Doubt it...Tesla has made OTA updates a new baseline/table-stakes for the industry, I would expect everyone to follow suit eventually.
Have to wonder if this "partnership" will also result in Waymo tech ending up in Ford vehicles...
Have to wonder if this "partnership" will also result in Waymo tech ending up in Ford vehicles...
My opinion: The split responsibility of Google and Ford on the entertainment system will inevitably result in the same early obselesence of the software as compared to the car hardware. We have seen this in much Android phone hardware (a year or two of updates, usually not including a major version), and I see it in my Android TVs (Sony). Even Apple, which IMO has a track record of longer support, has done it with Apple TV recently, and Sonos threatened it with perfectly fine working old hardware until outrage forced them to change plans.
All in all, I prefer less integrated things with clear responsibilities that work together under well established protocols. I want a dumb TV with good HDMI and other specs, to which I can connect whatever display device I want (or many). I want my car to be perpetually supported (unlikely beyond Tesla) or a simple display (Android Auto or Car Play or whatever) so I can upgrade the thing doing the display whenever I choose.
Of course, if Ford committed to having a computer module that could be upgraded occasionally for the price of a mid-range phone, and commit to supporting it for 25+ years, that would be okay too. My Acura is in its 12th year and because it is so "dumb" I haven't felt any urge to upgrade it. My (2020) Tesla gets updates probably monthly via WiFi. It changes too much IMO; I want stability from my cars and devices, but honestly the changes are almost all improvements in my (software engineer) opinion.
This caught my eye because I'm not sure what you mean here -- AFAIK, the current "tvOS" release runs on all Apple TVs released from late 2015 on, and they kept updating the 3rd generation model that came out in early 2012 up to 2019. This still seems to be a pretty good track record, all things considered. (There's a pretty huge CPU jump between the 3rd generation and 4th generation, including a move from 32-bit to 64-bit.)
Unrelatedly, though,
> I want a dumb TV with good HDMI and other specs, to which I can connect whatever display device I want (or many).
I would have loved to have found one of those that also met the 4K HDR requirement I'd set to upgrade from my blissfully dumb plasma set. I'm not unhappy with my my LG OLED by any stretch, but it would be really damn nice if there was a "turn all of WebOS off and just be a TV set" feature.