ntrlsur

According to the facebook for Touch they are not looking at releasing any software updates until after the new Taurus gets released to the public. Sometime this spring. Check out https://www.facebook.com/#!/fordedge on facebook. A bunch of people complaining about the same things we are complaining about.

Thought I would share this with you. http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/11/07/ford-bows-to-pressure-revamps-highly-criticized-infotainment-system/ Hopefully its the new OS as well as a touch update..

I typically do a shuffle too. Drives my wife crazy how I can go from country to pop. At least I am not the only one seeing this problem.

Wondering if anyone else has seen this.. I got the 2.8 install a few weeks ago. I always keep my ipod connected. When first connected it will index the music and then build the media commands. But it seems like it never finishes building the media commands. I keep about 3 gigs of music on my ipod it indexed pretty fast but here we are 2 weeks later and its still building media commands. I also notice that when I turn the car off come back later while the song resumes where it left off it starts my playlist over again. IE if i was listing to song 34 of 680 when i start the car back up its the display shows song 1 of 680. Its a bit wierd. Has anyone else seen this type of behavior with the 2.8?

Not sure I agree there. I am a systems admin for a video game company that is very frugal so I am use to having to make do. While i would have no problem using a 600mhz processor with 512 of ram in a server that handles 100's of users aday there is no way I would run a GUI on it. The overhead for that would be a killer in such a system. The slowness as reported by alot of sync users is due to that proc being over worked. Its not a stand alone video processor so all the work that gets done and is reported back to the end user (changing music tracks moving back and forth between modules) is coming from the CPU in addition to the processing work that the commands require. Hell a 1gig P4 would have been the better choice and cheaper. Not saying that you are wrong in your post just a disagreement from the sharp edge of the sword.

I have been there myself on large projects software and hardware and ford or at least one of there many consultants should have warned them that building a user interface system from flash of this scope was just plain stupid. Java would have been the better choice. The hardware specs alone should have given them a moment of pause. Core CPU: ARM Cortex A8 @ 600 mHz (most of the phones you are connecting to sync are faster) 2D/3D graphics controller 512MB RAM 2GB NAND flash memory these specs would have been fine if it was a background system that had no GUI and just did background processing but for front line work its a bit weak. I have had a few problems (APIM replaced, address book issues) But nothing really killer. Altho I agree for 40k I expect something a bit better. I also took the risk of buying first model year but for me it was the edge or the new explorer and when i bought in November they didn't have a release date on the explorer.

While I agree with most of what you are saying But the dealers themselves have been a bit shady when its come to the mytouch systems. I have switched dealers because my purchasing dealer with jerking me around and lying to my face. Telling me they don't have the right equipment and then telling me that the updates are not available when I know for a fact they are. I have a buddy that use to be a ford tech and he has been providing me with the ford documentation. If the dealers service depts. learn to actually provide good service and explain to the end user what's going on then maybe you don't need that kind of over-site from Mamma and Pappa Ford. But until they do you have to keep the customers in the loop. I am not saying a mailing to each and every customer but at least give a notice on the ford sync website.

I will shoot an email to my guy and see if he can get me a copy of the TSB.

Can you attach the latest TSB or do you not have access to it?

There is no more hard drive based storage for the sync system. You can either hook up an mp3 player to one of the usb ports, burn mp3 cds, use a sd card, or use a usb device in addition to to bluetooth streaming to your sync system. On the photos from the phonebook only a hand full of phones support the bluetooth protocol for that function. Check my other reply to your question to look at the compatibility list.

not all features will work with all phones. I know that text messages being read aloud only works with like 3 diffrent phones that no one has. Check out http://www.nsapp.fordtechservice.dealerconnection.com/sync/usEN/sync_us_EN_iop_1_30.pdf its a chart of what features work with which phone.

The APIM is the brain of the sync unit. I actually took the problem to them. I got a buddy who use to be a ford tech and he still have his login to there technical website and I was talking to him about the problems I had and he looked it up for me and gave me the TSB that references the problem. The dealer I purchased the car from was clueless so I ended up taking it another dealer and they got me squared away in about 3 hours. almost 2 weeks to the day of getting the update then my APIM died, basically the screen never powered on and I could not access any thing that the touch buttons controlled so they replaced that for me. Took 2 days since I brought it in at the end of a business day.

That is a great question. The answer can be anywhere from 3 to 4 hours to 3 days depending on if they fry your APIM while doing the upgrade. If they don't break anything in the process then its 4 hours for the update.

The newest version is Gen 2 - V2.4 give your dealer a buzz about getting the software update..

The easiest way to check it would be through mysync website.

I had the same thing happen to me right before my APIM died on me. Check your installed version and see what software version you are running..

If you purchase music through Itunes or Amazon you can download DRM free mp3s now for the most part. I still buy CD's and import them into my collection unless its a hard to find CD then i buy from Itunes or amazon.

Check out http://lifehacker.com/#!397258/find-and-embed-album-art-in-your-mp3-collection It is a nice write up of how to embed album art into the mp3 file itself. I use my ipod nano and SYNC picks up the album art from the ipod database. Once indexing is done then everything works great voice commands and browsing from the touch screen. It has taken me weeks to organize my music collection properly. I have about 120K tracks total in my collection and all the diffrent naming was driving me nuts. I used a program called picard to update the metadata of music files. I did it for piece of mind so when i am searching for files the naming convention is all the same..

You can embed the album art in the mp3 file. Not sure if that would work but it might help. I picked up an 8 gig ipod nano from a local pawn shop for 60 bucks and i let itunes manage the album art. It works nicely..

Blame Ford not Microsoft. The underlying system which is a version of Windows CE is very stable. Its the ford software application that is causing the issues.. The underlying software has been running huge retail businesses POS terminals for at least 15 years almost. Ford did a crap job of writing the software. They used Java for alot of it and they should have been using C# or the .net framework.

Could be why the failure rate is so high.

The service manager is lying to you. They do not download directly to the APIM. It gets downloaded to a USB stick and they have to use the ford program tool to upload it to your car.

No fuse pulling was going to help my situation. It was dead to the world. I am lucky enough to have a dealer 1 mile from my house and another that is .5 miles from my office. Being that i paid for the car and the extended warrenty when its not performing up to my expectaions i take to the dealer get a loaner and be on my way. Its a bit irritating but the upside is i put miles on there car and not mine..

Had the same thing happen to me. They had to replace the APIM which is basically the brain of the system. min 2 days at the dealer.. Sorry...

I had the same thing happen to me. Dropped it off at 530 in the evening. They called me the next day saying they had to order a new APIM. It came in the following day and was ready by noon of the 2nd day. Wasn't too bad..