Among the most notable technology updates immediately on the new Ford F-150 are the truck’s digital displays. We had no images to share when our coverage was released on Thursday, but Ford sent in a couple of short clips showing the new user interface for the digital main instrument cluster and its latest Sync 4 infotainment system. So we decided to share them with you now. . You can check out the gallery above or view the pair of embedded video clips below.
12.3-inch main instrument display
The F-150 is not the first Ford to get a fully digital dash; You can find a 12-inch screen instead of old-fashioned dials on newer Mustangs, and the electric Mustang Mach-E crossover uses a 10-inch screen in front of the driver. However, the 12.3-inch screen facing you in a 2021 F-150 looks sleeker than any of those bumps:
“The idea is that it presents information in a very targeted way, so that it almost behaves like a janitor. Therefore, it presents the most important information and is able to move things around in a digital environment to make room for other content that maybe more important, “said Mark Sich, F-150 digital designer at Ford. Moving away from a skeuomorphic user interface required some testing with Ford’s trucking customers, Sich told Ars. “What we discovered was that as long as the information was presented in a real, digestible, understandable, hierarchical way, they were ready to take that leap of faith.”
“In terms of how information is represented to the driver, I think we are rapidly reaching this tipping point of ‘Do we need to remain grounded in the tradition and legacy of what we are seeing in terms of analog representation? Meters now with pixels ? “” said Peter Ruthenberg, chief designer of digital expertise at Ford.
“I think for the F-150 customer, through the human-centered design process and a lot of iterative research here, we discovered that this generation of at least F-150 customers weren’t ready for a big jump. towards something away from physical gauges, “said Ruthenberg when Ars recently spoke with Ford designers. “These types of indicators still resonated with them, they felt information going forward. But potentially in the future for future products, we might want to make great leaps of faith. I think that right now we are in this territory bridged between analog and digital and what that means “.
Towards the end of the dash video, you will notice that the dash avatar on the dash changes depending on the driving mode you are in. This is actually shown in real time, not on prerecorded video, which Ford says is the only way to have this level of dynamic animation and transitions as the driver switches between different truck modes.
Sync 4 looks different here than in the Mustang Mach-E
This year’s F-150 and Mustang Mach-E are both receivers for Ford’s newest infotainment platform, Sync 4. But it looks very different in the two vehicles. The Mach-E uses a massive 15-inch infotainment screen and has a tile-based user interface with a physical scroll wheel on the screen. In the F-150, things look a bit more mainstream, though the optional 12-inch touchscreen infotainment system still dominates the center console of this much larger dash.
Ford listing image