It's a tragic end to a lengthy love story: Ford Motors and the CD player are breaking up after years of happy matrimony. Ford just announced that, moving forward, they will not be installing CD players in the new Ford Focus, with the rest of their models following suit over the next few years. Instead of in-dash players, Ford will be providing USB connections for digital players, and onboard computers to access online music sources.
Ford has been pushing their Sync system, and this is just one more step towards a "cloudy" world. “In-car entertainment technology is moving digital more rapidly than almost any other element of the vehicle experience,” says Sheryl Connelly, global trends and "futuring" manager for Ford Motor Company. “The in-car CD player — much like pay telephones — is destined to fade away in the face of exciting new technology.” Ford will continue to offer players as long as there is demand for them, but they are clearly moving away from physical media. Launching first in Europe, the new systems will have multiple USB ports, SD card slots, and Bluetooth. And the new Ford Sync system will even act as a wireless hotspot, so why even worry about cables or cards?
Ford is the first car manufacturer to completely remove the CD player, although aftermarket head units have been mechless for a few years. The reality is, who really wants to schlep CDs in and out of the car? CD sales are rapidly declining, as are the numbers of places to actually buy them, while digital downloads are flying high.
Let us know: do you still listen to CDs in the car anymore? And while you're at it, what are you listening to these days anyway?
Please be aware that the Sync the system presently has many bugs that updates have failed to fix. It is nice to be first on the block with new technology. Should something unstable be considered advanced technology?
sure.. I still listen DVD-audios on my ELS 8 speakers system, total surround experience inside my car, can a digital compressed file on an iPod do that? of course not
I feel I'm in the extreme minority. I'm 26, still purchase CDs and still listen to CDs in my truck (coincidentally a Ford Ranger) even though I have an aux input. The problem with portable audio players is one of space. I have nearly 200 CDs and ripping them all at lossless would take up much more room than my 30 gig Zune (another case of being in the minority) has available. Plus, in order to get anywhere near CD quality audio from my Zune I'd have to use a headphone pre-amp between my device and my truck's 3.5mm input jack.
I don't mind carrying discs around at all if it means better sound.
The new car that I bought in 2008 had a jack to connect a MP3 player and it gave me a reason to go ahead and buy one. Since then I am willing to bet that I have used the CD player maybe a dozen times otherwise I use the MP3 player. I can put 17 or 18 songs on a CD or thousands on my MP3 player and change them in seconds. I agree wiht Ford 100%, CDs are going the way of cassettes and eight tracks.Espan
Well I'm always on the road.. I need to as it is my job. Music is the only thing that helps me enjoy a long road trip. I always make it a point to find lots of car accessories with regards to sound and entertainment system. CD players are a big hit before. If I were to choose, I'd still want them even if we have advance technology nowadays like the Bluetooth, USB or wireless capable devices. This is mainly because, it provides a good quality music.