Hi all. I did a quick search, and didn't find anything specific to this. It's a little long, but if you have an iPhone, and lost your Siri voice capability, read on.

I decided to check all my truck details on the Ford Owner website, and found a couple of things. One, I have a Field Service Action:
FSA Title: EXHAUST GAS TEMPERATURE SENSOR EXTENDED COVERAGE
Field Service Action Number: 15M02

I will call my dealer on that. Second though was, I had an update for Sync in there. I have the basic AM/FM/CD/Sync in my truck. According to my history, I started with V3.2.2 when I bought the truck. In 2015, I upgraded to Ver4.4. This version was to Ver4.6. It took a couple of tries, but I finally got it updated. Well, as with any good "update", it screwed up my Siri voice capability.

Before, I was able to press and hold the home button on my iPhone, and Siri would kick in. All voice commands through Siri available. The update took that away. If I could get a call going, or had an incoming call, it would actually work through Sync. But when I pressed and held the home button, Siri just looked at me like I was dumb. She was waiting for a voice command. But it would not come through Sync. The phone was connected, but no Siri voice commands.

Time to downgrade. It took a bit of Sherlock Holmes on the Internet to finally find a download, but I did. First try, wrong 4.4 version (Gen1v441buildEE309Fupdatefrom421FpackageRev2.zip) . Sherlock try two...I found the following version (Gen1v441buildEE282updatefromv3263packageRev2copy. zip). Again, after a couple of tries (and a "Master Reset" for good measure), I was able to downgrade my Sync and regain my Siri voice capability.

From what I understand, Ford is parting ways with Microsoft and Sync, and I can't say it's not welcome, but it won't do me much good as long as I hang on to my 2011. But I will be very wary of any future "upgrades".

 

I also got the email from Ford about them parting ways with Sync and called them up trying to find out what options we will loose and got a unhelpful answer . I made a post earlier about it and didn't get answers on it . I am also wary of any software updates for the same reason .

 

Take a trip down to the In-Vehicle Tech forum: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/forum275/

Sync itself is not going away. Sync 1 (The OP's system, I believe) and Sync 2 were both Windows CE.

Sync 3 is not Windows CE like the previous versions of Sync - it uses an operating system created by Blackberry. It's much faster, and much more stable.

The recent notification from Ford was to inform you that they are shutting down "Sync Services" - the part where you can call in and get navigation to points-of-interest, etc. Sync 3 has that built in.

 

Thanks for the clarification Art. I did mention parting ways with "Microsoft and Sync". I got it half right anyway. I did see an article mentioning the Blackberry replacement. But that was from a couple of years ago. Do any of the new Ford's have them yet?

 

Yes, pretty much everything has the new Sync 3 as of 2017 - Some cars (Fusion?) got it in 2015, my Taurus got it in 2016 (one of the reasons I went for a 2016 instead of a 2015) and I think the trucks all got it in 2017.

It's possible to upgrade the electronics, BTW - but I think it's around $2200 for brand-new dealer-installed.