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After first showing it off on the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus, Ford has now revealed more details of its latest infotainment system, called Digital Experience.
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In addition to smartphone mirroring, owners can download apps such as Spotify and Waze from the Google Play Store to their own infotainment system.
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The system also lets you watch YouTube or Amazon Prime Video while standing still, and play video games with a Bluetooth-connected controller.
The debut of the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus last spring brought a massive 48-inch screen spanning the width of the dashboard. But the dazzling display is just one part of a new infotainment system that promises to better connect customers to the digital services they’re familiar with. Now, Ford has revealed more details about how the new Android Automotive-based system, called ‘Digital Experience’, works and what you can expect from the infotainment in Ford and Lincoln vehicles this decade.
Apps galore
The main intent of Ford’s new setup is to seamlessly integrate customers’ electronic devices with their vehicle, turning the car into yet another connected device in the owner’s “digital ecosystem.” The company highlights a study showing that the average American household has 16 connected devices and that the average American spends more than an hour per day driving.
The easiest way to make customers feel at home is to integrate well-known apps into the native system. While users can still mirror their phones via Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Ford and Lincoln system owners can also download apps like Spotify and Waze directly to the system via the Google Play Store. Once logged in, drivers can always access their accounts on these services, even when their phone is not in the car. Google Maps is also pre-loaded into the system as the primary navigation method.
While the system is parked, owners can also stream video through apps such as YouTube and Amazon Prime Video on the bottom touchscreen. We tested this out on a pre-production Nautilus at a media event by checking out the latest news Car and driver‘s YouTube channel, and the video loaded quickly, with audio levels controlled by the same knobs and dials as the radio’s volume. You can even download games from the Google Play Store, and we sampled the racing game Asphalt Nitro 2 on a demonstration device using a Bluetooth-connected controller. The built-in Vivaldi web browser will soon be joined by Google Chrome, and Ford also plans to add video conferencing apps.
Adjustable panoramic screen
On the Nautilus, the lower touchscreen controls what’s displayed on the 48-inch panoramic screen, said to be the highest-resolution screen ever offered on a Lincoln. The screen is positioned just below eye level, which Ford says keeps the driver’s eyes on the road while still allowing them to quickly absorb essential information. The widescreen display is organized into three planes: ‘critical’ information such as speed and BlueCruise status is directly in front of the driver, while important ‘support’ information, such as navigation, is in the middle, and ‘visible’ information, such as weather and tire pressure, lives in front of the passenger seat.
The “visible” portion of the panoramic screen consists of three spots for widgets, which can be interchanged by dragging and dropping the different apps to any spot on the touchscreen. Our hands-on experience with the demonstration unit found the system to be responsive and intuitive. There are only a few widgets available at the moment, but we expect the list to grow, with Ford hinting that video content and games could appear on the panoramic screen in the future. A “Calm” button removes all but the most critical information from the panoramic screen. A demo version of Ford’s infotainment system at the media event featured a touchscreen that controlled a smaller digital instrument cluster that would sit behind the steering wheel.
Ford designed the system around voice activation, which the company says will give all customers (even those less comfortable navigating touchscreens) access to the features they need. Google Assistant will be the standard, but Alexa will also be offered as an alternative to in-car controls such as climate and navigation. When using CarPlay, Siri can activate related functions.
Ford’s position is that voice assistants are safer than tapping a screen while driving, and that many configuration needs will already be met via driver profiles that load preset app preferences, favorite destinations and seating and mirror positions when each driver gets in. the car.
A more powerful system
The Ford and Lincoln Digital Experience is claimed to be the fastest system ever offered by either brand, with five times faster main processing and almost 14 times faster graphics processing. Ford is also touting four times the memory and eight times the storage compared to the previous Ford Sync 4 system. The system will feature 5G wireless connectivity, an available Wi-Fi hotspot and over-the-air software updates.
Although the system is based on the Android Automotive architecture, the automaker claims it is developing more software in-house to enable faster updates. This is also benefited by the transition from two separate modules for the instrument cluster and infotainment system to just one overarching module that controls the entire system.
The first vehicle to debut the new Digital Experience will be the 2024 Nautilus, which is also the first with a full-width screen. Ford said the panoramic display is currently exclusive to Lincoln, but we wouldn’t rule it out for future high-end Ford vehicles. Expect most Fords to have a simpler setup. The automaker said the first Ford vehicle with the new Digital Experience system will debut soon, which will give a better idea of how the new system will manifest without the panoramic screen.
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