Ford unveils MyFord Touch at CES

Nick Mertes 14 Jan, 2010 at 2:47am ET Article published in Tech

Ford unveiled the new MyFord Touch at their CES keynote address. While on the surface this sounds like SYNC 2.0—where you still just pair your phone with your car and have a bluetooth headset that you can sit in—it is far more than this. MyFord Touch is a combination of technologies including an updated version of SYNC, GPS navigation, HD Radio, WiFi, voice controls, and touch controls designed to put a metric ass-ton of technology in vehicles while at the same time enabling the driver to keep his hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

Instrument_Cluster A 2.4-inch LCD sits on either side of the standard analog-style speedometer. The left display is for vehicle focus data (fuel economy, vehicle health, additional gauges, etc), while the right display is used for audio, climate, phone, and navigation control. Each display is operated using its own five-way controller (up, down, left, right, ok) positioned on the horizontal beam of the steering wheel. The 8” touchscreen LCD in the center stack controls the same functions as the right-hand LCD behind the steering wheel, but in a slightly expanded manner. Each corner activates one of the four function categories from the right display.

Centerstack Below the center screen are the expected controls for audio and climate, but those too have been replaced by capacitive touch sensors. Lincoln models will be able to use a fancy touch slider to control the volume and temperature. All of these controls are easily reached while your hand rests on the gearshift.

Voice control has been expanded from controlling the phone to the entire MyFord system. Commands are natural, and the voice recognition system can be fully trained with as little as three commands. It is also able to learn and recognize the voices of different people.

States are starting to ban texting while driving because, quite obviously, it is a dangerous thing. Ford has mitigated that danger to a degree with the voice system. It will read your e-mails and text messages through the audio system and even use voice recognition to enable responding.

Ford has also planned an app store and will be releasing an SDK soon. Three apps are currently available: Pandora (a music application), Stitcher (similar to Pandora, but with news, talk, and other entertainment programming), and OpenBeak (Twitter). Thanks to Ford, the crews working on Pandora and Stitcher collaborated and got their applications ported and working together on MyFord in just ten days. OpenBeak reads your Twitter feed to you and uses speech recognition to create tweets. By the time vehicles are available there should be a good collection of applications to choose from.

The MyFord Touch will be available beginning with the 2011 Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, with the Focus set to receive it in 2012.

Comments

14 Jan 2010 ~ 3:02am Linc I don't want them to put MyFord Touch in the Lincoln.
14 Jan 2010 ~ 9:39am mertesn

Lincoln wrote:

I don't want them to put MyFord Touch in the Lincoln.

I believe for the Lincoln they do call it MyLincoln Touch. Does that make you feel better about it?
14 Jan 2010 ~ 5:40pm Petra The reviewer in me thinks that this is really cool technology that will, hopefully, go a long way toward improving driver attentiveness while still satisfying most car buyers in their "need" for connectivity.

Personally, though, I wouldn't want any of that crap in my car. I like physical dials, gauges, switches, and buttons (with as few as possible, of course)--in a word: simplicity. May all of the touch screens, in-dash navigation systems, fancy-pants sound systems, infotainment systems, bluetooth, automatic climate control, and proximity keys be damned! I get into a car with the intent to be cut off from the rest of the world and enjoy it. If three pedals, a steering wheel, a gearshift, and a reasonably comfortable interior can't keep me entertained, then the car's designers have failed.

Then again, my personal opinion represents an extreme minority viewpoint... perhaps it would be best to just stick with my inner reviewer.
14 Jan 2010 ~ 8:20pm yagga Thinking of Lincolns...

Lincoln is awesome..
Ford is uhh.. affiliated with Lincoln.

And I want knobs, buttons, levers, vacuum maybe, and that sophisticated uber dual din radio with all those trillion button lights lit up...almost 80s ish.. 100% access 100% of the time with no "F-ING SAFETY WARNING" and computerization.

98 Lincoln here I come!
14 Jan 2010 ~ 9:48pm Petra

yagga wrote:

And I want knobs, buttons, levers, vacuum maybe, and that sophisticated uber dual din radio with all those trillion button lights lit up...almost 80s ish.. 100% access 100% of the time with no "F-ING SAFETY WARNING" and computerization.

98 Lincoln here I come!

I had something more like these in mind: (top: my '00 M Roadster's center stack, bottom: an '08 Elise)
15 Jan 2010 ~ 2:46am ardichoke I agree with Petra on this. This touch screen stuff may be flashy and neat but there's enough stuff in a car to break already. Give me the bear necessities, radio, climate control, speedometer, fuel gauge and tach and color me happy. I really like how my 06 Saturn Ion is laid out to be honest. My gauges are center mounted in the dash, below it is the radio and the climate control. Everything simple. Nothing frivolous. Beautiful in its simplicity. The only thing I wish is that it was a bit more "solid" in some spots. Where my leg tends to rest against the center console it's starting to push the clips that hold it together out. I suppose that's what I get for the price range I can afford though.

EDIT, for photoey goodness. Looks almost like this, not quite the same though (I have manual transmission and the colors are different, this is also the 2004 model not the 2006 model though little changed between then)
15 Jan 2010 ~ 10:31pm yagga I think I'd have a hard time getting used to that Saturn/scion center speedometer thing they've got going on.
16 Jan 2010 ~ 2:12pm ardichoke I thought it was odd at first as well. I got used to it quickly though. Especially since I'm a bit on the tall side and I often have a problem with the steering wheel getting in the way of the speedometer. With the center mounted speedometer nothing gets in the way.