Last year I spent time at Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn. One of things I saw was MyFord Touch. Late last year Ford announced upgrades to MyFord Touch and starting this week they are shipping.
Ford is delivering on the promise of the “Upgradeable Car” – more than 300,000 current MyFord Touch owners will be receiving upgrade packages in the mail this week that include a USB flash drive with updated software for at-home installation, all free of charge.
The MyFord Touch upgrade provides an improved user experience based on feedback from owners, dealers and employees and includes simpler graphics and text, faster touch screen response and better phone pairing and compatibility. In addition, Ford continues to migrate MyFord Touch across its product line; the 2013 Ford Taurus and Ford Flex will be the first two of seven new models launching this year with the new system
New features
Ford also took the opportunity to update the performance of the system and add new features for customers to help them keep pace with the fast-moving consumer electronics market.
Faster touch-screen response time, for example, was a key request from owners. Initial testing shows that touch and voice response is at least two times faster than the current system.
Also, the software upgrade includes the following enhancements:
· Improved voice recognition experience powered by Nuance
– Quicker voice recognition upon startup and faster command prompt when the voice button is pushed
– Voice commands used in conjunction with navigation are simplified through elimination of the need to provide street direction, e.g., “Main Street” instead of “North Main Street”
– Music requests are simpler by removing the need to include the additional song, album or artist information often found at the end of a name in (parenthesis) or [brackets]
– Customers can find their favorite sports team in action via new Sirius Game Finder simply by saying a command such as “Tune to Detroit Lions game”
· Tablet device compatibility
– Music and other media content from most popular tablet computers like the Apple iPad can now be accessed through a simple USB connection
· Audible.com audiobook support
– Listen to Audible.com content using voice commands or the easy-to-use touch-screen controls
· Connected navigation powered by TeleNav features new map data by NAVTEQ
– Updated map views are richer and feature more 3D landmarks
– Views of freeway junctions and signs are enhanced through photorealistic screen images
– Smart routing options are provided based on a database of historical traffic patterns
· Phone compatibility
– Automatic Bluetooth® connection upon vehicle entry has been improved
– Noise and echo cancelation during phone calls has been improved to enhance call quality
· Gracenote® album cover art database
– Inclusion of the latest music metadata available enhancing the music playback experience
– Improved voice recognition for music search allowing drivers to pinpoint artists with hard-to-pronounce names or nicknames
![MyFordTouch_Phone_CallProgress-scree[1]](https://i0.wp.com/moviesgamesandtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MyFordTouch_Phone_CallProgress-scree1.jpg?ssl=1 "MyFordTouch_Phone_CallProgress-scree[1]")
And a short video showing it as well:
