Ford Using OTA Update To Add Android Auto & Apple CarPlay To Sync 3 Outfitted 2016 Vehicles
Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.
Following in Tesla’s footsteps (quite a few years later, that is), Ford will now begin rolling out some of its software upgrades via over-the-air updates — starting with the addition of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay to its Sync 3 outfitted 2016 vehicles in the coming days.
While the over-the-air (OTA) update that Ford will be rolling out isn’t related to anything other than infotainment (it doesn’t concern the vehicles’ operating systems), it does presumably represent the beginning of a wider adoption of the approach by the company.
And it is thus worth covering here at CleanTechnica, as it means that it may well be the case in the coming years that when an important software update or patch is needed, it can be done via an OTA update — rather than forcing all of the vehicle owners in question to bring theirs to a service center.
Reuters provides more: “After Tesla Inc’s early lead in 2015 introducing OTAs, traditional automakers are slowly beginning to embrace the new technology, within limits. Concerns about security and resistance from dealers worried about losing service revenue have hampered its adoption. … Customers can also get the update via the traditional means of visiting their dealer or using a USB drive, Ford said. … Ford’s first use of OTAs comes about two months after it said it would hire 400 engineers to work on connectivity, mostly from Blackberry Ltd’s shuttered phone handset business. Blackberry QNX powers Ford’s Sync 3 system.”
We can probably safely expect to see more and more auto manufacturers begin using OTA updates over the coming months and years.
Related:
Over-the-Air Updates Prove Their Value In New Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive Recall
Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica's Comment Policy
