Great news for those of who love a nice small peppy card and tech. Beginning next year, Ford will offer MyFord Touch with a new 6.5-inch LCD touch screen available on the 2014 Ford Fiesta. Currently, you can only get SYNC and mono LCD on the Fiesta (see photo to the right).
Ford announced the refreshed Fiesta at the Paris Motor Show, but we’ll have to wait to see what is all in store for the North American version of the car when it hits the floor of the Los Angeles Auto show on November 30.
MyFord Touch will be an optional upgrade from the Sync system, and it will offer features such as Bluetooth connectivity and voice recognition.
“Technology features are important to all of our customers including small car buyers, and MyFord Touch continues to drive up purchase consideration of our vehicles,” says Michelle Moody, Ford cross-vehicle marketing manager. “MyFord Touch is appealing to customers, as it consistently ranks among the top 10 purchase considerations with new owners. We’re excited to bring it to the small car segment, where it will really help Fiesta stand out from the crowd.”.
MyFord Touch, the latest version is simpler to use than the system’s original software. This move by Ford should aid it sales in the segment where the Fiesta battles with the Chev Sonic, Kia Soul, Mazda 3 to win customers hearts and dollars.
“We are seeing strong brand lift from MyFord Touch amongst in-market shoppers, with 65 percent of those intending to purchase a vehicle reporting SYNC definitely plays a role in their purchase consideration,” says Moody. “Take rates for MyFord Touch on new vehicle orders, such as the 2013 Escape and Fusion, continue to outpace our internal projections. We expect the same trend for Fiesta.”
Besides the new MyFord Touch 6.5-inch touch screen, the 2014 Fiesta will launch with the latest SYNC software that adds new features including:
- Simplified Bluetooth phone pairing: When pairing, the driver simply has to hit “OK” if the PIN on the phone and touch screen match each other
- More natural voice recognition: Drivers can now simply say “Play <name>” when requesting a specific artist, song, album or genre of music (i.e. “Play jazz” versus “Play genre jazz”)
- Improved voice recognition accuracy: The latest version of Nuance’s speech software, VoCon 3200 v4.2, improves overall voice recognition performance
- Flattened audio command structure: At any time, drivers can say the station frequency, “AM 760,” or the official name of the Sirius station, like “CNN,” to tune in; drivers no longer need to say “Radio” or “Sirius” to indicate their desire to listen to those audio sources
- Simplified navigation controls: The destination entry screen has been improved to help make it easier to enter an address
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