Apple is reportedly launching iOS in the Car with Ferrari, Mercedes, Volvo

http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/28/ios-in-the-car-leak/

by nairteashop • 12 years ago

93 62 12 years ago

engadget.com

danial• 12 years ago

This provides a bit more context on the meeting between Elon Musk and Apple's Adrian Perica a couple of weeks ago.

loceng• 12 years ago

Seems likely now that Elon gave a no thanks as an answer. I'm glad.

davtbaum• 12 years ago

I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long for the auto industry to adopt mobile platforms as part of the in-car experience. This is a great move though, hopefully it will force other manufacturers to dump their lacking proprietary platforms in favor of Android/iOS

shitlord• 12 years ago

I'm hoping that there will be some kind of common standard that car manufacturers can adopt (wrt interacting with mobile devices). That way, users of both platforms can fully enjoy their vehicles.

yalogin• 12 years ago

Looks like there is going to a divide in the car companies. BMW and some others are adopting Android I believe. Wish it weren't like this but looks inevitable with deeper integration.

digitalengineer3• 12 years ago

Well, there are some BMW iOS apps in the App store now: http://www.bmw.com/com/en/owners/bmw_apps/

mpg33• 12 years ago

Ford switching from Microsoft Sync to BalckBerry's QNX software.

kayoone• 12 years ago

since this is still dependent on a ios mobile device (which is good) i hope there will be something similar for android. However i fear car manufacturers will instead use Android to completely replace their own systems which would lock out users of other platforms

nairteashop• 12 years ago

More details from the linked FT article (which is behind a paywall):

- Official announcement will be made at next week’s Geneva Motor Show

- Integration includes Siri, phone calls, maps, music and video.

cclogg• 12 years ago

Man that mockup image reminded me how much I wish Apple would just go back to using Google Maps...

kingoflosaltos• 12 years ago

Eddy Cue (Apple SVP of Internet Ops) is on the Ferrari board of directors.

bharatFNS• 12 years ago

If you still have to use iPhones and iPads with it to work, this all seems pointless. Only hacker anticipation to hack into Ferrari and Merc.

bananas4• 12 years ago

I can't see this as a good idea. The vehicle will have a longer lifespan than iOS support resulting in an obsolete unsupported bit of car.

nostromo• 12 years ago

From the article:

it's still dependent on an iPad or iPhone to work.

I think this is a good thing. You can keep your car for 5 or 10 years and update some of its software every 2 years with a new phone.

Right now the touchscreen UI of a car is the first thing that looks dated.

bananas4• 12 years ago

Assuming that the platform is supported when the manufacturers have sold it. From experience with owning a few cars that are software driven (Fiat I'm looking at you), the manufacturer will disown electrical problems the moment it is sold. Support past a year or two (the warranty) isn't going to happen.

The current touch screen UIs are built as typical embedded systems with long lifecycles. The new ones are consumer devices. The two don't belong in the same space.

level09• 12 years ago

I think it is a good step forward, while iOS might not be the greatest OS, I think it is pretty good and stable.

Having Apple screens/iOS inside the car is definitely better than those existing screens that look really primitive.

Numberwang• 12 years ago

Just as long as I don't have to get an ITunes account to operate my car, I guess it's OK.

kaivi• 12 years ago

Do I have to jailbreak it in order to drive faster than limit?

But really, this is great if true, because current car OSes and interfaces are horrible, as they have always been deliberately made so.

gojomo• 12 years ago

No, but the geolocation in the phone will be used to send you after-the-fact speeding tickets.

buro92• 12 years ago

This is going to influence purchasing decisions in a way that the car companies may not like.

I'm in the market for a new car at the end of this year, and have been eyeing a Volvo in the first case, but would consider a Merc if the financing isn't quite there.

My experience of living outside of the Apple ecosystem is that Apple stuff is all or nothing. One can't choose to have some Apple gear without fully embracing it. The advertised benefits require one to buy into everything. Things like iPods and Ubuntu aren't seamless, and an iPad when your phone is an Android just means that you buy everything twice, have different versions of things running sometimes with different data profiles.

It's a really bad experience.

The lesson I've learned is that if one is not willing to fully adopt Apple's world, then one should avoid it altogether.

Which means, bluntly... if a Volvo did not offer the same level of interoperability with my Android, the Volvo is no longer on my list of cars to buy.

If the smartphone market is currently 50/50 iPhone/Android... then have the car companies just halved their market?

alaskamiller• 12 years ago

Back then we called this the halo effect. Strategy started with the iPod, that was the trojan horse. Once that's in your life the scope increases.

phreanix• 12 years ago

Hmm. I have a PC, while I've generally used it less since I got an mbp, I still use it and feel no inclination to move completely over to apple products.

What I'm excited about having an OS designed for touch and mobile in my car is the potential for apps to change the way I interact with my vehicle. I don't believe you are locked in to one OS or another at all, because apps are being designed for android, iOS, and others. Instagram, Facebook, and a vast majority of the apps I use are available on both platforms.

What WILL decide it for me will be the design and hardware involved. For example: I chose to move to apple products because I personally prefer is external design and UX. The touch interface is just more responsive for me, and my preference for that will influence my decisions. I hope automakers like Volvo translates this over properly, and with Apple working with them on it, I feel more confident that they will.

digitalengineer3• 12 years ago

No problem if the car's API is accessible to Apple's Phone and to Android/Windows. Just get the Mercedes SL iOS app, sync via Low Energy Bluetooth or a dock and you're good to go. I think Apple is just the first one to make the connection. The car companies would be foolish to become part of an Apple/Android/Windows battle.

buro92• 12 years ago

This is what I hope is the case.

All I want from an in-car thing is a large docking area with facades per device, so that your tablet/phone (of whatever manufacturer or future OS) can slot into the centre console.

Then, using whatever wireless tech makes sense, the device would connect and be aware of all in-car controls and sensors as well as the entertainment system... and we'd all get the choice and freedom to use whatever device we want, and whatever apps we want, to do things with our vehicles.

Unfortunately... this interoperability is not the history of any of our major tech companies, and I doubt it's truly the future either. Every one will want to fully own this.

bertil3• 12 years ago

I agree that there is more tie-in than we’d al like, but given Apple users’ tendency to spend more, image of enjoying the finer things — especially good design, etc and notably with Android image of lagging when it comes to integration, and platform segmentation… I’m not convinced that it’s going to play against those manufacturers as much as you are saying. Then again, we are both biased, in opposite direction. However, with rumors Telsa is also joining the Apple side, it sounds like an uphill battle for Android. I can’t imagine Apple effectively tying them — it's too easy for them to launch a distinct collection with exactly the same models, different brands and an Android connexion. They already do for far less compelling reasons.

It’s actually a gambit like you find a lot in two-sided market approach (say, like that airline alliance ties with that credit card for miles).

bananas4• 12 years ago

I have the same problem. I've spent the last few years tied into the Microsoft ecosystem. Decided to move to the Mac as I got a hand me down MacBook Pro. About 9 months in now, I'm pretty stuck. With respect to liberating data from the ecosystem, it's pretty hard. It's also pretty hard to escape the interoperability problems. For example, I've become dependent on AirPlay, iCloud, iWork formats, iPads and associated apps as well as all the extra metadata I've meticulously pumped into iTunes that it doesn't update the files with. So has my wife and so have my children.

The cost to escape is quite large now.

If you include the cost of a vehicle in that, it's getting ridiculous. If it starts to force purchasing decisions then it's broken.

For me this was having to purchase an Apple TV to play media on because none of Apple's streaming stuff works with my (standardised!) Bravia EX DLNA stuff.

As a devops person though, I'm well exposed to different platforms (FreeBSD and Linux), so I'm slowly making a move in that direction and towards open standards.

I'd buy neither car these days and use a Bluetooth hands free (parrot etc). Screw the integration if it locks you into an ecosystem.

coldtea• 12 years ago

I have the same problem. I've spent the last few years tied into the Microsoft ecosystem. Decided to move to the Mac as I got a hand me down MacBook Pro. About 9 months in now, I'm pretty stuck. With respect to liberating data from the ecosystem, it's pretty hard. It's also pretty hard to escape the interoperability problems. For example, I've become dependent on AirPlay, iCloud, iWork formats, iPads and associated apps as well as all the extra metadata I've meticulously pumped into iTunes that it doesn't update the files with.

So how exactly are you "stuck"? I've used Windows, FreeBSD, Linux and (for the last several years) OS X, and I have no issues moving between those. And I'm a pretty hardcore user, also using stuff like Logic and Final Cut Pro.

You can easily export your iPhoto photos, you can sync your calendard with Google, you can save your Pages documents in .docx or rtf format, etc. And you can easily move mails.

As for iTunes, given that you really "need" those metadata (which is usually superfluous stuff, like people spending eons tagging their music collection and less time actually enjoying the music), the solution is quite simple for a hacker: write, or get (there are some on the internet) an Applescript that writes those metadata to the mp3 tags.

There also several third party apps to help with that stuff (I usually do it manually or with small scripts I write).

It's funny how some people say that "most of the stuff they do is in the cloud now" and then others complain how they are locked in with some platform.

Of course, if you wanted ultimate flexibility in moving between Windows and Mac, you could always have run something like MS Office or OpenOffice on your Mac, checked your emails with Thunderbird, used Lightroom or something similar for your photos, Vox or something similar as your music player, Chrome or Firefox for browsing and such.

Integration, though, involves some loss of flexibility. If OSes and apps were designed with the concept of moving stuff to another OS/app at anytime as a priority, then they would only catter to the lowest common denominator.

frik3• 12 years ago

There are cars with Windows Automotive [1], it supports the bluetooth stack. Most smartphones work fine, you can play music, access the address book, doing phone calls, etc. A bit sad is that Android and iOS don't support all bluetooth features so some features like reading SMS are only available with older feature-phones from Nokia & co. [2] It also supports USB sticks/drives and plays mp3 files.

If iOS Car offers similar features there is no reason not to buy such cars.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_Automotive

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Sync

leobelle2• 12 years ago

The lesson I've learned is that if one is not willing to fully adopt Apple's world, then one should avoid it altogether.

I use Android for tablet and phone and use MBPro as my main computer/laptop and a PC for gaming and testing.

So I think this is false. In the case of a car however, it probably should have some interoperability with non-ios devices I'd hope.

rkuykendall-com• 12 years ago

I'm also Android / MBPro, but he's right. I use Google Play, not iTunes, because Play works on both my laptop and phone, while iTunes would only work on my laptop. Same with gmail over .Mac/MobileMe/WhateverItIsNow.

lostlogin• 12 years ago

I agree that being split between Eco systems is crap, but I don't think the world at large notices or cares. Apples sale demonstrate this as iphone sales are massively greater than Mac sales. I know that a Mac will last several years, 6 or 7 for me, while a phone is typically 2-3 for me. Even with this, there must be a huge number of people with iOS devices but no Mac.

josteink• 12 years ago

Yeah. Same here. I'm not buying a car with built-in systems based on iOS. Never going to happen.

It doesn't have to be Android to please me, but at least something reasonably open, which lets me work with open data, and regular formats.

Having to submit your entire digital existence to one company and the locked down gadgets they make is a big nono. A big enough nono to make me back out of a car-deal.

camus2• 12 years ago

Today's consumer cars are the most "closed" products. One used to be able to do DIY repairing on most of them ,now constructors do everything so that people cant repair anything by themself,just like Apple products. Parts are sealed,or you need Tool X to open this or that,and of course it is not sold to the public...

MBCook2• 12 years ago

I'm not buying a car with built-in systems based on iOS.

I seriously doubt that's the case. I'm guessing this is a set of APIs for turning over the screen and input to the iPhone so it runs the show, high quality Apple experience and all.

I'll be amazed if this is a full Microsoft Sync level car OS and not just a tighter integration the generic Bluetooth.

redler• 12 years ago

It doesn't have to be Android to please me, but at least something reasonably open, which lets me work with open data, and regular formats.

Is there any car with a built-in system that lets you do these things? And if there were, does that mean you wouldn't consider any other car on the market?

aaplthrowaway2• 12 years ago

My experience of living outside of the Apple ecosystem is that Apple stuff is all or nothing. One can't choose to have some Apple gear without fully embracing it. The advertised benefits require one to buy into everything. Things like iPods and Ubuntu aren't seamless

I think you are overrating those "advertised benefits".

Sure, there are some conveniences when you use multiple Apple devices, such as iMessage, iCloud tabs, iCloud passwords, iCloud Storage. But it's nothing that you can't get with third party apps like WhatsApp or 1Password, or even Google Chrome.

iCloud Storage depends on apps implementing it. They could use any other solution, such as Dropbox or Box.net, but then you would have another kind of lock-in.

And yes, iTunes doesn't work on Ubuntu, but it's not like you need iTunes for a fully operational phone, nor you need a Mac for iTunes. I don't think I synced my iPhone to Mac in a few years. And it's been a while since I last used Linux, so I don't know if those still work, but if you had to sync MP3 music you could use Amarok or GtkPod... or even Wine...

So, yes, it's not really seamless but it's not like you absolutely have to buy a Mac to have all the advantages of having an iDevice...

And yes, I get it, it isn't open, etc, but my the point is that you absolutely don't need to "buy into everything" to have all the conveniences. Sure, you have to do a bit of legwork, but that was the situation before iCloud, and is probably the situation with most other platforms.

and an iPad when your phone is an Android just means that you buy everything twice, have different versions of things running sometimes with different data profiles.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but... I don't see how this is Apple's (or even Android's) fault? I mean, if you buy Xbox games they won't be playable on your Playstation. How data is stored or if can be exported depends on App makers, not on Apple...

Again, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I still don't really see what the point was with this one, unless you're advocating a mobile OS monoculture...

I'm not trying to say that you're wrong or anything, I'm just giving my POV and trying to understand yours better, since you said you're living outside the Apple ecosystem...

And sorry for being defensive and posting this with a throwaway account, but it's because talking anything non-negative about Apple takes a huge toll on my Karma here, and I'm not even close to being a frequent poster.

MBCook2• 12 years ago

My car is isn't going to last too much longer, so last year I went to the local auto show to see what things were like these days.

Basically every car had big touch screens. There were a few that were OK, but most were horrible. The interfaces were ugly, confusing, and non-responsive. It all felt slow.

Then there were the physical buttons. Some cars had them, but they were often horrendous as well. One of the higher end brands (Volvo?) put a 3x20 or 3x30 array of buttons in their cars. It looked like someone glued a big TV remote behind the dash.

I don't think the car's OS will be based on iOS, I imagine this is just better integration. Either way, the car industry needs this. The 'infotainment' systems in cars remind me a lot of 2005 era smartphones. They technically work, but the user experience is somewhere between 'ok' and 'horrid'.

Let Apple come in and stomp on everyone. That's a great way to jumpstart progress.

Besides, do you really think Apple would make 'Apple only' cars? They certainly push integration, but they tend to use open standards. They use normal USB keyboards and mice, bluetooth headsets, etc. An Android phone may not get the on-display integration and some of the other niceties, but even if Apple does design the full OS I'll give you $50 if it doesn't support standard Bluetooth audio and phone connections to any phone.

jatorre• 12 years ago

Poor Nokia...

bertil3• 12 years ago

It’s funny because in the mind of Finnish people, Nokia is still a brand of tires.

zenojevski• 12 years ago

Isn't that _Nokian_?

phelmig2• 12 years ago

From a security point of view this could become interesting. Regarding how terrible (IT-)security is in CAN Systems a jailbreaked Radio could lead to major annoyances.

Good Talk on this topic: http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5360_-_en_-_...

hengheng2• 12 years ago

I have to disagree with you here, specifically concerning the Script Your Car talk at 30C3. (In which the speaker had lots of experience in embedded linux security and no experience in car electronics, so he decided to hack the linux-driven hands-free set in his Volkswagen car. He was able to send messages via CAN bus that appeared on the info display on the dash board.)

First of all, the linux PC was firewalled with a CAN transceiver that dropped any malformed messages to account for bugs in the linux box. Secondly, all other CAN devices on that bus are designed to withstand any erroneous messages. Thirdly, this was just the infotainment bus. There are three separated busses in the car, the first of which has ABS, ESP and the motor controller talking to each other, the second has semi-important things like window lifters and probably AC on it while the third and least important is the infotainment one. The linux box was allowed to be configured so badly precisely because it couldn't harm anybody.

I sat next to a Volkswagen engineer in that talk, and he wasn't particularly impressed with what the guy on stage achieved on the car side of things, but rather with how much he was able to learn so quickly, and how easily he opened up that random Nokia box. Keep in mind he owned the box, not the car.

Volkswagen tests all of these busses and devices exhaustively. They do have to pass TÜV certification, but more to the point they don't want any expensive bugs to happen. You can be sure that IT security is taken very seriously on that front. (Also consider that once you are inside the car, you by and large own it already, so discussing further CAN bus attacks would be derailing. The attack vector here is through a firewalled device on an unimportant bus.)

phelmig2• 12 years ago

It depends. If you hack the box, overwrite the CAN-ID (and therefore impersonating other devices in the car) by rewriting the boxes' CAN-Controller-Firmware you can circumvent all ID based security. As long as CAN doesn't implement a private/public key auth it's possible to own the car by owning a box.

On the other hand one could try to separate the CAN-Controller from the box (entertainment system in this case) physically and only allow a serial connection to push/pull CAN messages. But from my understanding right now the entertainment system could overwrite the firmware of the CAN -Controller and inject malicious packages. AFAIR the the 30c3 talk pointed that out as well.

The different CAN busses are not (always) separated physically.

_pmf_• 12 years ago

Apple launching iOS in-car with Ferrari, Mercedes, Volvo

I can with certainty rule out Mercedes, and I highly dispute that any manufacturer will be shortsighted enough to enter any kind of exclusive deal with a technologically isolated company.

tinco• 12 years ago

The Volvo that's coming out this year runs Android. I know because I have a friend who drives a prerelease model. So it would seem like weird move from them.

Perhaps they're doing market segmentation with it?

frik3• 12 years ago

Some observations from the screenshot:

* The screen resolution of iOS Car is 800x480 px - a lower resolution than the iPhone 4 (960x640 px).

* The "home" button is part of the touch screen like on Android (tablets).

crishoj• 12 years ago

Would you expect to see the same resolution on a secondary, externally connected screen? Obviously, this design has to be able to accommodate to a wide range of screen resolutions and formats.

frik3• 12 years ago

For historical reasons iOS was very inflexible in regards to the screen resolution. To increase the resolution they had to double the resolution (known as retina).

So iOS Car will not support all iOS apps. Well you don't want to play e.g. "Flappy Bird" while driving a car anyway ;)

As the bottom "info/command bar" is part of the screen, maybe the remaining area that is available for apps has the same ratio as older iPhone devices.

Zigurd• 12 years ago

This is an interesting defensive play. Blackberry's QNX and Microsoft's Windows Embedded are the incumbents. Both of these have suffered from neglect and are losing share.

Many IVI developers are developing Android-based products. Android provides a great, zero-cost platform with a rich UI and communications stack for interactive embedded systems.

Intel has been a GENIVI participant since they were a Meego partner, and there is a GENIVI-compliant Tizen IVI variant.

Apple needed to defend the position they have acquired with all those iPod car integrations on the market. They had to move forward or lose those conquests. I keep an iPod touch just because one of my cars has iPod integration.

jonknee• 12 years ago

I can think of few things more frustrating that Apple Maps and Siri built into my car. I'd prefer one of the lame DVD based nav systems because I can always use Apple Maps on my own if I want to get lost, but the existing systems work without data access (useful for rural situations which is usually when I find myself needing navigation).

gcv• 12 years ago

That sound you hear is the collective gasp of iOS developers who just learned they have to support another display resolution (and the second sound is the unsympathetic snort of Android people).

melvinmt• 12 years ago

Now the rumored Elon Musk talks with AAPL make more sense.

joshdance• 12 years ago

Not Tesla?

beachstartup• 12 years ago

45+ comments, and i don't see the word 'option' mentioned anywhere here.

when buying luxury cars, option is the word you need to keep in mind. option, option, option, option. everything is an option, and everything costs money. no way on earth will a european carmaker charge less than $2000 for an apple dashboard. i mean, come on, that kind of money just prints itself!

this is not going to be standard, and you will not have your choice of car constrained to the choice of phone you bought. furthermore, with bluetooth and other technologies, compatability isn't going to be an issue. my mercedes has a weird barely-useable german software interface and works just fine with my apple iphone.

sirkneeland• 12 years ago

I don't know how car manufacturers would agree to this if they didn't strong-arm Apple into promising to support Android as well.

Apple has supported non-Apple platforms when market logic compelled them to. If there was no iTunes for Windows, the iPod would not have been nearly as seismic a shift.

Apple is reportedly launching iOS in the Car with Ferrari, Mercedes, Volvo

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