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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

This might seem crazy to those on HN. But Ford has had a lot of problems with the MS software and it has hurt them.

What you might not know is that Detroit is one of the few remaining beachheads for Blackberry in the US. Detroit is one of the last two cities in the USA to have Blackberry retail stores. So the company brand isn't as tainted here as it might be elsewhere even though I realize this isn't the phone OS.

Perhaps this is how Blackberry makes their comeback - as a car OS?

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This is not the blackberry OS that they're using and it isn't Blackberry that will be doing the work.

QNX is an operating system company that Blackberry acquired in 2010. They have made and sold automotive operating systems since long before the Blackberry acquisition.

QNX already powers multiple car manufacturers infotainment systems.

Just to clarify... QNX also powers the newest generation of BB phones as well. So while it's not the phone OS getting used, it is very likely an extremely close relative; newer versions of the Car platform clearly borrow from the BB phone OS.

As long as Ford doesn't do the development in-house it might work out. What killed Sync isn't Microsoft. It's the fact that Ford took everything in house.

Not crazy at all. We all had a fair share of problems with Microsoft software during all these years.

Oh it's not just ford having problems with that MS software. I've had enough Fords as rental cars to know that that software is utter garbage. Putting that in the cars had nothing to do with actual users. It's obviously a case of Microsoft offering Ford a good deal for doing it.

"I've had enough Fords as rental cars to know that that software is utter garbage"

Same, except everything else about the car too.

I drove about 500 miles in Ford C-Max Hybrid rental car last summer, and really liked it. But was horrified that I had to pull off the freeway and reboot because the nav/radio/console had frozen. I would never buy a Ford with Microsoft software, so I hope this switch works out better for them.

The last Ford I rented I could only get my iphone to play out through the speakers about one out of every three tries, and only if it was all plugged in and ready to go when I put the key in (and forget doing anything other than listening to songs in alphabetical order).

> Same, except everything else about the car too.

I've spent a couple months with a rental Focus and I never really liked it. It's not that there was anything particularly bad about it - it's actually a decent car. It's that there wasn't anything particularly good about it either. It was average on all respects. It was the quintessential rental car.

God, no kidding. It's terrible, even by the standards of car software. Infuriating to use. I don't know what these people are talking about Sync getting "positive reviews", but if that is indeed the case I must have used something different.

Unless it was five years ago, you probably did use something different. Then Ford hired Bsquare to write the touch UI version, using embedded Adobe Flash.[0] I never knew such a thing existed. A guy I work with claims to have written the UI piece (or a large part of it). He said using Flash was one of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" things. [0]http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/bsquare-prepares-fo...

"I've had enough Fords as rental cars to know that that software is utter garbage" Same here. Last one I rented, I really, really struggled just to tune to a radio station. I eventually got it tuned but several minutes later it decided to change all on its own. I never got it tuned again in the two days I had the car.

I'm glad it wasn't just me, lol. I like to use bluetooth audio, and the last Sync powered car I had was so confusing, and had absolutely no notion of my preference on restart. Something like 5 confusing button presses every time I started the car to get the BT audio selected.

It's like the origin story of Knight Rider TV show car Kitt.

ISTR the Knight Foundation generally knew what they were doing tho.

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