"There's a mobile app for that" as Ford opens the interface to its Sync system. The Sync Open API lets developers create applications, or port over existing applications, for use with the Sync audio and Bluetooth system that's on more than a million Fords, Lincolns, and Mercurys. Ford recently showed the first two applications, SyncCast and FollowMe, developed in just 100 days this fall by a team of six students at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. SyncCast allows the Sync interface to control streaming iPhone Internet radio. FollowMe lets one iPhone-equipped car follow another iPhone car to a party or restaurant; the trailing car receives turn-by-turn directions not to the destination but to follow the path of the first car.

Ford's purpose in creating the Sync Open API (applications programming interface) is to unleash the kind of creativity and openness surrounding the iPhone and PC technology. Some of the apps will likely be iPhone apps that would be enhanced to work with Sync.

The purpose also is to position Ford as the leader in affordable technology for cars and, quite possibly, to challenge the absolute leadership - meaning technology where cost appears to be less of an issue - of the big three from Germany (Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz) and big three from Japan (Acura/Honda, Infiniti/Nissan, and Lexus/Toyota). The other player to watch in the make-tech-affordable sweepstakes is Korea's Hyundai, which also has a Sync-like development deal with Microsoft, which partnered with Ford to create Sync and previously with Fiat to create the similar Blue&Me.

Ford said the Michigan students chose the iPhone rather than a Windows Mobile device because, even though they were up to speed on Windows programming, the iPhone has the buzz. Once Ford rolls this out to all developers in 2010, the API would be for any mobile device that connects to Sync via Bluetooth. The application would run on the device; Sync's involvement is to provide a handier and safer interface: the car's voice input, steering wheel controls, and center stack LCD display or radio display. And there would be an app store, just as Apple has, for drivers to acquire the apps.

The first two apps were proofs of concept that the Sync Open API works. SyncCast and Follow Me weren't hyper-polished but they did do what they're supposed to do: function. One could ask how many people need Follow Me when navigation systems are so ubiquitous, but for caravan driving with fluid destinations, if not Follow Me you'd need a way to send destination information from one car to the others, and a variation of Follow-Me could handle that, too. Either way, no longer would you need to worry about the danger of speeding up through a yellow light to keep up with the lead car. The initial version of Follow Me is for a two-car caravan; it could be modified to work with multiple vehicles.

With SyncCast, Sync reads aloud a list of available Internet radio stations. Visions of spending hours listening to the thousands of Internet stations before making a selection were clarified by Ford: SyncCast works from a preselected list of Internet stations (Ford didn't say who chose them) and/or from presets you choose.
All this is a teaser for the next generation of Sync, which will be unveiled Jan. 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show in a keynote by Ford CEO Alan Mulally. The automakers pretty much ignored CES (as opposed to the automotive audio and electronics suppliers who thrive on CES) until General Motors got a keynote slot two years ago and used it to announce the Chevrolet Volt at CES rather than the adjacent North American International Auto Show.

Ford recently announced another interest-builder for Sync: in-car WiFi using a customer-provided cellular data card. It costs $395 (plus the air card) plus $29 a month for a basic data package, $59 for a more advanced (more megabytes) package. Ford says 70% of all Fords, Lincolns and Mercurys have Sync now. It's free on high-trim-level Fords, $395 on entry-trim-leel cars. Some reports say mobile WiFi is the next generation Sync; Ford says it's much more than that.