I got this this morning, anyone having issues with it?
Sync, navigation a bad match
Together they make iPod play frustrating
BY MARK PHELAN • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • February 17, 2008
I used to love Sync, but I’m so over that now.
The system, which Ford and Microsoft developed to let drivers use spoken commands to run iPods and mobile phones, bewitched me when we first met.
We had a great week together. I thought it would last forever, but lately Sync has gotten weird. I think we need some time apart.
As with any breakup, I feel guilty and conflicted.
Am I being too hasty? How could I have been so wrong? Maybe I was right then, and I’m wrong now.
No. It’s time to look Sync in the eye and be honest: The problem isn’t me, it’s you.
More specifically, the problem is that when Ford equips a vehicle with both Sync and a navigation system, irreconcilable differences arise.
If you buy a Ford, Lincoln or Mercury vehicle with Sync and without an optional navigation system, you will love the system as I did when I tested it last fall in the Focus, the first Ford to get the system.
Adding the navigation, however, introduces an annoying extra level of commands to Sync’s menu, making everything harder to do. Sync’s whole purpose is to simplify, so this is a fundamental problem.
A couple of examples:
• If your iPod is playing and you want to hear a specific song, basic Sync allows you to request the title by pushing a button twice quickly and naming the song. Adding a navigation system, however, eliminates the double-click option. Instead, you return to the main menu, wait for Sync to read you all your options – “Telephone. Navigation. Audio. User device.” – select user device, wait for Sync to tell you it’s ready, select your iPod, wait again for Sync to tell you it’s ready, then request the song.
• Sans the navigation system, every time you restart the vehicle, the iPod resumes play in the mode you chose the last time you used it. Add a navigation system, however, and Sync will pick up playing, but it will only play songs from whatever album contained the track it was on when you turned the car off. If you use “shuffle” to randomly select songs from your iPod, you have to go through several spoken commands or a couple of steps on the dashboard audio controls to get back to where you started.
• On one vehicle I tested, Sync kept misplacing my iPod, telling me it was not connected. It was, as proven by the Ford badge glowing in the iPod’s screen.
Ford knows the current navigation system interacts poorly with Sync. Ford assured me a new navigation coming later this year is much better.
That’s fine, and I’ll be happy to test that system when it arrives. For now, though, vehicles with Sync alone get my highest recommendation. If you’re considering one with Sync and navigation, you should give the system a long test to see if you have the patience for it.
Sync meant a lot to me once. It realizes it has issues. It promises things will be better next time, after therapeutic sessions with that new navigation system.
We’ll see. We’ll meet again, maybe for dinner, when Sync’s worked the bugs out. Maybe we can recapture the magic. But I’m not making any promises.
