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Ford to Introduce Wireless CarPlay in Select 2020 Vehicles With SYNC 4

Rychiar said:
its absurd its taken this long. My 2017 Civic has both wifi and bluetooth yet I'm stuck with super glitchy wired CarPlay...
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Don't hold out much hope for the wireless CarPlay to be any better. I have it in my BMW and I can tell you there are times where CarPlay fails to launch and you have to turn the car off, open the door, restart the phone... It's not frequent but it has happened at the worst times. Don't even bother talking to Apple about it, they will run you down a 2 hour long trouble shooting hole. It's buggy software on Apple's part.
 
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mikayla82ca said:
Don't hold out much hope for the wireless CarPlay to be any better. I have it in my BMW and I can tell you there are times where CarPlay fails to launch and you have to turn the car off, open the door, restart the phone... It's not frequent but it has happened at the worst times. Don't even bother talking to Apple about it, they will run you down a 2 hour long trouble shooting hole. It's buggy software on Apple's part.
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I have heard from others who own BMW's of that happening.
It sometimes fails to launch on my pioneer but I certainly don't have to turn the car off or open the door. Just toggling wifi will fix it. Or manually tapping the carplay on screen button. No phone reboot required.
 
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Dragunov said:
Can someone elaborate on the aftermarket receivers? I have carplay in the 2020 jeep but its only wired.. Will i be able to buy an aftermarket unit to make it wireless?
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I bought the Alpine ILX-107 a few years ago and I love it. It works very well and I put it in a 2010 Nissan Frontier. Even though it's wireless, I will plug the iphone in the lighter for power as carplay does pull a good bit on the iphones battery. But in town driving I never have to take it out of my pocket.
 
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FlyBry said:
Very relevant. They have a line of EV's coming out in next few months. And the F-series truck is still the largest selling vehicle of any type and has been such for over four decades.
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A line of EVs coming out? Sorry - no - AFAIK they are only planning on releasing hybrids.

This is not what I call an EV and that's why I will leave Ford.

And being stuck on Sync 2 with that real ****** Siri integration (I had to dl the update from the webs and put it on my Focus as Ford Online wouldn't give me an official Sync 2 upgrade btw) I am mor than happy to tell you that Ford will become irrelevant.
 
archer75 said:
I have heard from others who own BMW's of that happening.
It sometimes fails to launch on my pioneer but I certainly don't have to turn the car off or open the door. Just toggling wifi will fix it. Or manually tapping the carplay on screen button. No phone reboot required.
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Yeah BMW doesn't do anything the easy way. There are many days I regret the decision to buy one and miss my Ford Fusion... which I NEVER thought I'd say. All that glitters is not gold.
 
Hate to be "that guy" but I haven't had any wireless connection issues with my BMW in over a year.
2019 X5 //M
 
swagi said:
A line of EVs coming out? Sorry - no - AFAIK they are only planning on releasing hybrids.

This is not what I call an EV and that's why I will leave Ford.

And being stuck on Sync 2 with that real ****** Siri integration (I had to dl the update from the webs and put it on my Focus as Ford Online wouldn't give me an official Sync 2 upgrade btw) I am mor than happy to tell you that Ford will become irrelevant.
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Sort of. Some of their hybrids, while they do have a gas engine, can run entirely in electric mode. You simply have the choice of running on gas, a mix of gas/electric or entirely electric. Which I think is best as you have the choice and don't have to worry as much about range and getting stranded somewhere.
Some of their other vehicles are a traditional hybrid where you don't have that choice.

Just because you have an older sync doesn't mean they're going to be irrelevant. Because clearly they're releasing a new sync 4 and supporting wireless carplay, something most auto manufacturers aren't doing. If anything that keeps them relevant.
 
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mattopotamus said:
About time this becomes the norm. Even though I basically charge my phone every time I get in the car, I would rather drop it on a wireless charger. With that said, USB is sometimes finicky with CarPlay so I can only imagine the issues with wireless.
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I have a wireless carplay aftermarket unit and I will never go back to wired. I have a qui charger and it's amazing to just blob the phone on there and go. Or if I'm in a hurry, I don't need to bother with finding the phone in one of my many pockets, first.

It works 99% flawless. Just takes a tad longer to connect every once in a blue moon.

I assume it's taken this long due to contracts with BMW. And yes, I agree, this should've been more widespread way sooner. It's such a no-brainer, especially from an Apple-kind-of-way viewpoint. The wireless solutions feels so much more like Apple than the wired.
 
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Rafterman said:
There's no money in it for them to retro these changes to older cars, even one year older. So, I would say the possiblity is zero. Same thing with older TVs and adding Airplay 2. They can...but they won't.
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Try telling that to Tesla. Their OTA's cover models going back to 2012/2013.
That is the way of the future.
These 'old skool' car makers will have to change rapidly or they will find themselves facing extinction within a few years.
BMW are taking the P**S in charging an annual subscription.
 
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Will it have wireless charging built in as well? I love that in Beamers, you just drop the phone on the pad and it automatically connects to CarPlay and starts charging.
 
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Rafterman said:
There's no money in it for them to retro these changes to older cars, even one year older. So, I would say the possiblity is zero. Same thing with older TVs and adding Airplay 2. They can...but they won't.
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but most older tvs did add airplay 2 within reason. my 2017 vizio got it.
 
Rafterman said:
There's no money in it for them to retro these changes to older cars, even one year older. So, I would say the possiblity is zero. Same thing with older TVs and adding Airplay 2. They can...but they won't.
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It's unlikely, but I wouldn't say zero. Surprisingly both Mazda and Toyota offered a retrofit for older non-Carplay vehicle models to be upgraded to Carplay. In Mazda's case they went as far back as 4-years old for some models. They charged money for the retrofit, so I also wouldn't say that there's no money to be made.
 
I've had wireless CarPlay for a while with an aftermarket receiver (Kenwood DNX-996XR) and it's been fantastic. I can find an address on my phone and start navigation, and then when I get in my car it picks up where I left off with navigation and my music, all without having to take the phone out of my pocket.

Also, one of the biggest CarPlay improvements is with iOS13 that now has a "home screen" showing Maps, Music and Calendar on one screen, and allowing independent phone usage from what's on the screen.
 
archer75 said:
Sort of. Some of their hybrids, while they do have a gas engine, can run entirely in electric mode. You simply have the choice of running on gas, a mix of gas/electric or entirely electric. Which I think is best as you have the choice and don't have to worry as much about range and getting stranded somewhere.
Some of their other vehicles are a traditional hybrid where you don't have that choice.

Just because you have an older sync doesn't mean they're going to be irrelevant. Because clearly they're releasing a new sync 4 and supporting wireless carplay, something most auto manufacturers aren't doing. If anything that keeps them relevant.
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I meant they are becoming irrelevant as their options are not my options. Based on my automotive usage I gladly registered for a Volkswagen ID.3. Pure EV, sufficient range for my use case and reasonable pricing. YMMV.
 
Brien said:
Not to me. Not driving a boat.
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Ford actually started switching to importing European platforms, starting about 15 years ago. Anything smaller than an Explorer is basically a British/German design with parts from those countries.

The boat is long gone, replaced by the reliability of a Volkswagen.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Is Ford still relevant anymore?
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They also have the best selling sports cars so yeah I’d say they’re pretty relevant.
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StuBeck said:
Will be interesting in how well this is used. For short trips wireless is fine, but for longer ones peoples phones will start dying halfway through the trip. Thats why they didn't push for wireless to begin with.
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Day to day use wireless would be nice as you don’t have to put wear on the battery by plugging it in/out multiple times throughout the day.
 
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awer25 said:
I've had wireless CarPlay for a while with an aftermarket receiver (Kenwood DNX-996XR) and it's been fantastic. I can find an address on my phone and start navigation, and then when I get in my car it picks up where I left off with navigation and my music, all without having to take the phone out of my pocket.

Also, one of the biggest CarPlay improvements is with iOS13 that now has a "home screen" showing Maps, Music and Calendar on one screen, and allowing independent phone usage from what's on the screen.
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I have just installed a wireless carplay kenwood unit in my Mazda. Love the capacitive screen, love what ios13 has done to CarPlay. Wireless carplay is tremendous.

As to battery life, and bear in mind I have an iphone 7 with a cactus battery, I use about 15% per half hour, and the phone can get warm. My wife’s XS max on the other hand just sips the battery. Obviously on long trips you would take it out of your pocket and connect to power.
My only criticism, and it is a kenwood software issue, is the head unit does not provide a way to automatically swap between iPhones, even though you can preset up to five. y
You have to go into the settings/AV in/wireless carplay to choose the iphone you want to use. Kenwood really need a home screen option to select which iPhone for carplay. Also if some one else has used the car when you get it it doesn’t automatically connect to your iPhone. First world problem though solved with about five taps.

Overall though, I rate wireless carplay and the Kenwood frigging awesome.
 
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StevieD100 said:
Try telling that to Tesla. Their OTA's cover models going back to 2012/2013.
That is the way of the future.
These 'old skool' car makers will have to change rapidly or they will find themselves facing extinction within a few years.
BMW are taking the P**S in charging an annual subscription.
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Comparing any car company to Tesla is not realistic and you have to know that. Those cars get more updates than Android Phones. Keeping it topic related, their infotainment system is vasty superior to anything on the market from my experience. The UI and screens respond to touch just like a phone (eg no pinch/zoom lag). I have a 2020 car with a very modern infotainment system/display, and it still doesn't hold a candle to Tesla.
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Rafterman said:
There's no money in it for them to retro these changes to older cars, even one year older. So, I would say the possiblity is zero. Same thing with older TVs and adding Airplay 2. They can...but they won't.
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My Vizio P-Series from 2016 added Airplay 2 :p
 
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That's nice since they now offering OTA on their future cars, but I’d recommend everyone to at least test drive a Tesla before purchasing any car from 2020 onwards. Tesla supported OTA on cars all the way back from 2012(The Apple of cars) I doubt any car manufacture will do this. I also heard Ford is coming out with their EV F-150.
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