In a surprising yet also unsurprising move, Ford is killing off the CD player in the Ford Focus in Europe. Soon, they’ll be purging CD players from the rest of their line too. Are we ready for this in America?
In the CD players place will be a USB and iPod port, auxiliary input and Bluetooth (or you can upgrade to Ford Sync). The CD Player isn’t dead dead, as it’ll still be an option for customers, but the end is obviously near. Ford plans to remove CD players in all their other cars in the next few years.
Ford’s bid to kill off CD players is an industry first and obviously a bold move but not one that’s unexpected. Technology gets outpaced and killed and to be honest, CDs became irrelevant years ago. Car manufacturers, who are notoriously slow at adopting good technology, are probably realising that very few people use the CD player over an auxiliary input (when given the option). Most people I know never even touch the CD player. Why bother, right?
But still. Even though the CD player purge isn’t happening in America, I still feel a little sad about its European death. Ford killing it in the Focus is a little like Archduke Franz Ferdinand getting assassinated before World War I (OK, not really). This shit is going down guys. And it’s sad! I remember the awkwardness of six-disc CD changers, I remember lugging around a 9kg book of CDs and I remember woefully simple dashboards where all you could do is play tracks (go figure, right). Ah, what memories. Mixtapes gave way to mix CDs which gave way to playlists, I guess. It’s the circle we live in. New things get better while old things disappear. [Ford via Sound and Vision Mag]