No the new system is from QNX (Blackberry) and is not Android base.
I like the slightly restyled exterior design. I always find strange that the Escape has a much better gauge cluster than the Edge, even after the Edge was updated. Ford had adopted a corporate strategy for the front end design but it should do the same with the Ford instrument clusters because they are all over the map currently (and not emulate the Edge/Fusion for God's sakes).
This is what happens when you have Ford Europe versus Ford USA doing the main design. The Ford C1 platform done in Köln, the CD4 platform done in 'murrrica. The cluster in the Ford C1 works great, clean, easy-to-read (admittedly, I only have metric in the instrument cluster so no clutter), and the navigation is articulate and precise. When I had the Mondeo with the TFT instrument panel, it was fancy-looking but too complicated, not quite so easy to read, and the navigation was not as precise.
I don't know why Ford wants to mess with the suspension tuning on the Escape though, it works out great here. I like the way it rides and handles.