The next generation of Ford Sync combines with a new touchscreen interface called MyFord Touch and with cellphone-like steering wheel controls to provide upcoming Fords, Lincolns and Mercurys with a powerful and easy way to control audio, entertainment, navigation, and climate control. Sync now can be used by third-party applications such as Twitter and Pandora. It even provides a Web browser and Wi-Fi hotspot.

The Sync rollout was slated as a keynote speech by Ford CEO Alan Mulally on the opening day of the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show rather than at next week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Sync gets Wi-Fi capability, more connectivity options including an SD Card slot, and enhanced voice recognition. MyFord Touch provides a simplified touchscreen interface; the four corners of the screen take the user to phone, navigation, entertainment, and climate control.

The rocker-switch metaphor is Ford's answer to the console-mounted cockpit controllers such as BMW's iDrive plus workalikes from Audi, Acura, Infiniti, and Mercedes-Benz. It works the same way as all the cell phones and game pads you've already learned to use: four arrow switches facing up, down, left, and right, with an Enter / Do It button in the middle.

The new version of Sync is based on the Microsoft Windows Embedded Auto platform. Separately, Ford has announced it has opened the Sync interface to third-party applications running on smartphones. The driver controls the device and application through Sync and the touchscreen. The applications don't actually run on the car's electronics. The initial applications include:

• Twitter: Tweets sent to your cellphone as text are read aloud by Sync. You can't post. Some might question the value of hearing Tweets as you drive. (Likely answer: It's every bit as valuable as Twitter itself.)
• Pandora: streaming music.
• Stitcher: It streams your favorite news, radio shows, and podcasts.

Here's a visual tour of the key features of the new Ford Sync and MyFord Touch.  

8-Inch Touchscreen with Smartcorners
Sync works best with the available 8-inch touchscreen LCD in the center stack. It's not required to use Sync, but you'd be crazy not to get it. Access Sync's four main areas by touching a corner of the screen, each color-coded:

• Phone and communications (orange background), upper left corner.
• Navigation (green), upper right.
• Audio/entertainment (red), lower left.
• Climate control (blue), lower right.

Tap the "smartcorner" to access that function, or tap the Home icon at bottom center to return to the home screen, which can be customized for each driver.

One possible problem: Smartcorners offer no way to go directly to a moving map display, something many other navigation systems offer as a dedicated button. Ford couldn't immediately tell us how many button presses it takes to get to a moving map display. (Any number higher than one puts Ford at a disadvantage.) 

Cellphone-Style Rocker Switches, Dual Color Instrument Panel Displays
Ford studied all the control wheel solutions--BMW iDrive, Audi MMI, and Mercedes-Benz Comand--and decided they were either too hard to use or irreparably tainted by the miserable publicity suffered by BMW's first-generation iDrive, circa 2002 to 2005. Instead, Ford turned to the rocker-switch metaphor used by cellphones and game controllers: four compass-point buttons plus an Enter (OK) switch in the middle. Two 4.2" color LCDs in the instrument panel (IP) flank the analog speedometer; the left-hand rocker controls traditional instrument functions (left-hand display), while the right-hand rocker controls and the right-side display replicates much of what you see in the center stack touchscreen panel.

With the new steering-wheel-controls layout, Ford lays to rest the miserable and cheap-feeling thin plastic finger-shaped function buttons, arranged in two rows of four, that were hard to tell apart at a glance and made it easy to punch the wrong button, especially with gloves on. 

SD Card Navigation
Here comes another Ford navigation system. In 2006, Ford won the J.D. Power award for best navigation system using a Pioneer system, just as it was dismissing Pioneer in favor of a Sync-compatible system from Xanavi. (Similarly, Ford closed a redundant Lincoln Town Car assembly plant just as J.D. Power declared it the highest-quality plant in North America.) Now comes a navigation system from Telenav, that runs off a removable and easily upgraded SD Card with no dedicated DVD drive or in-dash hard disk required. Pricing on the system was not immediately available, but the simplicity suggests Ford is trying to drive the price down.

Ford will continue to offer its rudimentary Sync Traffic, Directions & Information navigation service if you don't opt for full navigation. TDI shows directional arrows but not moving maps. The SD card navigation offering continues with the Sirius Travel Link services currently offered with premium navigation: traffic information, weather maps, movie listings, gas prices, sports scores.

Surf the Information Highway (When You're Off the Highway)
Plug a USB cellular data modem in one of Sync's two USB jacks, and you've got an instant Wi-Fi hotspot throughout the car. That also creates a Web browser on the main LCD screen that the driver or passenger can use at any time they desire, so long as the transmission is in Park. You really thought Ford would let you go online while you're driving? You can navigate via an onscreen keyboard or a plug-in USB keyboard. (There's a picture of a Ford on the LCD screen above because the PR photo used the Ford Web site.)

Between the two USB jacks, SD Card slot, and RCA A/V input jacks (for playing music or (when stopped) videos, Ford effectively has what it calls a media hub.

Lincoln MyTouch Finger Sliders
With Lincoln's version, Lincoln MyTouch, the center stack audio volume and fan speed controls are touch-sensitive strips. Run your finger along the control strip to raise or lower the volume or fan; an LED "chaser" shows how far you've gone.

The Mercury version of the touchscreen interface is called, of course, Mercury MyTouch.

Rollout, Pricing
Ford will roll out the new version of Sync and MyTouch later this year on new models arriving in the spring as 2011 models, and it should reach most of the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury models by calendar 2011. Prices weren't announced for Sync. Currently it's included on the top trim line of each model and $395 on midrange models for Sync functionality: Bluetooth, USB jacks, and voice recognition.