CDew

Thanks for posting your results! I'm assuming this was without a LockPick, but your point about usability would apply even if you were using one. Using Maps might be somewhat doable for basic navigation with Siri, but the ideal solution would be CarPlay. Somehow, I don't think Ford is going to retrofit it for existing customers.

I've done a little digging and iPhone 4s users may have an easier option. The iPhone 4s using the Apple 30-pin to composite video adapter should be able to plug right into the composite video input. A 3rd generation iPad might also be able to use the same adapter. The adapter is under $50. For iPhone 5 and 5s (or any iDevice with a Lightning connector), we'll have to use the Lightning to HDMI adapter, then an HDMI to composite converter to convert from digital to analog. The HDMI to composite adapter would then plug into the composite video input. The Apple Lightning to HDMI adapter is $50 and the HDMI to composite (digital-to-analog converter) adapters are around $30. If somebody has an iPhone and the appropriate adapter(s), I would love to know if you can get video out of it and what it looks like (any letterboxing, orientation, etc.). If all of this works in Park, the same as hooking up a DVD player through the composite video, then I might consider the roughly $350 investment in a MFT LockPick.

One thing I hope Ford considers is the growing number of locations with bans on the use of phones while driving. While some locations allow for navigation directions from the phone, good luck trying to convince a law enforcement office that you were using your phone only for navigation! Frankly, I'm all for such bans given then number of folks focusing on their phones instead of the road. I hope Ford values the added safety that CarPlay on a MFT or SYNC system would bring to existing customers!

Hi Marty, I meant via BlueTooth for testing HFP. I am pretty sure that if you are connected via USB, but have the stereo set to something else (e.g. Radio), you get no prompts. Of course if your stereo is set to USB, then you get whatever audio the iPhone is playing, with the voice prompts. Thanks! Chris

Hi Marty, When Apple released iOS 7.1, it included support for Hands-Free Profile (HFP) for the Maps app. Google Maps already had it, which is why it worked. Start navigating with Maps while paired & connected to your stereo. Tap on the map and a blue speaker icon should appear. Tap it and you should get the Navigation Voice page. Set OUTPUT to iPhone. According to some blogs I read, you should have a toggle to enable HFP. I don't have it, but it works for my iPhone 5... sort of. The first part of each spoken instruction seems to get cut off. I also get a "Call ended" prompt and sometimes voice prompt. Hope that answers your question. Chris

I really wish that I had read this forum before trading in my 2011 Fusion Hybrid with navigation for a 2014 C-MAX. One of the reasons I traded the Fusion in was because Ford had not updated the firmware in several years. I would never have bought the C-MAX with MFT if I knew it was not going to have the same features as the baseline SYNC. I hope the reason they are not brining AppLink to MFT is because they are working on CarPlay instead. If not, I know a certain car manufacturer who is going to get a very poor survey response.

Have any iPhone 5/5s/5c owners tried getting spoken directions from Apple's Maps app over BlueTooth? Apple added support for Hands-Free Profile (HFP) to their Maps app in iOS 7.1 which is supposed to allow you to get spoken directions over BlueTooth even when your receiver is set to something other than BlueTooth Audio. I've tried getting it to work, but the setup isn't quite what's described in various tech blogs (e.g. 9to5mac, macrumors, etc). To enable it, they all say to pair your phone with MFT and start navigating in Maps. You then touch a part of the maps and a blue speaker icon appears at the bottom right. Touch it, and the Navigation Voice page appears, allowing you to set the volume for the spoken directions. There's an OUTPUT section with iPhone and SYNC. Below that is supposed to be a toggle for Allow HFP Prompts that allows you to activate the new feature. The problem is that I don't see the prompt. Apple support can't tell me if that prompt is only supposed to appear under certain conditions. When navigating in Maps, each spoken step does indeed come through the car's speakers, but the first second or so are chopped off (e.g. "Turn left..."), which is kind of important. After each spoken step, I get a "Call ended" dialog. So I'm trying to tell if this is working as designed and is just a limit of the Hands-Free Profile, or if it's simply not working right. Does anyone out there have any experience with this? PS I have searched this, Apple's, and several tech forums and have not found any information.