SYNC 3.0 - Ford's Minimalistic Reply!

Lets admit it - 8 out of 10 analysts working in the automotive industry might have bashed the Ford SYNC system from different angles- poor UI, sluggish performance, issues with voice commands, too much centered on touch and lack of basic haptics and most importantly putting a ton of blame on Microsoft. I have been tracking this market for almost 10 years now at a global level, there are a few observations to highlight

• When the Ford SYNC and its predecessor Fiat Blue&Me (both Microsoft's new gen automotive re-entry systems) were introduced, it brought a new concept to the industry -a music player which can double up with phone functionality and pairing personal devices, the same time around which iPhones started exploding. At that time the concept was awesome and the execution near flawless because the functionalities included are ones that even the Carplay and Android Auto mimic (the one additional layer is the apps besides the music, nav and phone features).
• At at time when Smartphones, wearables and load of other CE devices are going through first generation troubles, the connected car with that much of software is no different. Yes accepted that driver safety is critical but technology innovation always has first generation issues and the failures always lays a good base for improvement (Ford has sold more than 4 million vehicles with the SYNC and even shown MOPs like vehicles with SYNC getting more value in the used car market than the ones without it).
• The issue came up when Ford rushed and introduced the MyFordTouch system wanting to be the first OEM to introduce a Smartphone-inspired dash. Extending the partnership with Microsoft, the system was criticized for many UI and performance related issues. All of this given the fact that Ford is still considered the first mover in the connected car market on many fronts. The criticisms led to 2 main actions - kicking out Microsoft which could be debated and a new partnership with QNX leading to SYNC 3.0 which is a more balanced system with better performance.

• Improved touch responsiveness based on benchmarking popular smartphone touch systems. The touch performance improvement is also because of a new TI OMAP 5 SOC replacing Freescale. This has also allowed Ford to include features like multi-touch gestures like pinching, etc though some of the initial feelers are that its sluggish.
• Improved performance of the Nuance voice recognition system especially in relating to navigation POI or route searches.
• Applink will continue to grow on two main platforms - iOS and Android and ultimately the vision is OS agnostic. And yes Carplay and Android Auto are somewhere in the roadmap (this is becoming a common trend now, except for 2 none of the other OEMs are announcing Carplay or Android Auto introduction dates)
• Flatter UI designs, simple and elegant feel and very minimalistic and clear menu flows, etc. This seems to be the biggest area of focus - to keep the innovation high but keep the UI very simple.
• Unfortunately 3.0 is not legacy compatible so the new system will be seen in 2015 and 2016 models only. That leaves over 4 or 5 million customers hanging which doesn't send a good signal.

What's the Key Takeaway - Whether its a pure play branding tool or revenue generator (for sure not in the short-medium term), connected car continues to be a hot area of development at OEMs. There are a few crucial points to note

• Auto OEMs will not make money from apps. The money will flow from the head unit and all the cool branded stuff like the Bose and B&O. And yes this makes the head unit and the HMI options along with the UI a very crucial element. Whether the customers understand it or not and use it or not a sluggish system with bad UI will definitely get noticed or much worse not be used at all. This is where Ford and many other OEMs have failed the first time but definitely are showing commitment to improve.
• Connected car business model is changing - money will not flow from direct B2C offers but will flow from the connected car data model that affects internal OEM business and show improvements there, e.g. aftersales, parts, etc and this is a several hundred billion $ business compared to a miniscule b2c market. But that doesnt mean OEMs will stop going after the smartphone, apps, create a cool UI,etc because even though these dont sell the cars they atleast help create some noise around it,e.g GM's LTE focused ads :)

Even though we keep saying this market is evolving rapidly the truth remains that there are too many technologies, features, things you can do or borrow from the CE market which is the true killer here. And its that time of the year when more announcement are going to be made, CES 2015. Stay tuned and lets guess what the next one year connected car theme is going to be after big data (in 2013), automated mobility (2014) and what now....GAMIFICATION???