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Ford's Buggy Infotainment System Referred To By Engineers As 'Polished Turd' and 'Unsaleable' (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: A class-action lawsuit against Ford and its MyFord Touch in-vehicle infotainment system -- originally based on a Microsoft platform -- has brought to light corporate documents that show engineers at the Dearborn carmaker referred to the problematic technology as a "polished turd" that they feared would be "unsaleable." The documents even reveal that Henry Ford's great grandson experienced significant problems with MyFord Touch. In one incident, Edsel Ford was forced to wait on a roadside for the system to reset and could not continue to drive because he was unable to use the IVI's navigation system. The lawsuit describes an IVI screen that would freeze or go blank; generate error messages that wouldn't go away; voice recognition and navigation systems that failed to work, problems wirelessly pairing with smartphones, and a generally slow system. Ford's CEO Mark Fields even described his own travails with the SYNC IVI, referring to it as having crashed on several occasions, and that he was so frustrated with the system he may have damaged his car's screen out of aggravation. The civil suit is expected to go to trial in 2017.
True - MS products aren't known as stable reliable systems. Hell, MS OSes even left a whole Navy ship disabled, so why would you think an entertainment system nearly 20 years later would be any better? Their OS hasn't changed measurably underneath the covers, other than lots of bandaids.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This seems to be the norm for Ford.. Wife and I have a 2012 Escape, which has a "Sync by Microsoft" entertainment system (SirusXM/am-fm/Cd/Bluetooth Handsfree).. We've had the car since 2012, and right after we bought it, the sat radio would get "no signal" dropouts at almost every street intersection, no matter what sat channel you were on.. Once you cleared the intersection, signal would return, only to go out again at the next light.. Went back to the dealer and bugged them about it, they said "We'll take a look if you can leave the car for at least a week"... ???? WTF?? That AINT happening... Anyway we've just lived with it.. And not to mention the total of FIVE different Android smartphones we've tried to pair with the hands-free system.. None of which will pair.. I guess I should have realized when we were shopping for an SUV that ANYthing with parts with Microsoft's name on them would be a piece of shit...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
They should have gone with QNX.
http://www.qnx.com/content/qnx...
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
About 7 years back, an auto industry player asked me (well, it was an open contest really) what they should do with in-vehicle computing. I told them they should quit mucking around trying to save $10/unit on embedded systems and go with a standard "real PC" that both has more compute horsepower behind it, and also saves massively on application development. They actually awarded me $2000 for my advice, and apparently promptly ignored it.