Toyota, Samsung partner on car, phone connectivity
MirrorLink app, dashboard inbound
MWC 2012
Samsung and Toyota are going to combine cars and smartphones this year, allowing the Japanese auto giant's vehicles to interact with the South Korean company's handsets.
The upshot: the arrival of the Samsung Car Mode app, which will allow Toyota cars to connect to the phone wirelessly and present the handset's media contents, GPS pick-ups, voice-free calling capabilities and such on a dashboard display.
Tap that panel, and the command is routed back to the phone.
Not that this is proprietary: Samsung and Toyota will be using MirrorLink, the technology being packaged by the Connected Car Consortium that is avaiable to all phone and car companies who've joined the CCC.
Samsung's Car Mode app should work with an MirrorLink-compatible motor. Likewise, Toyota's ML-equipped cars will work with similar apps from other phone makers, such as the Nokia Car Mode app the Finnish phone giant launched in January for its Symbian Belle handsets.
Expect similar apps and MirrorLink-compatible cars from other CCC members, such as LG and Sony; BMW, Daimler, Fiat, Honda, GM and VW.
Toyota, meanwhile, already has deals in place with Microsoft for its in-car software, and Intel for other technologies it'll use behind the dashboard, such as satnav-linked tech to prevent you getting too close to the car in front. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Hadn't heard of MirrorLink before
It's a USB-based protocol for interfacing mobile applications with in-car screens. Think of it as a car-area VNC, carried over a USB cable and you'll be 90% of the way there. You get to run your apps on the car's display. If the display is touch-enabled, then those events are passed back to the phone (as are any physical keys).
Nokia's €19.99 application, for instance, lets the phone's rather good sat-nav function run on the car's bigger, in-dashboard screen, while also handling hands-free functions, and playback of the phone's music on the car stereo.
It's not just limited to mobiles, though - there's nothing to stop it being the display-and-control end of an in-car PC system.
Here I was all hopefull...
Hoping that the deal with Samsung meant that Toyota had decided to drop MSFT software, to have my hopes dashed in the next to last paragraph... Seems that I'll have to keep looking elsewhere for my next car, then.
Re: Re: Hadn't heard of MirrorLink before
Thank you - very nice explanation!
Hadn't heard of MirrorLink before
Is it an app, an OS or a protocol?
Well thats good news. Toyota GB are way behind the curve..
with phone / navigation / entertainment integration.
