Making Sense of the Smartphone-Vehicle Cacophony

Silicon, Steel and Smartphones

The advent of connected in-vehicle infotainment systems has added a new dimension to vehicle buyers' decision matrix, and a new demand to the many challenges ...

Embedded

With the embedded model (which is already in use in millions of vehicles) the vehicle head unit is responsible for the HMI, all applications, and ...

Tethering

As with the embedded model, with tethering applications reside in and run exclusively on the vehicle head unit. The smartphone is relegated ...

Cloud Services

The cloud services model is widely used by navigation applications, and is gaining acceptance with services such as Pandora Link or Stitcher. It can also ...

iPod Out

Apple introduced iPod Out with iOS4. This technology allows users to access their iPhone or iPod touch through their vehicle's infotainment system, and output content from ...

Terminal Mode

Terminal mode provides solutions to some of the problems of the iPod Out model while keeping many of its advantages. As with the iPod Out model, with terminal mode applications ...

Remote Skin

The remote skin model can be summed up as terminal mode with tailored clothes. Instead of replicating the smartphone application-specific HMI, the vehicle infotainment system uses ...

Simple UI Protocol

Simple UI protocol was developed by QNX and RIM with Harman Becker. It will soon be publicly available and open to all OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. With this model, the vehicle ...

Summary

The number of proposed models for solving or mitigating the issues arising from the different lifecycles of vehicles and smartphones is an indication, not only of ...

Choosing an Application Platform

Staying current with the latest mobile content and services requires a new approach to upgrading infotainment systems. To leverage the pace of mobile development, automakers ...