taken. It's not like a cell phone where a bad update or deployment is just an inconvenience.

Yeah, I get that. I'm retired from a 30 year career in IT. I can be very patient with things of this ilk since I know how complex systems can be. I probably should have stressed my dissatisfaction with the circumstances of preannouncing "it's coming". If I don't know that I'd likely be ok with the result unless there was a significant deficiency needing a fix. For example, I can certainly live with the current operation of the passenger heating system and have a reasonable expectation of it with the knowledge I have at this point. However, a month or more lag from announcement is just silly.

 

[Chuck]

Yeah, I get that. I'm retired from a 30 year career in IT. I can be very patient with things of this ilk since I know how complex systems can be. I probably should have stressed my dissatisfaction with the circumstances of preannouncing "it's coming". If I don't know that I'd likly be ok with the result unless there was a significant deficiency needing a fix. for example, I can certainly live with the current operation of the passenger heating system and have a reasonable expectation of it with the knowledge I have at this point. However, a month or more lag from announcement is just silly.

Well, that's the issue with rolling updates. Once the first people get it (I got Sync 4A last week) then it's no longer a secret. So they either tell everyone up front or wait until just before you get it and tell you which means you'll hear about it through the grapevine before the letter. Which would you prefer?

 

[ScottMcCool]

Look on the ford pass app, click account(top right), then message center. Unless you deleted your previous messages, should be able to scroll down and see latest software update. I got the same mailing as the OP. I looked back and saw I had received it Nov 10.

Thanks. Unfortunately. I have deleted most of my messages as I had a lot of them.

 

[ScottMcCool]

It is not a dumb question. The answer is dumb.

There is no way to tell the version of your last update, or the version of your software modules unless you have FDRS with a paid subscription. And even then when you find out the software versions you have there is no way to correlate it to OTA updates.

Dumb.

Ha, that's funny. Thanks. I don't feel as dumb now.

 

[mkhuffman]

Look on the ford pass app, click account(top right), then message center. Unless you deleted your previous messages, should be able to scroll down and see latest software update. I got the same mailing as the OP. I looked back and saw I had received it Nov 10.

Yeah, I don't think that method is reliable. At least it doesn't work for me. This is what it says my last update was:

A big fat nothingburger. I have to remember what was applied on 10/18.

 

[Hammered]

If anyone can convince a ford dealer to do the update for free, please video that and post it here!

Those of us with FDRS can pack the files into an archive and send them to you. Since it takes about 90 minutes to make the file that's specific to your VIN, don't expect too many to offer it up....

 

[acosmichippo]

I can understand their slow rollout of upgrades. It makes sense from a software development standpoint. If there's a bug in the deployment it's better to find out during the first 1,000 cars than after 50,000 cars have received the deployment. These are cars, peoples lives are at stake, care must be taken. It's not like a cell phone where a bad update or deployment is just an inconvenience.

of course, but the point is they shouldn't be so eager to announce these updates are "coming soon" weeks before they're even given to early release people. and before a holiday freeze when they knew they wouldn't be pushing updates to anyone at all.

 

[Burnsy8787]

A cell phone is a poor comparison. Phones are updated regularly until BAM, they stop getting updates altogether. And then we have lots and lots of phones that are in stasis never to be updated again. The reason? They want you to buy a new phone. If the Mustang were that way the Job 1 cars would be at end of life and would stop getting updates just about now.

Other devices that have software that could be updated often are seldom updated. For example my 70" Visio TV has the same software as when I bought it 5 years ago. My 3D printer software has never been updated in 5 years.

I think you're missing my overall point though. Why are they manually pushing updates 1 at a time to every car? Why are they not just pushing them all at once to all the same job cars?

 

[Chuck]

I think you're missing my overall point though. Why are they manually pushing updates 1 at a time to every car? Why are they not just pushing them all at once to all the same job cars?

That would be dangerous. No software is ever perfect and no testing is ever perfect. There will inevitably be bugs when it's deployed. Such bugs are an inconvenience on a phone but could strand people or even cost lives on a car.

Ford must deploy slowly to find the bugs as they deploy. When bugs surface they have to determine the seriousness of the bug and decide if it's to be fixed in a future release or if the deployment must be stopped and the bug fixed immediately.

I applaud Ford for not gambling with our lives and taking the conservative approach.

 

[DYohn]

I don't really care about updates, unless that's what it takes to make my car work. I don't want nor need constant improvements or stupid games. I just want everything I purchased to work correctly. It's a car, not an X-Box.

Oh, and by the way get off my lawn.

 

[Burnsy8787]

That would be dangerous. No software is ever perfect and no testing is ever perfect. There will inevitably be bugs when it's deployed. Such bugs are an inconvenience on a phone but could strand people or even cost lives on a car.

Ford must deploy slowly to find the bugs as they deploy. When bugs surface they have to determine the seriousness of the bug and decide if it's to be fixed in a future release or if the deployment must be stopped and the bug fixed immediately.

I applaud Ford for not gambling with our lives and taking the conservative approach.

So if you happen to be high on the list of the people that the interns push the updates to, Ford is gambling with your life?

 

[Chuck]

So if you happen to be high on the list of the people that the interns push the updates to, Ford is gambling with your life?

Absolutely, and you note that when you sign up. However, Ford is more conservative than say, Tesla, with deploying code. Tesla deploys code in beta format while Ford does not.

 

[Mirak]

Tesla deploys code in beta format while Ford does not.

Hmmmmm… that seems a bit relative.

 

[azerik]

Yeah, it’s not great. They have shown in the past that they are capable of delivering an update fast when they want. Just seems like they don’t always want to..

Feels like crowd testing to me. Not quite as blatant as some other manufactures but...

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