Another update with the fix was supposed to be available at the end of September:
Hot off the press from Oasis...
I'd rather wait an extra month or two and have it be correct than receive an update that fixes climate but breaks Sirius or something. Happens all the time with video games.
The thing is, the lengthy process doesn't seem to assure quality. The choices aren't "fast and broken" or "slow and reliable", they're they seem to be "fast and broken" or "slow and broken". I'd personally rather see a faster place of change and the ability to quickly address known issues vs stuff that is known to be broken and not fixed for months or years, if ever. But that is not a thing car companies seem able to do.
Also, you have to remember Ford has complete control over the ecosystem, supporting known hardware and software, unlike with video games (especially PC). Their QA is just lacking in general. I'd rather get quick updates to solve issues rather than placations that wind up meaning nothing.
I completely understand and mostly agree with your points. I don't understand why, but auto makers have yet to develop a quality OS for their vehicles. Some of the biggest, wealthiest companies on earth and they can't develop an infotainment system that is any better than "not bad", three years down the road. I would love for a standardized OS for automobiles that has a different flavor depending on manufacturer. Kind of like Android and how a Samsung OS is different than a OnePlus or a Google OS. It's still Android though. Google builds the base and says "Here, do what you want with it." At its core, it just works and then from there the manufacturers can spice it up however they want. If it breaks, they just strip it back and try again.
Yeah but...they did that on purpose because they think it will make them more money. I bet a lot of buyers would be happy if they got a hole in the dashboard and had to buy a third party system built to a common interface spec--because the third party would have an incentive to compete. But the automobile manufacturers don't want to do that because it's a hugely profitable option for them (and not bothering to do updates only increases the profit margin).
Thinking that Ford would purposefully make Sync3 suck because then they will sell more trucks is some Charlie Kelly level conspiracy shit lol
They didn't intentionally make sync3 suck, they intentionally made it hard to switch to a third party head unit and disincentivized doing so by bundling expensive sync packages with higher trim levels. Sync3 sucking is just the logical result of having no meaningful competition and ford therefore having no incentive to reduce their profit margin by putting more effort into making it better.
And also remove features of resold used cars because you don't actually own anything, you need to pay them licensing.
If ford could figure out to make that stick, I'm sure they would. I'm only speaking to their ability to create and distribute updates to their electronics, and the UX for those electronics--not their business practices.
You'd need to define standards and have a commitment to follow those standards for a third party market to thrive. To some degree that already exists, and there are products which can interface with a surprising number of cars. None of the mainstream cars is all that novel--you've got an antenna input, a microphone, cameras, etc. But you've got a zillion different connectors, and slightly different protocols, and just enough differences to make it hard to support all the functionality on a wide scale. And nobody is going to invest a ton of money in development if they might have to throw it out when the car is tweaked for the next model year. But this is all theory because as long as the manufacturers are making huge profits on infotainment packages they have no incentive to stop the gravy train.
Try a system reset, that usually fixes it.
That's the first thing the dealer did for me when I lost my climate controls, a master sync reset. AFAIK that's the only way to "reactivate" ford pass if it stops working.
