Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto are the two hottest options right now for car infotainment systems, but if you’re hoping that Ford will give you a pure CarPlay experience in one of their upcoming vehicles, you might as well keep on waiting for the mythical Apple Car.
Ford currently supports both CarPlay and Android in a limited capacity, but for now its CEO says the company will only allow the two systems to serve as secondary interfaces to its primary navigation system, SYNC.
“At the end of the day we don’t want to end up as the handset business,” Ford CEO Mark Fields told Re/code in a recent interview at the car markers R&D center in Silicon Valley. With thin margins, strict safety requirements, and long development times to worry about most of all, the car maker doesn’t want to become like the PC makers that learned a common operating system isn’t always great if you want to be a profitable hardware company.
“We want to make sure you are not pushed into a decision on a $40,000 car based on your $200 smartphone,” Ford CTO Raj Nair said. “The data shows SYNC has been a significant draw in the showroom.”
Ford also has an Apple Watch app in the works, which Nair says took his team just one week to build. For now, Ford isn’t completely abandoning integration with systems from Apple and Google. Nair says Ford is looking for new ways for SYNC to work closely with CarPlay and Android Auto. Like if you want to use Apple Maps for directions, but listen to Sirius radio through SYNC, Ford will make that possible.
Ford’s redesigned SYNC 3.0 system is expected to release this summer, and ditches Microsoft’s coding for BlackBerry’s QNX. Once SYNC 3.0 finally launches, Ford says it will get CarPlay supported vehicles on the road before the end of 2015.
Source: Recode
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
9 responses to “Ford CEO refuses to let Apple and Google take the wheel”
Yup, instead people will opt to not buy a ford at all because of a $200 phone.
Then they decide to go with blackberry coding… Yeah….
We are buying a new car soon and being the Apple fanatics we are, CarPlay is a must. We are waiting for it to start showing up in a car we like.
Yup. Ford wants you buy their $40,000 cars that have their $2000 systems that work like the $20 pieces of junk that they are. We looked at the Ford Sync system last year, and hated it enough to scratch Escapes and Explorers off our list.
SYNC has a draw in the showroom? Perhaps. But not for those that use Apple products.
No fords for me….
In other words, they don’t want to break their exclusive rights to Microsoft Sync’s contract.
Ford needs to get rid of Sync because it sucks big time. It barely works and is frustrating and difficult to use. But what should I expect from a Microsoft product? Sync is so bad, that it will be a factor in whether I buy another Ford product.
While QNX may be owned by BlackBerry, it handles Apple phones, android phones, and Windows Phones in addition to BlackBerry – it is platform agnostic
If QNX is good enough to run nuclear power plants and nuclear submarines, oh and runs Audi, Volkswagen, and BMW infotainment systems, why shouldn’t Ford be using it too?
Finally, you should be aware that Apple just happens to be a ‘Strategic Partner’ with the QNX automotive division
As always, Ford thinks they can impose their way of thinking to consumers… What a stubborn and arrogant bunch of people! No Ford for me! I heard of another company who thought like that once… what was it..? Oh yes: Blackberry!
Johnny you’re a tad bit confused!
Wasn’t it Steve Jobs who said that people don’t know what they want, they need to be told?