I won't bore all of you with the details. If you have ever done the updates from Synymyride and the whole clunky time wasting process don't you just sense this is par for the course for Microsoft? Wonder why they can't push the updates and such TO your car silently in the background instead of you having to...well. you know the steps. It is as if you and I have nothing else better to do. I bought the frikkin Fusion to drive and enjoy, not to download, run to the car, install, reboot, run back to the computer, upload, to confirm like a frikkin pampered spoiled high maintenance "other" in a relationship! This is just one more piece of intrusiveness in an already cluttered life! Even the bozos where I got my 5000 mile checkup didn't touch the unit for a vehicle health report. Why do I sense that if this was an APPLE based system all of this would be pure intuitiveness to be 100% customer and user friendly.

 

Sorry Staber, but the Apple fans already know and understand this, and the Microsoft fans will only see you as an ignorant fanboy.

Just enjoy all the other wonderful properties of your new hybrid, and treat the sync issues like gasoline. Sometimes you just have to stop at the gas station and fill it up and pay your bill. Hopefully, you will be able to also enjoy the advantages of the sync system, and that will make the Microsoft tax of seemingly unnecessary maintenance and imperfect user interface worthwhile. That is, your nose should become desensitized to the bad Microsoft smell eventually.

-- Alan

 

Being a long time professional engineer, i do not tolerate clunky ill thought out interfaces well. The interface to use the sync system is inexcusable. This is what happens when commercial sensibilities and engineering capability missfire and do not integrate for the users' benefit. I work with these sorts of knuckleheads every day. Engineers without a lick of commercial sense and marketers who don't know jack about what they are packaging up and throwing over the fence. Excellent opportunity for those who mesh the two into one and actually listen to customers and follow through instead of discounting customers as mere annoyances. Isn't this how Detroit got its head handed to itself in the first place? Ford, not so much, GM as the continual poster boy... That being said, there isi hope, the Ford Fusion Hybrid, sans this sync bull crap is a fine piece of machinery, it's about frikkin' time!

 

Why didn't you just buy iSync from Apple then?

Oh, because there isn't anything like this from Apple. How about actually sending your suggestions to Ford/Microsoft and see what the response is? Wouldn't that be more fun that the usual Apple v Microsoft complaints? Especially in a case when the two aren't even competitors.

 

Even I love a smart *** but it has to be clever. This was too obvious.

 

My compreheisive complaint and suggestions are already registered with Ford and the Sync dept. Do you work in my company? You sound like the typical horses' patoots I know... Don't bother trying to fix something just nay say the mere attempt to try. This has nothing to do per se with an APPLE vs Microsoft but it does point out that some companies make better user interfaces than others. Hey, let's not improve it, let's just passively accept mediocrity while placating ourselves with our thumbs up our butt! You're off my project team, duuude. Didn't you once work for GM, Ford,or Chrylser before the Japanese auto carnage began. Wiih an attitude like that, you've got to be a holdover friom those knuckledragger days.

 

I'm sure Sync isn't perfect for everyone and every application but there are several people/organizations that see Sync in a different light:

"Research firm iSuppli said the Sync has “trumped the industry” with its “elegant, innovative and inexpensive approach to vehicle infotainment,”"
(ref)

"Both Ford Work Solutions and SYNC - two Ford-exclusive technologies - will be honored with International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2010 Innovations Design and Engineering Awards. "
(ref)

"Ford Sync: Automotive Excellence Awards 2008 (Tech Innovation)" - Popular Mechanics
(ref)

"Ford SYNC technology was named the 2008 Best New Technology by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC)"
(ref)

 

Better yet. head over to a web site that deals with sync only.

http://fordsyncforum.com/

You'll find people over there that hate sync just like you.

 

hmmm...now you want to make it personal and start the name calling? No one even suggested that it shouldn't be improved.

 

I don't get it...what exactly are you complaining about, Staber? It sounds like you are more interested in bashing Microsoft than providing constructive criticism (and I'm a Mac user).

The updates to SYNC are infrequent and not even required in most cases. I have updated SYNC just once in the eight months I've owned my FFH, and it took all of 5 minutes.

As for the interface, the voice commands aren't perfect, but it's nonetheless the best in-car interface that I've seen. My only major complaint is having to repeat a command to get into the sub-menu (like saying "USB" twice to actually control the USB device). I also think the nav screen could be more sensitive to the touch, like on the iPhone, but it's no worse than any other GPS screen out there, and the menus are pretty easy and straightforward (i.e.- not a big deal).