Ford has conducted its first major on-the-fly update of its Sync software. The update, which is being offered to more than five million vehicles equipped with the company's infotainment services, can be applied to any Ford vehicle from model year 2011 forward that has the second-generation of Sync.
The update notably includes Siri integration, with access to Siri's hands-free help gained by a long press of the voice recognition button on the steering wheel.
The software update is available for the second-generation of Ford's SYNC, commonly called MyFord Touch in North America. SYNC was engineered from the beginning, Ford says, to be capable of receiving updates without going to a dealership. The third-generation of SYNC, already includes Siri Eyes-Free and has begun appearing in vehicles for the current model year.
Here's Ford's short promo:
Source: Ford
On top of that sometimes I listen to Pandora instead of XM so I can still hear GPS instructions while listening to the radio and when the phone switches between Google Navigation audio and Pandora it will sometimes cut out or disconnect bluetooth. Sometimes I have to reconnect it manually, sometimes it reconnects on its own and plays the samsung theme and I feel like I am constantly running into bugs and having to mess with it when I should just be driving.
I am using a 2012 Toyota 4runner and an S6 and searching briefly just now reveals other Toyota/Lexus people had issues after upgrading to S6. The larger point is technology in automobiles has to be more reliable than my $25 bluetooth speaker at home. At least with the bluetooth speaker I can do a software update.
If stuff this simple is still this buggy how are cars ever going to drive themselves reliably? I couldn't imagine having to reboot my autopilot software 2 or 3 times during a drive or how that would go.
I intentionally didn't go with computer/navigation because auto manufacturers never update software for them and 3 years after you buy the car the computer/software running in the car is an antique. The entire computer/head unit needs to be a swappable upgrade so you can put an updated 2016 unit in a 2012 vehicle but even just over the air software updates would solve most of the problem.
My GF's Kia does look like it can be upgraded through a USB stick so I'll give that one a shot. I think Toyota etune is only for the nav units but I'll look into what upgrading the Toyota requires.
Getting Toyota Techsteam running to disable my seatbelt beep in the Toyota was a pain because the version I had didn't work with newer versions of windows even in compatibility mode but I guess this is the mess I get to deal with now that my cars are computers too.