Is there anyway to remove the side screen or at least customize what you see?

I also wish CarPlay would take over the whole screen,

 

I do not think so, the only thing that can use the complete screen is Nav, push the symbol on the right hand lower corner and it will take up the complete screen

 

You can split CarPlay between the large section and the small section too. I have seen some put Google Maps on the large section and Spotify on the small, so CarPlay can essentially take up the entire thing.

 

have you seen how they do that?

 

I’ve tried lots of things for hours. My current conclusion is the ONLY full screen info is FordSync Nav. Everything else only functions with the side bar.
really doesn’t make sense but oh well

 

have you seen the ability to customize the side bar?

 

I don't have my truck yet to play with it, but a very helpful forum member had a question on issues he was having with the side bar, and you can see in screenshots on one of his reply posts (not his OP) where he has car play on the main section and music from carplay on the side also (his post on 3-11)

https://www.f150forum.com/f129/sync-...ilable-496863/

Not sure if he still hangs around much, but he or someone else can hopefully give tips if the answer isn't in the thread.

 

yes, but customizable side doesn’t make a full screen. You can have CarPlay on the main and music on the right or nav on the right or eco, but it’s really redundant and doesn’t flow the same.

 

My preferred setup is to have Apple maps via carplay in the primary pane and Apple music on the right side. Technically, I suppose the end result is that I am using the entire screen for "CarPlay", although the side panel really just acts as a glorified "now playing" display. It shows the artist/song playing and includes basic playback control (skip/back/play/pause), but the display is sync-themed, with no album art or additional controls. It's as simple as selecting the audio card on the right while carplay audio is playing, which occurs automatically for me since it's really the only audio source I ever use in the truck.

I mentioned Apple music since it's what I'm listening to 95% of the time, but the side panel is not limited to that option; it will display the same information for spotify, pandora, audiobooks, podcasts and npr (as long as they're playing via carplay). Of course, if you need/want the additional playback controls, you can always just swipe the main screen to the audio app you're using temporarily then swipe back to your nav app, although I find myself just using siri commands most of the time.

***Just FYI: I've found a bug in my XLT in which this setup sometimes doesn't display properly and the side screen reads "No Data Available". After a few weeks of frustration, I found that jumping to the sync phone list, disabling carplay for your phone, then immediately re-enabling it restores the 'now playing' info. It still happens to me about once a week - I can't say it's not a frustrating nuance on a $60k vehicle, but in all fairness it only takes about 15sec to correct, and once it comes back up your music and nav resume exactly as they were prior.

I really did try to give the Ford nav system a fair trial run - it does have some features that I really like, but quickly found I couldn't deal with the sync errors to the dash cluster and its nonsensical routing. If Ford ends up squashing some of these bugs with sync updates in the future I may give it another go (but I'm not holding my breath lol).

 

I agree completely with your wish.