Are small steps, yes, but little by little the manufacturers are doing pineapple to prevent Apple and Google, iOS and Android, will install on the dashboard of their cars. Their relationship with the technology could well be described as love and hate. Love, because the compatibility of your car with iPhone and Android phones is a good sales argument. Hate, because the automobile industry continues to resist that their systems are overshadowed by industry leaders of the mobile phone. And in this picture, we only had to join and advocate for standards increasingly specific and global, so that developers of applications also find an opportunity in the relationship between telephony and cars. The result is SmartDeviceLink, a technology that will play host to Toyota and Ford, and probably the most likely to join Honda, Mazda, Subaru and PSA Peugeot Citroën.
SmartDeviceLink will allow mobile applications of third parties are accessible from the interfaces of our cars and the systems of recognition of voice from each manufacturer.
And what is SmartDeviceLink? Is an open source platform that is designed to facilitate the interaction between mobile phones and entertainment systems of the car. A series of standard protocols that in principle are intended for the systems of recognition of voice and the buttons, and user interfaces, of the car. So that a developer, say Spotify, you can create an application compatible with a large number of cars, with which we can change on the play list by using voice commands, or by using the buttons on the steering wheel of the car, without resorting to the layer of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
we are Probably one of the most important steps of the automotive industry to encourage the entry of third-party applications on our cars.
Evidently, this is a small step for man but a huge step for the automotive industry. First, because it involves establishing a series of agreements between manufacturers, and that they all adopt the technology in their cars. Second, because little by little they are increasing the interaction of the third-party applications with their cars, although in this case is to limit the importance of two players featured, Apple, and Google. And that is not a matter of trivial matter, if we take into account that it is vital to the security and privacy for the automotive industry. Third, because the developers will find new opportunities in technologies of this type, making their applications more useful and easy to use in the car.
SmartDeviceLink is an open source software on the built Ford SYNC AppLink, one of the first platforms that called for an opening almost full to developers of mobile applications. Ford has also counted with the support of QNX Software Systems (a subsidiary of BlackBerry), and UIEvolution, providers are adopting the technology to integrate it into their entertainment equipment.
I will say that they are small steps, at least in comparison with what we have seen in the computer industry or mobile telephony, where the openness of systems has come to the point in which any user, with some basic knowledge, they may enjoy environments based solely on code free. But for the car industry is a great step forward.
All this happens while Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, three rivals natural, teamed up to acquire the subsidiary of cartography of Nokia, but above all to give a push massive car attached, signing a strategic move that is unprecedented, which will allow the cars of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz ‘ speak the same language between them”, so to speak very directly.
Source: Ford | Toyota
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