Ford SYNC gets navigation tools from Telenav

By Tim Conneally | Published January 9, 2009, 12:54 AM

Navigation services company Telenav will be powering Ford's newest in-car GPS navigation system with the very long and unwieldy name: "Ford SYNC with Traffic, DIrections and Information."

SYNC was a big announcement for Microsoft and Ford in 2007, giving Bluetooth-connected personal media players and phones in SYNC vehicles voice command-ability. At last year's CES, SYNC received HD radio as a standard option, exportable performance analytics, and 911 Assist. Today, Ford announced that Telenav will be giving SYNC some much-needed navigation features, including turn-by-turn directions, live news, weather and traffic reports.

As with all of the SYNC features, most of the action is aural. Once the driver has paired his phone with the car, he can say the destination, and turn-by-turn directions will be spoken aloud over the stereo system, with supplementary information appearing on the stereo faceplate.

Even the exchange of data takes place over voice. Using a data over voice (DOV) connection provided by Airbiquity's VIAaq Managed data service, a GPS-enabled phone can supply information to SYNC at a much lower cost of entry since a data plan is not required.

Available in Spring 2009, the 2010 models of the Focus, Fusion, Flex, Expedition, F150, SuperDuty, Sport-Trac, Edge, Escape, Explorer, Mustang, Taurus, Milan, Mountaineer, MKS, MKX, MKZ, Navigator and Mariner will all support SYNC, though it will not be a standard feature on all models.