The two headed monster of Apple and Google has clearly spooked some car makers when it comes to in car infotainment systems. Why? There’s a bunch of reasons. Top of the list is the loss of control of customer data as well as the ability to make their particular systems unique enough to stand out from the crowd. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when the news slipped out yesterday that Toyota and Ford are teaming up on this front:
Toyota, the world’s largest automaker by vehicle sales, and Ford, the No. 2 U.S. automaker, said they will adopt a Ford-developed software called SmartDeviceLink, or SDL, as the standard for connecting smartphone apps to vehicle dashboard screens.
SDL technology integrates smartphones apps with vehicles through dashboard buttons, display screens and voice recognition technology. Using it as a standard for projecting navigation or music streaming apps from a driver’s smartphone could help Ford and Toyota reduce dependence on Apple or Alphabet Inc’s Google, company officials said.
This isn’t the first time that car companies have gone in a different direction from the one that Apple and Google want them to go. Mecedes Benz, VW, and BMW bought Nokia’s HERE mapping division for more or less the same reason. The real question is if this is something that the car buying public will respond to positively. I say that because some people want a in car system that comes from Apple or Google and nothing else will do. Thus we’ll have to wait and see how this shakes out.
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This entry was posted on January 5, 2016 at 8:57 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Ford, Toyota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Ford And Toyota Team Up On In Car Infomatics
The two headed monster of Apple and Google has clearly spooked some car makers when it comes to in car infotainment systems. Why? There’s a bunch of reasons. Top of the list is the loss of control of customer data as well as the ability to make their particular systems unique enough to stand out from the crowd. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when the news slipped out yesterday that Toyota and Ford are teaming up on this front:
Toyota, the world’s largest automaker by vehicle sales, and Ford, the No. 2 U.S. automaker, said they will adopt a Ford-developed software called SmartDeviceLink, or SDL, as the standard for connecting smartphone apps to vehicle dashboard screens.
SDL technology integrates smartphones apps with vehicles through dashboard buttons, display screens and voice recognition technology. Using it as a standard for projecting navigation or music streaming apps from a driver’s smartphone could help Ford and Toyota reduce dependence on Apple or Alphabet Inc’s Google, company officials said.
This isn’t the first time that car companies have gone in a different direction from the one that Apple and Google want them to go. Mecedes Benz, VW, and BMW bought Nokia’s HERE mapping division for more or less the same reason. The real question is if this is something that the car buying public will respond to positively. I say that because some people want a in car system that comes from Apple or Google and nothing else will do. Thus we’ll have to wait and see how this shakes out.
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This entry was posted on January 5, 2016 at 8:57 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Ford, Toyota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.