For those who have yet to see where Bluetooth/Ipod integration is moving to, see the following link to describe as installed on the Ford Edge for availability this fall. Way cool...

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9672995-1.html

 

Yeah.
I wanted to look at an Edge. There were none to be had yet. The car is months behind schedule - original reports pegged the car as being launched in "summer 07", then "fall" then "by the end of the year", I checked the deler invantories last night just for giggles and there are still none in stock... I saw one at the LA auto show - but by then I had lost interest. The Ford lady asked me if I was interested, I said "nope", "ive lost interest...too little, too late" She wanted to give me a $500 off coupon.

I certainly dont look to Ford for innovations in technologies in autos! Call me a pessimist, but I doubt that this integration package will work well at all. Remeber the Chrysler "Visor Phone"?? It sure sounded good in theory.

 

Understood. However, this is a Microsoft/Sync product, not Ford, so it will be interesting to see. If it does perform as described AND is delivered on time, it will be exactly what I was looking for when I considered RDX (bought a TL due to V6). I have seen 5-6 Edge's in Chicago so far. Obviously, none has this feature yet.

 

The American car makers spend much more energy on the gadgets and styling than they do the handling/reliability/quality of their cars. Have you seen a GM ad lately? The best selling point they could come up with is that all their cars have on-star. Well that is great to have when your car keeps breaking down, I guess, but I'd rather start with a well engineered vehicle and worry about the gadgets later.

 

So I guess you are happy with HFL and MusicLink? There seems to be alot of dissatisfaction of these features on this forum.

- No integration of phonebook
- No hard drive for music library
- No USB connection
- No manipulation of playlists
- High cost of feature and installation/low value of ML?

Maybe the '08 RDX will attempt to catch up.

 

Catch up to what ??

It is very doubtful if this "intergration" makes it to market in it's current iteration in a Ford product.......besides - people dont shop Ford for technology, methinks they shop Ford for value (2007 Mustang = live axle).
You cant even get factory Bluetooth (IRRC) in a Ford product right now, so we are supposed to believe that they are going to make this quantum leap forward in technology AND that it will work correctly?

If it were worth doing, Honda/Lexus/Infiniti would have done it years ago.

 

At least someone is trying. Someone will figure this out. I believe in the next model year. If not Ford (I am not a Ford fan), than perhaps one of the companies you mention. Hopefully it is Acura, and then maybe they'll start to hit their sales targets.

 

HFL works just fine for me. I can make calls and answer calls. And I have no interest in a $200 cable that does not much more than the AUX jack. Would I like both of these features to be more than they are. Sure! But I wouldn't buy a lesser car just because it can auto import the 200 contacts I have in my Treo... of which I would only call 10 of on a regular basis.

 

Sounds a lot like what I had expected the RDX's HFL and MusicLink to do. Both IMHO is the low points of the Tech package for me. I hope it doesn't require me to install some crap on my computer for music navigation.

 

I agree completely. I dont think Microsoft is the right platform and Ford is the wrong vehicle - but I'm behind the concept.

.

 

>However, this is a Microsoft/Sync product, not Ford, so it will be interesting to see.

No disrespect meant to you, but hey, well, if it's MicroSoft, well, then, that will be interesting to see. LOL.

EDIT: Strike two, I see this is from a CNET ad rag I mean web site.

 

the real website is www.syncmyride.com

 

Thanks Sasair! Anyone who looks at this will be impressed.

 

I'm not impressed yet. Not till the product is delivered and run through its paces. It is a Ford creation built upon Microsoft technologies so it will likely only be seen on ford/lincoln/mercury for a while.

I am interested to see how they implement the ipod integration since they only mention a USB connection. As far as I know, the ipod doesn't output any audio signals through the Apple USB cable. They'll have to have custom cables and a different cable for each device. Don't think a USB cable even has enough contacts to do power, audio, and controls.

Also will be interesting to see the quality of components used in this sync hardware since it is being built by ford. I hope they don't cheap out, but it is ford...

It's still about 10 months out so we'll have to wait and see....

 

Well, USB is "serial" after all, so they can send a lot of stuff through the cable despite the low wire count. The downside is that communications could potentially be slow. But plenty of audio products utilize USB.

 

Agreed. If power delivery/charging is to be the only function, they would not need USB. However, if USB is being used as a transfer mechanism to Flash RAM or disk, that could be promising.

 

well the iPod has a USB + and - data and a USB + and - power, and that takes up all the USB contacts. The iPod does not transfer any music over the USB data contacts. It doesn't even send any of it's accessory protocol used to control the ipod over the USB data. Leads me to believe that you will need either a second cable to route music into an aux port, or a Y cable to accomplish the same.

 

transferring protected AAC files like the iTunes store uses to a flash ram or disk woudn't work. so that would limit you to unprotected formats. Of course at this point it is all hypothetical anyway....

 

USB-2 has plenty of throughput for an audio stream, in fact, it has way more bandwidth than needed. Check out the product "Eye TV" for an example of using USB for some fairly high bandwidth analog signals (audio *and* video).

 

I know it has the bandwidth, that's not an issue. But the device, ipod in this case, has to be able to send the audio over the USB data wires, and the ipod is not made to do that.

 

I am not saying that the standard iPod data cable would be used. It would have to be a different cable with some smarts. USB can pass an analog signal -- such as audio -- through the serial interface. You mentioned a few posts back that USB did not have enough "contacts" to pass power, audio, and controls, but it can do all of that by passing it as serial data. The audio aspect would be trivial.

Presumably, the interface cable would function like a neo/iceLink by controlling the iPod and passing the audio.

 

I understand what you are saying, but the it wouldn't be a simple cable, but more of a adapter like musiclink is now. it would have to take the outputs of the dock connector and combine certain outputs together. for example it would have to take the serial transmit and receive and the audio signal and combine them to travel over the USB cable and into the Sync. From the pictures they have released, that is not how it is pictured. the ipod how it is now has all of its signals on seperate contacts. it doesn't combine any of that stuff.