Ford is killing off the universally hated MyFord Touch system

Automakers across the globe have taken some big hits to quality and reliability rankings over the past few years thanks to badly designed and poorly performing infotainment systems. One of the perfect examples of this was Ford’s MyFord Touch infotainment system, which was pretty much despised by everyone who was unfortunate enough to use it.

Unsurprisingly, the American automaker has decided to kill off that loathsome system and has replaced it with Sync 3. Ford executives hope that this new connectivity platform will eliminate the innumerable ease-of-use complaints that MyFord Touch  and MyLincoln Touch spawned.

The company also plans to ditch the Microsoft-designed digital backbone for this new system in favor of BlackBerry’s QNX operating system. Despite having underpinned Sync from the start back in 2007, both the market and the company’s competitors have stripped Microsoft of its position as market leader, something that seems to be a recurring theme for the company nowadays.

Ford is promising everything you’d expect in this new infotainment system, including faster response time, better voice-command integration, easier controls, and a more useable interface. The screen layout is more minimalistic and far less cluttered, with large high-contrast buttons that make items easier to discern.

“Simplicity has value,” said Parish Hanna, the global director of human machine interface at Ford, as quoted by Automotive News. “Reducing the number of things on-screen also makes control easier, and is designed to limit the number of times a driver has to glance at the screen.”

The new interface is supposed to hit Ford vehicles starting next year, and should be rolled out across the company’s entire lineup before too long. AppLink apps on both Android and iOS will still be supported, with Ford CEO Raj Nair saying: “We want it to be what we call ‘device agnostic.’ We’ve always said we don’t want you to be making a purchase decision about your $30,000 automobile based on a $200 smartphone,” as quoted by CNET.