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Hands-on with Ford's Sync AppLink and Pandora

Ford updates its Sync voice command system with the AppLink interface software for smartphones, and CNET's Antuan Goodwin goes hands on with Pandora, the first AppLink-enabled app.

Headshot of Antuan Goodwin
Headshot of Antuan Goodwin
Antuan Goodwin Senior Writer, Electrified Cars
Antuan started out in the automotive industry the old-fashioned way, by turning wrenches in a driveway and picking up speeding tickets. He now has nearly 20 years of expertise and experience behind the wheel of hundreds of cars, including electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen, and traditional combustion vehicles. For each car he tests, Antuan covers more than 200 miles behind the wheel and evaluates driving dynamics; acceleration and braking performance; range; and efficiency. Antuan's goal is to use his extensive car knowledge to educate CNET readers and help with their next car-related buying decision. Whether you're EV-curious, an EV-enthusiast or a combustion-car loyalist, Antuan will bring you the unbiased advice, reviews, best lists and news you need. You can reach Antuan at antuan.goodwin@cnet.com
Expertise Nearly two decades of testing, driving, reporting on, writing about, reviewing, and editing content about electric and ICE cars. Category focus is on electrified cars, EVs, HEVs, PHEVs, ICE cars, EV infrastructure, EV chargers, EV adapters, EV news, auton Credentials
  • North American Car, Truck and SUV of the Year (NACTOY) Awards Juror
Antuan Goodwin
2 min read

Watch this: Ford Sync AppLink (hands on)

Last week, Ford vehicles gained the ability to voice control apps on a paired smartphone through AppLink, part of a 4.0 update to its SYNC mobile connectivity package. This week, we found ourselves once again behind the wheel of the 2011 Ford Fiesta, the first Ford vehicle to gain the AppLink software, so we decided to stretch its new digital legs with the Pandora Internet radio app, the first application to tout AppLink compatibility.

Before we could start barking voice command orders to our paired phone, we had to first update the vehicle's firmware through Ford's Sync My Ride Web site with the help of a USB storage device. The update process--illustrated in the video above--was quick, mostly painless, and only involved rebooting the vehicle once.

With the new software in place, we Bluetooth paired the Fiesta and our Motorola Droid, started the Pandora app, and hit the road. The AppLink-enabled vehicle and application worked well together. We were able to tune to our custom Pandora stations by simply saying, for example, "Play station, Gorillaz Radio." Other voice activated functions included skipping a track, assigning a thumbs up or down to the currently playing song, getting artist or song information, and creating a new station based on the currently playing song or artist. There's not much that one could manually do with the Pandora app that can't now be safely controlled through Sync via voice command.

In addition to voice commands, the AppLink function also gave us steering wheel controls for quickly skipping a song or assigning a thumbs up or down. The Fiesta's small, monochromatic LCD also displayed the title and artist of the currently playing song, eliminating many of the "who's that?" moments associated with listening to potentially new music.

By now, you've no doubt checked out the video above to see the Sync AppLink function in action. If not, then go ahead and hit Play. Pandora Internet Radio is one of two apps--the other being OpenBeak--that support the Sync AppLink service on iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android handsets. In the coming year we can expect this functionality to spread to other Ford Sync enabled vehicles, along with a wider variety of applications.