rkaplan Posted November 21, 2010 Report Share Posted November 21, 2010 (edited) I just picked up a 2011 Edge LImited after reading reviews and viewing demos of MyFord Touch on YouTube. I was intrigued by the combination of safety features in the car as well as the potential of a voice-activated Internet-equipped car with a software development kit so that I could develop apps to safely stay connected to my business while traveling in my car. From the driving perspective (yeah, it really is a car too) - very very nice. Every conceivable safety feature on the planet, very comfortable, handles very nicely. My two favorite fetaures are likely to be the blindspot warning and the adaptive cruise control. Re: blndspot warning, when a car is approaching my car to pass and is in the rear corner blind spot,the mirror on the approopriate side has a flashing LED - very nice as a double-check when changing lanes. As far as the adaptive cruise control, if cruise control is engaged but the car ahead is going slower than yours, then the car will automatically slow down to keep a specified gap. When the car in front speeds up or turns off the road, the cruise control resumes; I didn't try this part, but if the car in front stops then apparently the car flashes a heads-up display of some sort and primes the brakes for a short stop. As my 10 year old daughter said: "Dad so the car basically just drives itself ?" The audio system is incredible - so much that I can clearly hurt my ears and get ringing in them if the volume is turned way up. AM/FM, high definition FM, Sirius, or play directly from an iPod/iphone or songs stored on a USB stick. Voice recognition - very very nice and clearly a good safety feature. Very nice ability to recognize not only basic commands (temperature controls, radio operation) but also street addresses. It is very good at understanding random street addresses or even remembering them "Destination Jon Smith." Interestingly it did not do so well for my 13 year old daughter and that same problem happened on another speech app we once tried - I wonder if it is something about the very high pitch of a child's voice. t even has a fuel prices search feature built in which serves to easily locate gas stations - works very well. OK all that said - and it is very good - there are a few definite Version 1.0 issues: (1) No web browswer yet - It connects to the Internet from WiFi spots or from my MiFi, but then there is nothing to do with the Internet connection yet! The browser demonstrated on the web apparently has not yet been released and will be part of an update "soon". Ditto for the various apps that are supposed to be coming along. This is a really big omission though obviously easily fixed. Supposedly the browser will be fully operational including the ability to plug in a physical USB keyboard and play Flash sites. At that point, there are a few apps which I hope to see or would like to develop myself. (2) Limited iPhone support - The iPhone works for the basics like Bluetooth phone calls very well. It also plays music well from my iPhone when plugged in via USB cable. But it cannot play my music over the iPhone via Bluetooth, as it can from some other phones. It does not support other advanced features on the iPhone such as reading your text messages to you or taking contact photos from your phone directory. Not dealbreakers but a bit surprising that iPhone support isn't assumed (3) Sluggish touchscreen -- To some extent they emphasized the voice control over performance of the default physical controls. There are no actual knobs/buttons for most of the climate/radio controls - either voice activation or use of a touchscreen.But the touchscreen isn't iPad-fast in its response; it is a bit sluggish, something noted on earlier reviews though Ford said then it would be fixed when the car is released. So for example it's a bit awkward to physically scan through all the Sirius channels though very easily to audibly select a channel So really nice overall, clearly a safe car automotive-wise, and no doubt for a gadget freak like me it's better to have something ilke this which has voice recognition as I drive. The browser and apps are the biggies to come in Version 2.0 - and I would really like to think through the apps I can create or commission myself once the browser exists. Edited November 21, 2010 by rkaplan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cirockets Posted November 21, 2010 Report Share Posted November 21, 2010 I just picked up a 2011 Edge LImited after reading reviews and viewing demos of MyFord Touch on YouTube. I was intrigued by the combination of safety features in the car as well as the potential of a voice-activated Internet-equipped car with a software development kit so that I could develop apps to safely stay connected to my business while traveling in my car. From the driving perspective (yeah, it really is a car too) - very very nice. Every conceivable safety feature on the planet, very comfortable, handles very nicely. My two favorite fetaures are likely to be the blindspot warning and the adaptive cruise control. Re: blndspot warning, when a car is approaching my car to pass and is in the rear corner blind spot,the mirror on the approopriate side has a flashing LED - very nice as a double-check when changing lanes. As far as the adaptive cruise control, if cruise control is engaged but the car ahead is going slower than yours, then the car will automatically slow down to keep a specified gap. When the car in front speeds up or turns off the road, the cruise control resumes; I didn't try this part, but if the car in front stops then apparently the car flashes a heads-up display of some sort and primes the brakes for a short stop. As my 10 year old daughter said: "Dad so the car basically just drives itself ?" The audio system is incredible - so much that I can clearly hurt my ears and get ringing in them if the volume is turned way up. AM/FM, high definition FM, Sirius, or play directly from an iPod/iphone or songs stored on a USB stick. Voice recognition - very very nice and clearly a good safety feature. Very nice ability to recognize not only basic commands (temperature controls, radio operation) but also street addresses. It is very good at understanding random street addresses or even remembering them "Destination Jon Smith." Interestingly it did not do so well for my 13 year old daughter and that same problem happened on another speech app we once tried - I wonder if it is something about the very high pitch of a child's voice. t even has a fuel prices search feature built in which serves to easily locate gas stations - works very well. OK all that said - and it is very good - there are a few definite Version 1.0 issues: (1) No web browswer yet - It connects to the Internet from WiFi spots or from my MiFi, but then there is nothing to do with the Internet connection yet! The browser demonstrated on the web apparently has not yet been released and will be part of an update "soon". Ditto for the various apps that are supposed to be coming along. This is a really big omission though obviously easily fixed. Supposedly the browser will be fully operational including the ability to plug in a physical USB keyboard and play Flash sites. At that point, there are a few apps which I hope to see or would like to develop myself. (2) Limited iPhone support - The iPhone works for the basics like Bluetooth phone calls very well. It also plays music well from my iPhone when plugged in via USB cable. But it cannot play my music over the iPhone via Bluetooth, as it can from some other phones. It does not support other advanced features on the iPhone such as reading your text messages to you or taking contact photos from your phone directory. Not dealbreakers but a bit surprising that iPhone support isn't assumed (3) Sluggish touchscreen -- To some extent they emphasized the voice control over performance of the default physical controls. There are no actual knobs/buttons for most of the climate/radio controls - either voice activation or use of a touchscreen.But the touchscreen isn't iPad-fast in its response; it is a bit sluggish, something noted on earlier reviews though Ford said then it would be fixed when the car is released. So for example it's a bit awkward to physically scan through all the Sirius channels though very easily to audibly select a channel So really nice overall, clearly a safe car automotive-wise, and no doubt for a gadget freak like me it's better to have something ilke this which has voice recognition as I drive. The browser and apps are the biggies to come in Version 2.0 - and I would really like to think through the apps I can create or commission myself once the browser exists. Good review. Have one on order. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted November 21, 2010 Report Share Posted November 21, 2010 The lack of text to speech is an iphone limitation, not a sync limitation. Most cell phone mfrs and service providers have not fully implemented all of the required bluetooth interface profiles necessary to provide these advanced features or have not implemented them correctly. There probably are some sync bugs with some features but by and large if Sync advertises a feature that your phone doesn't support - it's the phone, not sync. Especially when the feature works with other phones (like text to speech). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkaplan Posted November 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2010 The lack of text to speech is an iphone limitation, not a sync limitation. I suspect a creative programmer could work around that limitation. It will be very interesting to see what sort of apps evolve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.