Via Ed Dreistadt, who always keeps up with car stuff when he's not busy helping companies with their marketing, comes this hilarious story on Ford's "2nd generation" SYNC(tm) software.
The software was developed by Microsoft, which begs the question, "What could go wrong?"
From the article:
"If the pulse of one of these applications goes haywire, in order maintain system stability, we reset that application by resetting the entire software to come back to a 'known good state,' similar to how you reset your phone or computer," said Mounir Hider, a Ford product development engineer.
In other words, "haywire" is code for the Blue Screen of Death....
The display and hardware in this new "Gen 2" system attempts to manage a variety of functions at once. And while Ford builds in redundancy to handle many of the core functions – climate and audio being two – navigation tends to find itself limited to a single point of failure.
In other words, Microsoft does not know how to write real time operating systems.....something that was worked out decades ago by other companies....
"We don't use this reboot strategy loosely," said Hider. "There are certain events that will trigger these reboots. Mainly it's when things get out of sync with each other."
....in other words, the system named SYNC can't stay in sync....
Hider did tell us one little known fact: The SYNC system actually restarts every 24 hours of usage. After a day's worth of use, the system will automatically reset on its own after the ignition is turned off. This is mostly invisible to the driver, assuming they don't go back into the car and turn on the ignition during the restart procedure.
...in other words, the system is so unreliable that it has to be rebooted every single day....
There is much more at the link, including an official Ford response at the end of the article. Disclaimer: I'm a lifelong Ford owner, and am extremely happy with my highly reliable Ford Fusion--which thankfully, is not equipped with SYNC(tm).