MFT/Sync Tips and Tricks

[jmueller065]

I'm going to put this out here because I'm guessing many people are using MFT wrong (much like Consumer's Reports--they just don't get it).

Here are some tips/tricks that I've come to know about MFT/Sync over the past 2.5 years:
The biggest tip about MFT is don't touch it while you're driving! Thats it--use Sync that is what it is there for! I rarely touch the screen while driving; I always use voice commands.

Yes I know: "But sync takes so long, its much quicker to just hit a button.." sure but while your looking for the button you're also headed for that tree!!!

Tip #1: Go into Settings -> Voice Control. Set it to "Advanced" and turn off all the prompts (unless you like hearing the "Sync lady" yack at you). With everything off all you get when pressing the sync button is a simple "Beep" (none of the "Please say a command" voice prompts). This will make your sync interactions twice as fast.

Unfortunately the latest version of MFT/Sync (3.5.1 if I'm not mistaken) does not download the music content over bluetooth--this means that you cannot say "Play artist xxx" when on bluetooth (at least with iOS devices--I'm not sure about Android ones). If you connect your device via USB everything will work. When first plugged in it will take the radio a good 5 minutes or so to download the information off of the device (give or take depending on the amount of songs you have--I have about 1,000 which is where my 5 minute reference comes from).

Tip #2: Think like a programmer, not like you just want to do something. What I mean by this is that you have to put sync into "modes" for some operations. Like to change the temperature you first have to say "climate", wait for the 2nd beep and then say "set temperature to 65" (or more appropriately for FFE: "climate off" LOL). So to control your device via USB press the sync button and say "USB", wait for the 2nd beep then "Play" or "Play <item>" or "play artist <xyz>" or "play song <abc>" (note that if you just use the "play <item>" version it will prompt you when there are conflicts--like an album and artists name the same)

Tip #3: some devices are always enabled: no matter what you are doing you can always say "call mom on cell" or "call dad at work" etc. (given you have "mom" and "dad" contacts in your contact list).

Tip #4: When entering an address with navigation park somewhere and use the screen--its easier LOL I have successfully been able to enter an address in via voice maybe twice.

Tip #5: (Last one) Since MFT is windows you can set your desktop image: go to Settings -> Display -> Edit Wallpaper. Take a .jpg or .png file you'd like to see on your screen, use some software to rescale it (photoshop, etc.) to 800 x 384 (I haven't had much luck with images that aren't set to the native resolution of the display). copy that file to a thumbdrive and put it in the USB port of the car. From the edit wallpaper screen hit the "Add" button and select your file. That image will show up as the background to the "home" screen.

Remember sync can understand some 10,000 commands.. play around (note that you can always say "cancel" if you get lost/confused--I've also discovered that "shut up!" works similarly to cancel!)

 

[dmen]

Good points.

Totally agree, it is impossible to enter a destination via voice commands.

Getting used to the way Sync expects a command takes time. My only voice recognition before Sync is with Siri- in comparison Sync leaves a lot to be desired. But accepting it's limitations, I find Sync pretty useful.

On a related note- someone posted somewhere that if you save a charging point in My Ford Mobile, that destination becomes a favorite/point of interest/something like that in the Navigation system. I haven't found this to be true. If any of you have seen this happen, can you post details on how to make it happen? I find the list of charging locations in the Nav database incomplete and out of date to the point of being pretty useless. I'd love to be able to update it.

I also wish there was integration between My Ford Touch's nav system and the Sync Services navigation system. I thought that destinations or routes I set up on Syncmyride or iOS Destinations app could then be sent to the nav system, but instead it only sends them to the telephone-based Sync Services function. I don't find Sync Services useful at all.

Last question- has anyone received word on when FFE's MFT update is coming?

 

[jmueller065]

You can tell sync services to download the points into your car--I forgot how to do it but you can.

There is also a way to e-mail a location to sync services (and then to your car).

In addition you can program a route on mapquest and then send that to the car via services as well (when you do that and call services it will say that a route is waiting for you, do you wish to download it). To do this: get directions on the mapquest web site. At the top right is a "send" button with a down arrow--click on the down arrow and select "car". Select the "Sync" button and enter in your cell phone # that is registered with sync services. Once you've done that go out to the car and hit the sync button and say "services" I believe the first thing to come up after connecting to services is a prompt: "You have xxx waiting for you do you wish to download it?"

 

[dmen]

Jmueller- So I've tried sending from Mapquest and downloading, but it only downloaded to SYNC Services, ie Sync Services will give voice turn-by-turn directions, but doesn't load the destination/route into the car's navigation map. Have you actually gone through the Mapquest system and received an on-screen route in your car? I'll try it again, I guess.

 

[jmueller065]

My ICE Focus doesn't have Nav (yeah I have a rare MFT setup without Nav).

My wife's Edge does have MFT with nav and we've used the mapquest feature to send a route from mapquest to her nav system. When we dialed into sync services the first thing it did was to prompt that it had a route to download. Once downloaded (on a vehicle with Nav it downloads just the start and end points to the nav system) we could see the route on the map on the nav screen.

I'll go try it again...

 

[jmueller065]

Ok just tried it:
Ran some directions on mapquest, hit send to car, sync, it asked which point of the directions do I want to send to the car start or end--I picked a point. Once that was successful I went out to my wife's Edge.

In the car: press the sync button and say "services". It dialed into services which answered with "Mapquest has sent a point; do you want to download?" I answered "Yes" services responded with "downloading" then did a bunch of stuff (sounded like it hung up and called back) and after about a minute the point I sent from mapquest appeared on the nav screen as a destination with some buttons on the bottom of the screen which included "set as dest" and "save as favorite".

 

[Steve]

Those are all good points you make. This is my first time having a car with a touch display and extensive voice commands. I am having fun learning about it. Probably your best point is to use the voice commands and avoid using the touch display. Once I realized that myself, I looked at the system in a different light. For example, I always take an iPod into my cars so I have my music with me. One thing I do not like about the iPod touch/iPhone models compared to the older iPods is the lack of a scroll wheel. It makes it more difficult to flip between songs, pause, etc., while keeping my eyes on the road. With MFT, once I realized I could do all that and more with voice commands, I decided it did not matter which iPod device I had in the car. The interface on the iPod no longer mattered. So instead I bought a 32GB USB flash drive and loaded it up with my music and some playlists. Now I leave that in the car all the time. It is indexed and always ready to use. (Note to Mac users: MFT seems to have problems with the hidden files OS X leaves on the drives. Sometimes it will not recognize the USB device after I load some files on it. If I go back and delete some of those hidden files, like the Spotlight files, then MFT will recognize the USB drive properly again.)

Also, if you like changing your wallpaper, check out what the ICE Ford Focus owners have put together: http://focusmftwallpapers.tumblr.com/
There is a small arrow at the bottom of that page that will take you to four more pages of images. There are some really nice ones.

 

[dmen]

Yeah, I got around to trying it again and it works better than I remember, kind of. Doing the mapquest thing, as soon as I dialed up SYNC Services, the kind robot asked me if I wanted directions from mapquest, and when I said yes, downloaded in maybe 10 seconds and showed me the address I used, with a button to set as destination. I then tried downloading a different destination that I had entered on syncmyride.com, asking for the destination by name. It downloaded and showed the correct address on a map. Very nice. Since I was just playing around, I didn't set as destination, and turned the car off.
Then I thought twice and figured I'd save one of those destinations as a favorite. Powered car back up, went to map's recent destinations, but neither destination was listed--I guess b/c I never confirmed setting them as destination. Went back to SYNC Services. Robot asked me if I wanted to download recently requested directions to X, and I said yes. She said it was downloading, then the call disconnected and nothing downloaded. I tried this 3 or 4 times, and it wouldn't download. This reminded me of what went wrong when I tried downloading from SYNC Services when I first bought the car. I get a pretty good cell signal here, so not sure why it wouldn't go through.

Anyway, I'm sure it will work most of the time. I guess the functionality just isn't what I would hope for. Since entering destinations is such a pain on the touch screen, and impossible by voice, I had hoped to quickly enter my 5-10 common destinations on syncmyride.com, and just see them with the names I already chose in the car's navigation favorites. Instead, I have to dial up SYNC Services and ask it to download them one by one, reconnecting with SYNC Services each time. And I assume if I go to save a downloaded destination as a favorite on MFT, I'm going to have to use the touch screen to name it, which is just another cumbersome step. Not big deals, I know. The mapquest side of things is probably more useful than the syncmyride side. I wish iOS maps or google maps had a similar send-to-car button since I haven't used mapquest in about 5 years.

 

[jmueller065]

You used to be able to send directions from Google maps (the web version) but that was discontinued last year (which is when Mapquest picked it up).

 

[paulj]

Does the FFE currently support Google Send To Car or is that still disabled?

 

[jmueller065]

I don't think that is coming back since MapQuest picked up the contract.

 

[AireV]

Does the FFE currently support Google Send To Car or is that still disabled?

Do you currently see "sent to car" option?
I used to be able to send my direction search from Google map to my Mercedes. But, I do not see that menu option any more.

 

[Abelgoddard]

I have tons of pics on my phone and iPad. I'm sitting in my car (in my garage) and the phone is connected via Bluetooth AND USB, but trying to change the wallpaper seems to be impossible. Wants to add a device but says no device is connected. :-(

 

[jmueller065]

You can't add pictures from a phone or an iPad to use as the screens backgrounds. You have to convert them to a specific size and then copy them to a USB thumbdrive. Put the thumbdrive in the USB connector--then it will find them.

 

[unplugged]

You can't add pictures from a phone or an iPad to use as the screens backgrounds. You have to convert them to a specific size and then copy them to a USB thumbdrive.

It helps to have PhotoShop or some other photo editing program. The directions as to size is on the screensaver site listed above.

 

[hybridbear]

You can't add pictures from a phone or an iPad to use as the screens backgrounds. You have to convert them to a specific size and then copy them to a USB thumbdrive.

It helps to have PhotoShop or some other photo editing program. The directions as to size is on the screensaver site listed above.

I have used iPhoto to scale photos down to the correct size to load as the wallpaper on the MFT screen in our Fusion Hybrid.

Other commenters have said that they have a hard time with entering nav destinations by voice commands, I find that the voice commands work great. It very rarely misunderstands me.